Stockholm

We flew into Stockholm last night and caught a taxi to our apartment. Matt was most impressed, he has a room upstairs, so we all have a little bit of space this week. Having an apartment instead of a hotel room comes with it's own problems tho, we had to go shopping to buy some food. Easy enough, when it's in English, Swedish is a bit hard, (we ended up with a BBQ chicken, carbonara sauce, pasta and cheese; chicken carbonara for dinner, bacon and eggs for breakfast and real milk and bread). We're set. Meals were great, tho Matt was a bit sad, he's back to dishwasher duty.

We also have a washer and dryer, so 4 loads of washing later, and a good night's sleep and we were ready to explore Stockholm. We caught the subway from near our apartment, walked through the shopping centre (I'll be going back there later), and caught the bus to the Vasa Museum.

The Vasa was a warship built in Stockholm in the 1620s. The ship sank on it's maiden voyage, just 1500m from the dock, with the loss of only 30 of it's 350 person crew. After many years of searching, the Vasa was rediscovered in 1956 and was raised in 1961. It is the only preserved 17th century ship in the world.

After spending over an hour looking at all the different exhibits at the museum, we had lunch (experiencing the Swedish beer and cider) and wandered off to have a look at the other attractions close by.

The Astrid Lindgren Museum (because I read Pippi Longstocking)

Needed a little child tho, Matt was just too big!

Aquaria Water Museum 

The Spritmuseum and Absolut Art Exhibition 

And the beautiful views 

Although it had been -1C when we woke up this morning, it ended up being a beautiful day, little chilly, but not as cold as I thought it would be. Tomorrow is supposed to be 10 and 14C. Practically summer. 😃

Last Wandering in St Petersburg

Now that we've seen most of the things that we wanted to see here, we've just been wandering up and down the streets and canals, in and out of shops and just relaxing, (my 2 companions like the relaxing part).

We tried to see the cruiser Aurora today, which is a cruiser that served in the Russo-Japan war in 1903 and it was also place where a shot was fired in 1917 to signal the attack on the Winter Palace at the start of the Russian Revolution. It's now a museum ship, but it must be under maintenance, because it wasn't there. (There was a notice in Russian, but that wasn't much help), so we just kept walking.

Some of the sights we saw were:

The Marble Palace

The Admiralty

St isaac's Church

The Bronze Horseman Statue

And lots of fantastic buildings and views that we have no idea what they are, but they look good.

One more day of wandering around here and then it's off to Stockholm. (I even went shopping down the Main Street by myself for an hour here today. Maybe tomorrow, I can find some better shops.)

Peter and Paul Fortress

With wind gusts of 36km per hour, we walked across the bridge to the Peter and Paul Fortress, established by Peter the Great in order to protect the capital from attacks by the Swiss. It never actually saw any military fighting, but was used as a prison. Lenin's older brother, Alexander, was amongst it's well known prisoners.

The wind was freezing, so we were quite glad to get to the island where the fortress was. We had just got inside when there was this huge noise, which made me duck quite fast. Cam and Matt were killing themselves laughing, as it was the noonday canon, which I had been saying I wanted to see. We went up the stairs to the fort wall, where we walked along, admiring the view. I also discovered how to do panorama shots on my phone.

We went down the alley way to the Trubetskoy Bastion (the main prison block), where many of the political prisoners were held. What amazed us was because there were so many people being arrested in the revolution, they were either held for a month or so and released or taken from the cells in the middle of the night and executed. 

Not quite like this, but couldn't resist. 

Our next stop was the Peter and Paul Cathedral where most of the past Tsars and their families are buried. Another magnificent church.

Then it was a brisk walk back across the bridge for a break from the wind in our hotel room, whilst we decided what to do next.

Faberge Museum

Upon leaving the Winter Palace, we had lunch and then wandered down the street to see the sights. Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan is a Russian Orthodox Church

And the Church of Spilled Blood, built on the spot where Alexander II was assassinated in 1881.

The sky was getting very grey, so we called in at our hotel for coffee and a bit of a rest before venturing out again at 5.30 to the Faberge Museum, which you can see during the day with a tour group, but if you want to see it on your own, you are not allowed in before 6pm. 

The Faberge Museum is located in the renovated Shuvalov Palace, a beautifully renovated palace on the Fontaka River Embankment. It houses the biggest collection of Faberge Eggs in the world, featuring 9 of the Imperial eggs, which Alexander III and Nicholas II gave to their wives or mothers as Easter gifts, and 5 that were made for other wealthy clients. 

The whole museum is utterly breathtaking, and with the audio guide to accompany us, Cam and I spent nearly 2 hours looking at all the exhibits. (Matt had a look through, but came back after he'd finished and we were still in the fourth room. Like me in the Mercedes Benz and Porsche museums in Germany). No photos are allowed in the museum, but there is a virtual tour on the web. 

Fabergemuseum.ru/

After this, we walked back along Nevsky Prospekt to the Pushka hotel and had dinner in the restaurant next door. 

Tomorrow the Peter and Paul Fortress.

The Winter Palace

We caught the Red Arrow express train from Moscow to St Petersburg Friday lunchtime, arriving here at 6.15pm, Rush hour. An amazing experience. It took our taxi driver (Lingo Taxis again, who met us at the station and navigated through the crowds) half an hour to go 3.2kms. (The prime minister was opening a new theatre, so some of the roads were blocked), but also watching how the traffic merges and turns was an experience in itself, especially as people were loading furniture into a truck on the road, whilst traffic just moved around it!

After settling into the hotel room, we went next door to the hotel restaurant for dinner, where I finally got my beef stroganoff and to top it off had cherry crepes for dessert. Delicious. 

 Whereas Cam and Matt had ham and cheese omelettes for entree and then Cam had chicken Kiev, while Matt stuck to his spaghetti bog.

After 2 glasses of wine, I rolled into bed, happy to have a sleep in, in the morning due to breakfast not opening until 8 due to a public holiday. 

After breakfast, it was off walking again, down to the State Hermitage Museum in the Winter Palace. 

A magnificent building with over 300 beautifully decorated rooms displaying millions of original paintings, sculptures and other artefacts from many different cultures dating back to Roman and Egyptian times. We spent 2-3 hours just walking through room after room. 

Wandering In the City

It's hard to believe our time in Moscow is nearly over. It's now Friday morning and we're sitting in the hotel room waiting for the taxi to take us to the station to catch a train to St Petersburg. We're all a little tired as we had another day of walking around the city yesterday.

We started out fairly early as I wanted to see the inside of St Basil's church before all the tourist groups arrived. I didn't check the time that it opened though and we were too early, and also very cold (about 4C), so we thought we'd see the Bolshoi Theatre. Cameron was navigating with the help of Google maps on the phone and took us on 2km+ walk around the blocks, just so we could end up at the theatre, not 800m from where we were originally standing.

Very cold, and with Matt's hands turning blue, we went back to St Basil's and wandered around inside. The church was very pretty with frescoes and flowery designs covering the walls and ceilings. (I paid for the audio guide which was not worth it, as it only told a little of the history and mainly focused on why the church was designed and painted in the manner that it was).

And great views.

We finished looking and again ventured out into the cold (not far, because we went straight inside GUM and headed up to the cafeteria where Cam and Matt had ham and cheese crepes and I found the baked potatoes. Then it was coffee and cake and back outside to the metro. We decided to go on the Radisson Blu River Cruise where we could see the sights of the city but still stay warm, and enjoy a drink.

The cruise was well and truly worth it. A lovely 2 1/2 hours of relaxation and great scenery.

We left the boat and wandered through Gorky Park

and back down to the Metro so we could go to Arbat St, where Ludmila said had a good assortment of souvenirs. We spent a couple of hours going in and out of many different souvenir shops selling the same items, as Matt decided he'd like something with a bear on it. Finally, he found a magnet and
after reaching the end of the street, the 2 navigators directed us to Mu Mu's for dinner.

With sore feet and very tired, we were going back towards our hotel, when Cam decided he wanted to see what was behind this door that we kept passing (looked like a shoe shop). It was actually a three storey underground shopping centre with a range of stores from Quiksilver and Uggs of Australia to Victoria Secrets and some other high end shops. (Not cheap but entertaining).

We made it back to our hotel around 9.30, and it was straight to bed. Which is why I am so happy just sitting on the bed writing this. (After all my whinging about having a day off, I am really going to appreciate this one. My legs need a rest).

This afternoon, St Petersburg.