Rizopolozhenskaya Hotel Suzdal

... fake polygamy...lots of trees...Suzdal churches...dinner with family...fields of flowers...carriage ride...Moscow Kremlin...Lenin's mausoleum...coffee at GUM shopping center...St. Basil's...walking along the river...beautiful metro stations...final train ride...Peter and Paul fortress in the rain...strange hours at Peterhof palace...boats along the canals...beautiful performance of Giselle...late night taxis...final goodbyes...

Thanks for a great trip!

... surrounded by a wall, at least the most important ones. There is a good distance between each of these monasteries so by walking amonst them, I got my share of the work out. It seems to me that I have been walking between 12-14 hours each day, now that is exercise......not. There is the Deposition Church were unwanted Tsar's wives and left here. The Alexandrovsky church, intercession, and ...

... me off to Andrew, ignoring the fact that my dad insisted on speaking in very poor, loud Russian to a dog and waving at every babushka he saw, and finally realizing that Andrew's "classical" music was actually the string quartet tribute to Nirvana of all things, we arrived in Ivanovo.

Nous voila a Vladimir chez notre 2e hote, de nouveau tres accueillante. Irina est donc venu nous attendre a la gare puis nous a emmene faire un tour de Vladimir by night. C'etait tres sympatique. La ville est beaucoup plus petite que Moscou et St Petersbourg, et aussi beaucoup moins touristique ! Nous sommes partis sur la ...

... church before. After the church, there were wooden windmills. They had 3 legs right behind them. Windmills that are made of stone or brick don't need this extra support. Perhaps the wooden ones are not as sturdy. Suzdal has a Kremlin (fortress) with a few churches in it. It feels like a miniature of the Moscow Kremlin. We ha lunch at a restaurant called Russian Kitchen, close to the Kremlin. I tried the borsch, a Russian soup made of beets and ox tail ...

... stress life in Russia has given her the opportunity to think her life through. The American Home was founded in 1991 by an American political science professor with the purpose of warming up the post-Soviet Russian youth to the United States. The building has been modeled on a standard American house. It has a kitchen, living room, bedroom, offices and classrooms. About 10 Russian staff members and 10 American students work here. I ...

... hightlights - State History Museum & St Basils Cathedral Kremlin - ok but a total hassle to get in & is more impressive from the outside. On the hassle front, Russia is SO not set up for tourists....they make you line up umpteen times for everything.....5 queues before we got into the Kremlin Armoury....all part of the experience hey? Oh & NO ONE speaks Engligh.....our sign language is improving by the minute as ...

... the traffic back to the city was pretty major, but here in the east there an easy solution. The two lane traffic overflows onto the hard shoulder and then onto the dirt track, now we have a four lane highway. Then you would still get the occasional car who still couldn't wait and heading down the wrong side of the road. I should also mention that the cars are either expensive German cars or homemade Ladas. Not surprised to see a number of lorries and Ladas sideways in the ditch.

... of which were unpaved. The combination of magnificent medieval architecture and pastoral landscape lent Suzdal a very picturesque allure. I fell in love with it the first moment we arrived into town. Our accommodation, Sokol Hotel, was situated right in the heart of Suzdal, across from the Trading Arcades, a remnant of the medieval town center. I was immediately reminded of the sacrosanct town of Koyasan, Japan, where Buddhist monks were ...

... that it would have done me any good, I wouldn't have understood the response after I badly blurted out 'Do you have a room tonite and how much?' in Russian). Well, in the usual way I respond to issues such as these, I went '**** it, Russia can't get any worse, we'll figure it out when we get there', and promptly put it out of my mind. It was a miracle we got there at all, given that 'there' ended up being the bus stopping at a crossroads to a road only slightly better than a ...