Month: June 2014
Eastern Europe and Russsia – People We Met
When we travel, it’s not only the places and things that we see that make an impact on us. It’s the people and the characters that we encounter that often make our trips interesting. Here are some of the hundreds of people that we saw during our five weeks away in Eastern Europe and Russia […]
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Riga
During our first full day in the city, we walked out of our hotel and turned left into the Old Town. Rather than get out our map. we just followed our nose and ended up in the square next to St Peters Church. This was the first Lutheran Church we have come across in our […]
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Arriving in Riga
We were up early this morning to catch the 8:15 Lux Express Bus to Riga. The bus left from the Panorama Shopping centre in downtown Vilnius and seeing that it was raining, as well as the fact that we had our luggage, we caught a taxi to the bus stop. The taxi driver invited us […]
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Vilnius – Castles and Soviet Buildings
On the surface, Vilnius is a very scenic city. Scratch the surface, however, and move a little out from the main tourist areas and you can see that many of the buildings are run down with facades cracking and repairs needed. I think that is to be expected as it is only 21 years since […]
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Vilnius Old Town
We arrived in Vilnius last night to find that we were booked into a different hotel than we thought. There are two Radisson Blu hotels here and we thought that we were staying in the one right in the old town. It’s not a big issue – ours is just across the river in the […]
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Not Quite the Bolshoi Ballet
On our second last evening in St Petersburg, we had a night at the ballet. It was a private show for those in our Scenic Tour group. It lasted for just under an hour and included about ten short pieces ranging from excerpts from Swan Lake to Don Quixote. One number was focused on ‘The […]
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Why Russians Don’t Smile
I have now found it interesting on both of my trips to Russia to see that people rarely smile. On one occasion on this recent trip, I came across a mother and a toddler and even though I made a point of playing up to the little boy, the mother just looked at me blankly. […]
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Cats in Russia
Two old Russian gentlemen had a friendship that went back to the time of the revolution. The first asked the second man ” Do you like cats?” The second man replied “No, I don’t like cats”. The first man said “That’s probably because you don’t know how to cook them properly!” – Tour guide in […]
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St Petersburg – Palaces & Cruises
We are leaving our ship this morning after two weeks of river cruising and sight seeing. We are glad that we had so much time in Moscow & St Petersburg as these cities are very interesting. Now we are heading to Vilnius in Lithuania for a few days. Our time in St Petersburg continued with […]
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Saint Petersburg
We have now been in this beautiful city for two days and have been busy seeing many of the stand-out sights. Saint Petersburg is situated on the delta of the Neva Riva in an area that was originally marshland. Its streets are intersected by many canals and it often carries the name ‘Venice of the […]
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Mandrogi Island
Today is our last day of river cruising as tomorrow we reach St Petersburg and spend four days looking at its grandeur. Our port of call for today was at Mandrogi Island. On the island is restored settlement in the form of a craft village. It’s very much the tourist island but it does have […]
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Kizhi Island
We began today with a late breakfast and a slow start. We were mostly filling in time as we crossed Lake Bodega and the crew had a number of activities organised that one typically does on a ship when there is no opportunity to go on an excursion. Most of the women got involved in […]
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