Mayak Hotel Listvyanka

... one of the most remote places I've been, I felt so far away from anything I knew. It was very cold especially at night but utterly beautiful and peaceful. <br><br>Saying that, our new friend Mick who's path currently keeps crossing with ours was also in town and on the first night we hooked up with him and a couple he had met on his train, a few quiet beers and dinner turned into 3 bottles of vodka in the very ...

... we dropped into don't have a toilet, strange. We thought the locals were having a joke, they weren't, they point to the door.<br><br>We spend our day's checking out the town, as it is the low season and during the week it is quiet but ideal as the scenery is great.<br><br>The thing's that I observed around town;<br><br>There are many barking dog's chained behind big fences, either they don't like each other or stranges or there are dangerous animals in the surrounding ...

... had stopped falling and the cloud cover lifted to reveal the other side of the lake. With snow capped mountains and blue skies the lake and its surrounding areas was putting on a completely different show from the previous day. Whilst it was still freezing cold the heaviness had lifted and the day was spent visiting the local markets where we tried smoked Omul. Its all about the fish here and there are quite a few locals with their stalls selling this and a small variety of other ...

After an early morning transfer from Irkutsk station we arrived in Listvyanka - our home for the next three days. Listvyanka is a small village on the shore of Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world. <br><br>Lena took us for some much needed breakfast at our hotel (not yet tried hostelling you'll notice!) which was located on the shore right opposite the lake, followed by a three our walking tour of the ...

We arrived in Irkutsk a little jaded after our epic and entertaining train journey from Ulan Bator (Mongolian smugglers screaming and running around like headless chickens at 3 am on the station platform is funny, but tiring!), but decided to go straight to Lake Baikal, Listvyanka, the "Cote d'Azur" of the Siberian elite.<br><br>We arrived and our host promptly shouted at us (in a friendly way, our ...

Apres Tobolsk, nous avons pris un train pour Omsk ou on avait 3 heures d'attentes avant le train suivant pour Tomsk, juste assez pour sortir de la gare et manger un Hot-Dog puis acheter quelques billets de train supplementaires. Les guichetieres en tout cas ont l'air beaucoup plus comprehensives et helpfull ;-)Il y a beaucoup de neige a Tomsk, au moins encore 50 cm. Le soleil brille encore une fois, du coup la neige commence a fondre un peu. La ville est assez ...

Day 8 Friday 9th January Listvyanka (Siberia) Woke up at 9.30am for breakfast or pancakes with Jam, tea and coffee. We were picked up at 12pm to go for 2 hours on snow mobiles. Me and Phil had to share one which made it hard to get up hills and Phil had to push it at one hill. It was a bit hairy at times as the ground was pretty uneven and they were very heavy to steer. We toppled over on ours twice, one ...

Nach diversen Grossstaedten waren wir wieder einmal mitten in der Natur. Der Baikalsee ist der groesste See der Welt und fasst 1/5 des weltweiten Suesswassers. In Listvyanka wohnten wir in einem romantischen Blockhaus mit Seesicht. In diesem wurden wir von einem ...

2 June Tatyana met us off the train at Irkutsk at 1am Moscow time, 6am local time. We were excited about our homestay, but after passing a few nice looking hotels (which obviously had showers) we started to question our choice of staying in a traditional Siberian Izba (which we had read has an outside loo and no shower!). An Izba is a log-timbered house with a brick stove in the centre. The kitchen, lounge and 2 bedrooms are ...

I haven't seen it myself but apparently when Ewan McGregor reached Lake Baikal on the Long Way Round he described it as the biggest disappointment of his life. Or something like that anyway. I can't say that I agree with that, I've had far bigger disappointments in my life I'm sure, but it wasn't all that exciting either. Like going to Ayr, but in a post-Soviet stylee (I've always wanted to say that). Having said that, it was just what ...