Dvina Hotel Arkhangelsk

... going to visit the Peter and Paul Fortress. A good walk especially under the rain!! Oh well.

As I arrived closer to the Fortress, I saw a couple of people by the wall getting ready to swim. I guess it is true that people go there to sunbath standing up and swim occasionally. Well, this gentleman was going to swim and totally naked at that!! Yes, he stripped completely and got in the water for a very brief 15 seconds!! I can't believe ...

On my agenda today, museum ,museum and more museums. I kicked off the day by visiting the world famous State Hermitage Museum located inside the former Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The Russian Royal family had been collecting treasure from around the world since the 1800's. But after the fall of the Russian monarchy, the Bosheviks subsequently the current Russian government took over and museum. It now ...

... vendredi soir et qu'il est 22h, ca fait pas mal de souriants. Je presente donc a un souriant, ma carte du Lonely Planet et lui demande si il sait ou nous sommes. Vu qu'il est souriant, il me propose de m'accompagner jusqu'a mon hotel. Une heure et demie de marche demontreront qu'il etait incapable de lire une carte, mais ca reste, tout de meme, un bon compagnon, qui m'aura prevenu, qu'icic laisser passer un pieton est un signe de faiblesse. Deuxieme jour: Il fait 15C, le ...

... down on the waterfront, as the bride and grooms celebrate by drinking champagne then smashing the glasses on the waterfront!! Saturday we went to the Hermitage museum......very impressive...just sooooo vast, too much to see in one day but that's all we had time for. This really is a must do. Went to a huge palace & gardens yesterday at Peterhof.....was great....but expensive.....and it poured down and we got soaked!!! Been on a ...

... veal with mushrooms, I ordered a sturgeon fillet with mushrooms, fennel and cheese. It had a very nice crispy cheese topping. The fish was the texture of swordfish and quite fishy. With it I got a lettuce leaf and some very thinly sliced orange. Peter got some endive and broccoli with his. Seems you have to order vegetables separate. We had ordered a bread basket too. In the past we had got some very good hot bread and butter. Here we got a couple of rolled up pancakes ...

... which were pretty cool. The day after was the Hermitage. The Winter Palace was unfortunatly covered in scaffolding on one side but no matter. The Palace was amazing, the decorations, the artworks, everything. But we did get lost several times, even when using the maps and spent about 4 hours in there! We then wondered over the bridge to the other side of the river to look at some museums belonged to the State university ...

... decided it was time to go. The bill came and the total for each one of us was the equivalent of about $30-$35 Cdn. I was shocked at how expensive the tea was, but I politely paid my share of the bill. As we were leaving, I kept trying to work out how it could have been so expensive because each tea that we tried resulted in about six sips. When we got outside, the girl told me that she needed to go to the bathroom, and that I probably didn't want to wait for her because 'it might ...

... the 900 days of the Nazi siege) but it is closed on Wednesday's (again Katya proves her usefulness and saves us the trek out there to find this out). Instead a handful of us go to the political history museum. Given that mist of the Museum is dedicated to Soviet rule it seems odd that it should be called a political museum given that no politics actually happened during this period. The highlight of this museum is the gallery of soviet ...

... a video that depicted what life was like during the siege and Anna explained everything while we watched it. Prior to the trip I hadn't heard of any of this, and of all the war memorials on the trip this one was my favourite by far. I'm not sure why even now, but I just found everything here extremely poignant. After the video Anna showed us around and then we had some free time to look at everything before returning to the bus. After the memorial we ...

... and mighty cold. Last stop of the day was St Isaacs cathedral, that was huge and domes protected in the war surviving, it was beautiful, but we had seen a lot of churches if you get my drift. When we returned to the hotel, 5 of us, Dave and I with Sarah, Maarty and Natalie were told about a great place to have dinner near the hotel, real stuff. And it was no doubt the best we had while in Russia, there was real meat with real vegies and a real cheap price. It was also to top it off ...