A lot of cathedrals, vodka and fun and a little bit sleep, plus over 48h in the bus - that was our great trip to Russia! We traveled to Stockholm and took the ferry to Turku. Our first longer stop was Helsinki, where we spent one night in a nice hotel after making a sightseeing walk trough the whole city - it was soooo cold, but not as cold as Russia!
On the second day in St. Petersburg there was a sightseeing tour planned with our bus. But thanks to Mr. Smirnoff me and my room mate Miguel from Mexico (we called him Misha) totally overslept and missed the bus! So we went to the city center on our own and bought tickets for an other city tour. As the tour in English was tree times more expensive and started in 2h, we took the tour with a Russian guide. That was of course even better for me, but poor Misha sometimes fell asleep. The tour should start in 10 minutes and last 1.5 hours. But since Ms. Matviyenko, the mayoress of St. Petersburg, decided to go to work and they, like every time, stopped the whole traffic just for her, the bus arrived in ca. 40 minutes. We were freezing like hell! And thanks to the same traffic jam and additionally some construction works the whole tour lasted over 3 hours! All the time our guide didn't stop to talk - I really heard a lot about the city on this tour.
Moscow is bigger, louder, faster and more expensive than St. Petersburg. The guided tour inside the Kremlin was great, but also very cold! We really started to love cathedrals a lot, as we could bask a little inside during the tour. And of course I finally have seen Lenin!
It was a great trip and I could catch up some missed culture and history, but also collect a lot of nice impressions!
- pictures to come...
