Luks Hotel Novgorod

... Every day I feel like I have to work to understand something new - to understand the people, the language, or simply the metro system- I am always using my brain here and definitely some of that challenge will be taken away when I am in the US.

Things I can't wait for in the US:

1. Rich - I can't wait to get back to spend some real time with Rich. Without a doubt being away from him has been the most difficult part of this trip. Skype (being ...

... Caroline and I spent a good amount of the time we had (about 4 hours) exploring the Kremlin there. Interestingly, the entire place was under renovation and there was actually an archeological dig going on right there in the middle of everything! The two highlights for me were visiting the ...

... desormais pour notre premier long trajet en train couchette (20h seulement). We spent a really good time in this City with our delighfull hosts, and their friends. This city is the best we've seen so far, we can easily avoid the pollution and walk in parks, with a great view on the Rivers Volga and Oka. As usual there is plenty of beautiful churches. It's a shame that we have to leave so soon...

Premiere vraie galere, pourtant c'etait bien partis, j'avais pris mon billet pour Kazan (en Russie, les billets s'achetent a la gare de depart), mais apres avoir marche sous une pluie battante avec du vent et 6 petits degres (affiches a la sortie de la gare, les chiffres qui apparaissent ici, sont des chiffres veritables) a la recherche d'un hotel ni rase ni ferme et ayant ...

The overnight train from Moscow pulled into Novgorod at about 6am. We hopped into a taxi to the hotel from the train station. The cab was a typical russian old school taxi with a scary looking man behind the wheel. It was still dark and with the rain falling it was quite scary when we crossed a bridge and seemed to be heading out of the town ...

Hello everyone. Well it has been a few days since the last blog so i thought i would update you all on are progress. We arrived in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia's 3rd most populated city and started the hunt for a hotel. We had found one hotel which seemed quite cheap but when we got there, they wanted 10,000 roubles per night (about 200 pounds!!!). So we trekked back across the river to another hotel, which was meant to be ...

Niznij Novgorod (Gorky). Km 461 of the Trans-Siberian-Railway. A big vibrant industrial center of Volga region. More ...

... Keeping in the really old theme, it's the oldest in Russia! Thanks to communism and the banning of religion and all that, Russians aren't nearly as religious today. Just like other places, the monastery is having a hard time with the upkeep as there just aren't enough people who want to become monks. Those who do want to become monks don't want to live in the middle of nowhere in a monastery that's falling ...

Nizny Novgorod was not stop we planned in the beginning, but was recommended by people we met and Tim wanted to see the Volga of the Boatmen. It was a very nice town with lots of nice looking churches and a kremlin on top of the hill. A girl in Mcdonalds seemed surprised that tourists would come to Nizny Novgorod but its a nice spot. We arrived in the morning and booked the train to go that night (saves accomodation!) so had a day to wander.

... time since we'd arrived in Russia, not counting the hotels, the service was equally great! I'd discovered that the service at a restaurant was not on the same level as what you would expect in Canada. The servers were never friendly, and most often they would act put out while we tried pointing and getting across what we wanted. Also, meals could take a long time to come out, and everyone's food didn't necessarily come out at the same time... it just came out when it ...