Red Square and Gold Class!

Saturday 29 July

Today we left St Petersburg behind to continue our adventure further into deepest Russia towards Siberia!!

Hotel Kempinski was one of the best hotels we have ever stayed in – expensive - but top class food, bedroom, bathroom, service and facilities. It’s only a shame that I didn’t get time to try the Jacuzzi (an absolutely huge tub – just right for a party) – the running machine and exercise bikes and rowers would have been just too much. If I had to be picky – the bathroom smelt a bit “drainy” in the middle of the night – the only thing I can find to fault. To think just a few days ago we were sad at leaving “the cell” – this is at the exact opposite end of the spectrum.

As we left we were given a couple of large carrier bags (smart paper type with the hotel crest on the side) containing our lunch box! As I said in yesterday’s blog, the Russians are very hot on food. The bags contained 2 large salads, 2 submarine size open cheese, ham and tomato rolls, and about 10 fresh apricots, plus two bottles of water – just a little snack to see us through to the airport!

Moscow Domestic Airport is chaotic but run like a machine. When we got to luggage check in both of our cases were overweight (what a surprise?) – Colin by 3 kgs and me by 5kgs! (I think Colin must have dumped some of his gear in my case!) and we had to pay. We didn’t have enough roubles left and the lady certainly wasn’t going to sign our paperwork until we paid in full so we handed over 400 roubles and got 30 roubles change! Urr you don’t argue with some of these Russian women and she was just such one! So it cost us about 8.50 GBP to get on the plane – not really worth all the hassle of trying keep our weight down, but we will repack our luggage before Vladivostok and try again. And surprise! Surprise! we got fed cheese rolls and fruit juice on the plane.

Moscow is a city of high rise flats and wide main streets, with shops we can easily recognize – IKEA, Mango, McDonalds, Zara, etc. We are only staying for one night in the Hotel Metropol, a very large formal hotel with lots of dark brown wood, but its right next to Red Square and the Kremlin. We have a very large room with queen size bed and the only complaints are that its miles from the Reception Lobby and breakfast and there’s no safe or internet connection in the room (we can connect in the Business Centre, but that costs lots of units (?x?) – it was free at the Kempinski.)

Tonight we have been on a short tour of St Basils Cathedral at the far end of Red Square (where they served us shots of vodka and caviar whilst entertaining us with music on the balalaika and singing). It is so much smaller than I imagined, a series of eight small chapels surrounding a larger central chapel shaped like a tent (about 10 feet round). It was built in the sixteenth century and many of the floor bricks are worn from the constant pounding of the feet of worshippers and pilgrims. All the walls are painted in colourful floral designs or have highly decorated icons celebrating the life of Christ and St Basil – one of those 16th century monks who prayed a lot and philosophised a whoe lot more but who helped Ivan the Terrible believe that his “terrible” actions were OK!.

Onwards for a quick trundle through the most enormous shopping arcade in the world – three lanes, each about four hundred yards long by three floors tall – all designer shops (though sadly no time to stop for shopping) and a visit to yet another traditional Russian restaurant – this time we had blinis with red caviar and chicken kiev which was different.

We decided to have a short stroll to walk our dinner off and returned to Red Square which was now all lit up. St Basils looks like the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel, the shopping centre (called GUM – you can apparently look it up on the internet at www.gum.ru) is lit up like Harrods, only much, much more, and the Kremlin looks like some romantic castle, from a bygone age. They are currently demolishing a hotel built in the 60s that held 6000 guests that backs on to the Square – and they were still working at 11.00 at night! That’s Russian workers for you! We are going inside the Kremlin tomorrow which will be an experience.

Standing in the middle of Red Square and remembering the television pictures of tanks and hundreds of soldiers frog-marching in front on Lenin’s tomb and saluting the Russian Leaders, such as Kruchev, Breshnev and Gorbochev, is quite surreal. It’s much smaller than you think. But the atmosphere here in Moscow is much more leisurely and easy going than St Petersburg. There are lots of people just strolling around the Square at the end of the evening, with no feeling of being on a frantic journey to who knows where. I think we would enjoy spending more time here, except for all the panic to get a visa to enter Russia (for shopping?!!).

Somehow we seem to have been booked into Gold Class on the train – in fact, on further research with Millie and Jim, we seem to have had upgraded rooms throughout this tour. We are not quite sure how this has come about, but at this stage we are not asking too many questions in case there’s been a mistake!!!!

It’s now midnight again, and we have an early start tomorrow – by 08.40 we have to have had brekky, have our cases packed and be on the coach ready for the Kremlin. We board the train at 14.00, it leaves at 14.08 (!) precisely and its lunch at 14.15. There are some120 people on this tour (all ages from 60 to 95!!) so it will be a logistical nightmare to get everyone on board on time – but so far GW Travel seem to have everything under control.

More Ideas for the Garden!

Our last day in St Petersburg was spent looking at two palaces – the Hermitage, also known as the Winter Palace, used by most of the Romanovs during the very cold months of the year, and Peter the Great’s Summer Palace at Peterhof, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, about an hour’s drive from the city centre - it resembles Versailles in France (the same architects were used!). The weather has improved and was warm and sunny most of today.

At the Hermitage we started with the “Treasury” – a set of rooms containing jewellery from the 4th century BC up to the 1800s. The detailed work on some of the older exhibits was amazing – I don’t think we could reproduce anything like it today, even with technology. Millions of tiny gold balls made up necklaces, brooches and headdresses and fine craftsmanship was displayed on many royal accoutrements such as swords, snuff boxes and dressing table sets. The more modern jewellery included watches and trinket boxes inlaid with a magnificent array of precious stones, many of which were presents to the Russian Empresses and Princesses from English royalty.

A ‘whistle-stop’ tour of the rest of the Palace followed to see many artifacts and paintings collected by the Russian rulers and members of their families. One of the items we saw was a large gold peacock with a cockerel and an owl that was actually a clock – all the animals moved when the clock chimed the hour - very similar to the silver swan at Bowes Museum near Juzzy. Apparently if you looked at every item owned by the Hermitage for one minute, for eight hours a day, it would take you over eight years to complete the task!

We then caught the hydrofoil down the River Neve to Peterhof. Walking up to the Palace from the quayside we were entranced by the massive fountains – there are about 150 in all in the gardens, many reaching over 20ft high – which gave me plenty of ideas for our garden!!

Here we were entertained to another delicious four course lunch before touring the Palace itself, which had been mainly used for entertaining throughout its history and continues to be used as such by Mr Putin – indeed he entertained Tony Blair and George Bush, etc to dinner here in the large gilt dining room whilst at the recent G8 summit. We were then quite relieved to be able to roam the gardens to walk off our lunch as another meal was planned for early evening. This time at the Orient Express Restaurant – one of St Petersburg’s finest and the food was first class. Russians seem to eat at least three large meals a day and we have been no exception on this tour.

Yet again today, many of the exhibits were replicas of originals, which had either been lost in the War, destroyed by fire, or given away as presents. It appears that much of this city has been rebuilt or recreated from photographs in the last 60 years. Not a lot is left that is ‘the real thing’.

Tomorrow we fly to Moscow – a fleeting visit, staying just one night before boarding the Trans Siberian Express. We have been marvelously guided around this city by Julia – keeping up a continual commentary as we went from place to place and exhibit to exhibit. We have been treated like royalty, as she always went straight to the front of the queue (sometimes several hundred people long) and made sure we had instant entry and on the hydrofoil she insisted we had the best seats at the front. She has entertained us with anecdotes of Russia and the ruling classes and helped us understand the culture of the Russian people today.

Our GPRS card appears to be working again – but mightily slow, so I am not sure how often I shall be able to post blogs for the next couple of weeks. But be assured I shall be writing every day and will publish as frequently as possible.

Cathedrals and Palace

Our first day of organized sightseeing. There were dark clouds overhead and the temperature was down in the early teens – very different from the melting days in Berlin – as we stepped outside the hotel. My fleecy had its first outing and was much appreciated.

We visited two cathedrals in the morning both very ornate with masses of gilding and paintings/mosaic murals (hard to tell one from the other) all over walls and ceilings. But the floor space is completely empty. Under the Communist regime sculptures were not allowed, and all Russians stand throughout any religious services. Which was just as well as there were hundreds of tourists – but our Julia does not believe in waiting in line – she marches straight to the front and gets us in ahead of any queues!

Although we had breakfast about 09.00, by 12.00 we were speeding to a luncheon engagement about 40 minutes drive outside the city, near the Catherine Summer Palace which we would visit in the afternoon. The restaurant was a large wooden building with an oast house type structure in the middle. The car park was full of coaches and when we entered the building there were hundreds of people upstairs, downstairs, in alcoves and annexes all partaking of the same meal! We were taken upstairs and thoroughly enjoyed an authentic Russian meal (most likely a banquet). The table was already set up with drinks – red wine, a drink made from rye bread which tasted a bit like home made white wine, water and a half carafe of neat vodka. We all dived in the vodka and soon needed to eat. Starters were pickled vegetables, including several large fat whole cloves of garlic, beef in sour cream, smoked pork loin with cucumber, cheese stuffed tomatoes and bread. This was followed by hot sliced mushrooms in a creamy sauce and then Borsch, (beetroot soup) – everyone’s idea of what Russians eat – and then cabbage and vine leaves stuffed with minced meat, and fruity pancakes. I have got into drinking to tea in a big way – lemon, jasmine, earl grey, and now Russian – quite strong but refreshing after a meal.

The four of us felt drowsy after this heavy lunch, and wanted to do nothing but have an afternoon siesta, but Julia would have none of that and quickly transported us to the Catherine Summer Palace, which appears to have belonged to several emperors and empresses and their lovers in its time. It was almost totally destroyed during WW2, but early in 1946 restoration work began. Apparently the Communist regime condoned this as they believed the Palace now belonged to the people and not the ruling classes. When Perestroika came the Government wanted the work to continue to show that they were just as good at restoration as their predecessors. And the work is still continuing today. There are vast rooms full of gilt decorations - mostly cherubs and floral designs – Italian style painted ceilings and elaborate wood floors – we had to wear over-slippers so as not to do any damage. Not so long ago Elton John played a concert here in the largest room and apparently tickets were 1500$ each!.

The ambience of St Petersburg as a city is formal and “harsh”. The people (on the whole – except for muggers and gypsies) are very friendly and helpful and appear to have welcomed the new open regime of Russia with open arms, but are rushing everywhere - they must be first in line (at the traffic lights, in a queue, or just walking down the road). Tomorrow we are off to the Hermitage and a palace at Peterhof, both of which contain many treasures and relics from the days of the Romanovs. Nicholas and Alexandra certainly seem to have become “acceptable” again, almost venerated (a bit like the feeling in England about Princess Di).


COLIN’S COMMENTS (he just felt he had to get a few words in):

Preconceptions can be misleading. I’ve never really wanted to visit Germany having always thought of it as inhospitable, whereas my thoughts of Russia were leaning towards an opposite view.

What I have found is that Berlin, and of course that is only a small part of Germany and also it may have been down to the very good weather, was a relaxed and enjoyable city to visit. Many interesting modern developments, mixed with a few historical buildings gave me the idea that I wish to go back to explore some more. I still had the feeling that the people were curt in their attitude, but that may be down to the fact that I was not speaking their language.

On the other hand, the Russia I found in St Petersburg was not “a walk in the park”, nor a relaxed atmosphere. It may have abandoned the “hammer and sycle” and allowed the Romanov Tsar dynasty flag to fly above one of the main palaces here, but I found it to be a society rushing towards something akin to extreme Thatcherism, whereby the elderly and the not-so-well-off have been left behind and seemingly uncared for, and the younger generation are grasping the new capitalistic ideology with enthusiasm. There is much restoration going on but most of it is fake. Many of these historical buildings may look genuinely old, but in fact, they are just recreations of the splendour they once were. An interesting city it may be, but relaxing it is not, and it does not appear to hold enough to make you think you must return. I am glad to have had the experience, but it has rather dented the perhaps romantic view I had previously held.

This has only been a week into the travels and I have already found many points to make me think about how I view other parts of the world. I look forward to the next step and hope they will be as mentally challenging as those I have already encountered.

BACK TO STEFFI:
Will I ever let him lose on the Thai Shite again?!!!!

PS: He says the breakfasts here are great!.

PPS: Laundry service is brill – collected after 14.00 and back before 18.00, washed, ironed and folded in individual polythene wrappers. I don’t think I am ever going to be able to do washing, ironing or housework again!

From Russia With Love

The “short” train journey is over (thinking of fifteen days on the Trans Siberian). It was quite sad to leave our small cell – we had grown quite attached to it.

We had a reasonably quiet night (just woken by the train stopping and clanging and reversing and clanging at a couple of stations). Colin set his alarm for 05.00 so that we would be ready in time to leave the train at 06.15. Oops – his mobile did not give the correct time for St Petersburg and actually we were up at 04.00!! Never mind, it meant Colin had plenty of time for his ablutions!

The landscape we passed through in Russia was very similar to that of Belarus, except there was almost no habitation at all – just miles upon miles of deciduous forest and great expanses of open water. In the early morning (04.00!!?!) there was a lot of low lying mist and the vista looked almost mystical, and as the sun rose it was quite ethereal.

We were met by our courier and driver and swiftly taken to Hotel Kempinski in the heart of St Petersburg, just round the corner from the Hermitage. There will only be one other couple on this part of the tour, and they arrive on the plane this afternoon (how boring!) so we have the rest of the day to wander around St Petersburg and get our bearings.

The hotel is very smart and we have just eaten a “normal” breaky – cereal and cooked breakfast for Colin and scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for me (beats the dry cheese rolls of the past couple of days). It appears to be very expensive here in St Petersburg – about 5 GBP for a small bottle of water and about 30GBP for breakfast?!? - if we have done our calculations right (26 roubles to1GBP). So its lucky the cases are full and there’s not much space for shopping.

We have found that the cable connection to the ‘Thai Shite’ works fine here, so we are back in contact again for a few days.

Later that same day . . . .

We strolled around St Petersburg and it is certainly a bustling city. There are lots of shops and cafes but they are mostly behind large wooden doors and you have to peer inside to see what they sell. There are loads of people here - last week airports, train stations and a lot of the visitor attractions were closed due to the G8 Summit – so everyone seems to have come this week. There are some beautiful churches with gold minarets, colourful brickwork and roofs, and fabulous icons on the walls. There are palaces and houses with amazing architecture and stonework. There are two main rivers in St Petersburg – the huge Neve and the smaller Moika, But there are also lots of canals which seem to be used mainly for pleasure rides – one of which is right outside our hotel. But the most outstanding feature is the traffic – there are no speed limits here – just put your foot down and go – and they do – about 60 or 70 mph along the main street, screeching to a halt (hopefully) at traffic lights and even going round sharp bends on two wheels! Watch out pedestrians – is it safe to cross the road, even when the green man lights up? Julia our guide tells us the accident rate is high!

Amazingly, there are a lot of English speaking people here and all the road signs and directions are in Russian and English – so we shouldn’t get lost.

We had a nasty experience whilst out this afternoon. We were walking past a building with scaffolding which restricted the pavement area. A few youths accosted Colin and he managed to them off whilst keeping a tight hold of his bag containing the cameras, phones etc. But as we moved on another youth came up and handed us our passports!!! (We had been carrying them as we h ad been to the bank to change up some travellers cheques). They had been in the leg pocket of his trousers and we hadn’t even known they were gone. The incident was all over in seconds. We had been warned about pick pockets and thought we were being careful – but obviously not careful enough. It has taught us a lesson – only take out what you absolutely need and to keep any belongings you do take in the zipped compartment of the bag, attached if possible. We have had a lucky escape and hopefully learned from it.

We have discovered that the prices quoted earlier are hotel prices – a small bottle of water costs 1GBP outside and a burger in Subway between 3 and 4 GBP – I hastily add that I didn’t succumb to another injection of the greasy spoon.

We met the other couple on the tour tonight. They are Millie and Jim from America, about our age, and very friendly. They will be on the Trans Siberian with us too. We were taken to a “top” restaurant where we had a nice meal – but nothing exceptional. We had a salmon and rice terrine, a mushroom stuffed pancake, beef stroganoff with small sliced sauté potatoes and a slice of fruit filled sponge cake. Russian people like lots of good stodge apparently. Colin and I both had a couple of glasses of wine (Russian?), although Jim doesn’t drink alcohol (urrr?) and Millie only drinks beer - but it was a St Petersburg beer. Luckily Julia also drank wine so didn’t look two winos. We had some stimulating conversation, sorting out the world’s problems and in particular, Russia’s, as well as swapping anecdotes about our journeys here – they flew from the US changing planes at Charles de Gaulle airport (Paris) where they had three bus journeys to get from one plane at gate no 2B to another at gate 2C!

We have a lie in tomorrow – not leaving on the tour till 10.00 ish. We are doing Cathedrals here and palaces at Peterhof.

It’s now nearly 23.00 and it’s not quite dark – you forget how much further north St Petersburg is to London. The weather today has been warm, with sunny intervals and quite breezy, although this afternoon a huge black cloud came over and we expected rain. Luckily it didn’t materialize. Let’s hope the weather stays fine tomorrow – we don’t want to be sight seeing in the rain.

Train, Train and More Train!

Tuesday 25 July 2006 - A real train journey!

Well, I predicted a sleepless night yesterday, but I didn’t quite realize how sleepless.

We left Warsaw after a brief stop and chugged our way to the border with Belarus. During this time, with the help of the man in the next door “couchette” (posh name for cell) we managed to get the bunks assembled ready for bed. And like all our fellow travellers, we settled down to sleep. At 00.30 we arrived at the station of Terepol. Minutes later armed guards and security police marched along the corridor and snapped on the lights in all the compartments and demanded our passports. Then there were more forms to fill in (we were all quite bleary eyed and we had already completed a lengthy dossier on what we were carrying with us, earlier in the day). The guards returned and searched the cell, looking under the bunks for escapees (I cannot think who would be wanting to escape into Belarus). We were then left sitting for an hour while they checked everyone’s documents.

Great, we are on the move again even if we are only chugging along very slowly. About an hour later we arrive in Brest (the actual border town). We stop again for a short time while all the guards and police and security officers return our passports (not the forms) get off the train (there were about 30 in all).

We are moving again – but backwards this time - and end up in a massive workhouse hanger where there are huge jack type contraptions all along the platform and loads of men in overalls, all sitting with their tool boxes open – dark tins, containing a few battered spanners, a couple of hammers and a long pointed dibber each. All the men spring into action, the train is hooked up to the jacks and raised off the ground and the men get to work under the carriages! As it was dark and the men and their overall were all oily with engine grease, it was just like watching an old 1930’s black and white film.

It took an hour and a half to complete the task – nothing’s automated here. I’m guessing that the rail gauge is different in Russia and the wheel tracks have to be changed in order to complete the journey. Changing trains sounds an easier option, but would we have wanted to pick up all our luggage and traipse to another train in the middle of the night? Probably not – and it was quite interesting to watch.

By 05.00 (we had lost an hour by traveling through the time zone) we were on our way again – daylight was just breaking and we all settled down to sleep for a few hours while the train continued on its journey.

Nothing deters Colin from his routine – when he got up he had a proper wash (not a lick and a promise) and shave (but no showers on this train). It was quite amusing to see him with his half cup of water in the bottom of the sink (any more and it would have splashed over the sides with the movement of the train). Very dedicated to ablutions is Colin!

We continued through Belarus which seems very poor – only the major roads are tarmacadamed, most houses outside the larger towns have corrugated tin roofs over wooden sheds, and everyone (I mean every man, woman and child we have seen) is clutching a plastic carrier bag – perhaps they are the latest cool thing in Belarus. Minsk, the capital, seemed to be a thriving place with quite a lot of new development. The station is huge and fairly new and teeming with people. Later, about 12.30 we arrived at our next stop, Orsha – last stop before the border I think – and we have now been sitting here for four hours in a siding. Apparently we should be leaving soon. The train conductor has hoovered the corridors and cells and wiped down the ledges in the corridors, and some people have been shopping! We didn’t understand that we would be here for so long, so we have just amused ourselves (trying to connect to the internet, which is playing up again). Every time we set off again, there’s lots of shunting and bumping – the train is now double the length we started with – over 30 carriages! There’s obviously a lot of people who want to travel this route – not just two crazy Brits.

Always Leave From the Right Station in Life - de dah

Monday 24 July

Day 3 of our new life.

I wanted to travel by train and today we will have spent eleven and a half hours speeding part of the way to St Petersburg, in a compartment that resembles the cells in Prison Break – its about 7ft x 5ft with three bunk beds and a sink! Obviously there is supposed to be three people in here, but we had a job to fit two with all our luggage.

It has been extremely hot in the carriages - over 100 degrees + – those little cheap fans from M&S were a godsend. It’s getting dark now and only very slightly cooler. After a short journey east from Berlin to Frankfurt (which I always thought was in West Germany), we passed into Poland. We have been through a couple of large towns so far – Poznan being the largest where we spied a Tescos! – and lots of small villages. Some look just like the caricature of Eastern Europe – three or four storey blocks of flats with flat roofs, small flat windows, quite run down, looking alnost derelict. Then there’s those villages who are rebuilding – large modern houses with apex roofs and large gardens. Outside of the larger towns and villages there are lots of what I thought were allotments – all nicely kept with masses of flowers and fine looking vegetables. All with sheds! Then I realized most of these “sheds” have satellite dishes on the side and these too are permanent homes.

Was it Napoleon who said that “Poland was the bread basket of Europe/or was it Russia? Well I can see why. All along the route are fields upon fields of golden corn waiting to be harvested. Each field would fit about four to six football pitches – huge great swathes. There’s quite a lot of forest land too. The pace of life seems very tranquil and serene. We’ve seen hares bounding in the cut fields and storks and cranes flying around. Its almost like playing nature Ispy.

We nearly didn’t make the train. We went to the station in Berlin at which we arrived, only to find that the station we wanted was a twenty minute train ride away to the outskirts of Berlin (I suppose that’s no different to London – where there is several different terminal stations, each going in different directions). But we made it in plenty of time – enough time to buy out the few shops at this station (not like Berlin Hbf where there are shops to rival Bluewater). But we stocked up on rolls and cakes and fruit and, most important, water. That’s our feast for the next two days as they don’t supply any sustenance on the train. There is a rusty geyser-type contraption in one compartment which dispenses water I think, but it doesn’t look too healthy.

It’s hard to believe that we will be on this train all day tomorrow too – in our little cell. There’s plenty of time for meditation and day dreaming, as well as puzzles, music and reading. So I don’t think we will be bored. At first you feel you must be looking out the windows every second so that you don’t miss anything, but then you get used to the scenery and you start catching up on other things.

I think this may be another sleepless night – not only because of the heat and the bunk beds. We have just pulled into Warsaw station and now it’s on to the Belarus border, where our passports and visas will be checked again, probably in the wee small hours. Our passports haven’t got any new stamps yet – I suppose that’s because it has all been EEC, but Belarus is the start of the next section of our adventure.

No Trains Today - Just Berlin

What a difference a day makes. . . . .

Woke up this morning (comfy beds by the way) and could not get GPRS card to connect to the internet, mobiles wouldn’t connect to our “Help Line” (aka Nick), hotel phones could not make international calls!!! How could we converse with the outside world? I was stressed, even panic stricken, how was I going to post my blog?!!

We eventually found a pay phone round the corner from our hotel and our international call card worked – hooray!! Well done Nick for sorting the problems - tonight we are back on line for blogs and our mobiles will text – although I don’t think the hotel phones are any better. But we are back in touch with planet earth!!!

Apart from these small technical hitches we have had a really lovely day.

We have travelled around Berlin on an open top bus listening to the commentary about lots of places of interest, most of which need further exploration. There’s lots of museums, several palaces, of course the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie, churches, parks and gardens, the zoo, as well as some lovely streets for shopping. We did hop off the bus at Checkpoint Charlie and it was still easy to see where the wall had been with tanks and guns on either side aimed at each other. It was much harder to imagine the fear and conditions of the people living there at the time. All over the city now there are signs celebrating the unification of Germany. We did manage to get back to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (Parliament building) and took a walk through the Tiergarten. Lots of the buildings are modern (70% of Berlin was flattened in the War) and there’s a great range of styles built with great imagination – such as the new main station, which opened in May this year, which is supposed to represent two mushrooms, its all glass and is spectacular at night when its all lit up – like a firework party.

Most of the roads here are very wide – 2 or 3 lanes of traffic each way, plus parking at the side. Most are also tree-lined and several have trees and gardens down the centre (a deliberate copy of the Champs Elysee). The pavements are wide as well and many have a cycle lane – so there are lots of locals on bikes. The whole feel of the city is one of space and it’s easy to move around. There are lots of visitors here at the moment (there were probably even more last month with the World Cup) but almost all are Germans, visiting their capital city. The atmosphere is very relaxed and friendly. There are loads of pavement cafes and it was great this afternoon to sit along by the River and watch the huge river boats pass up and down whilst sipping a beer or two.

In short, we really like Berlin and would definitely like to return to explore much more. Jean, make a note on your list of things we must do.

We have had a nice Italian meal tonight with a bottle of wine. We needed to stoke up because tomorrow is the start of our “fast” – 2 days on the Moskva Express train where there is no food or drink available!! We will be hitting the food outlets at the station before we board tomorrow afternoon, to add a few more bags to our already overweight luggage. But at least we will be able to consume these extras.

Have had a great time in Berlin and looking forward now to St Petersburg.

Ready. Steady. Go - Trains and More Trains

Saturday 22 July

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives and we have spent most of it on trains. Jean and Ray arrived promptly at 6.00 this morning and swiftly transported us to Waterloo after fond farewells and hugs ‘n kisses with Nick and Adam (who tells me he will be 5 when I see him again!). Booking in at Eurostar took all of five minutes and we were raring to go by 6,45 a.m. The train left on time at 8.39 a.m.!

Having partaken of a fine breakfast on Eurostar, we arrived at Brussels and found our new platform with no trouble at all - a good navigator in the party. The train from Brussels to Cologne sped along, reaching over 150 miles an hour for much of the journey (just a bit faster than me in my little red car – but we won’t mention that to Colin).

We arrived at Cologne on the platform we would leave from an hour later, but I had to satisfy my craving for junk food and an injection of grease – well we are going to be fine dining and out to posh restaurants for the next six weeks and I don’t think there’s any chance of a McDonalds along the way! – so we had a tour round and found Burger King! The stations are all like massive shopping centres, you don’t need to shop anywhere else – I think you can buy anything - and they are bigger than Bluewater!

The train from Cologne left about 15 minutes late, but was nearly an hour late by the time we reached Berlin. Perhaps British Rail is not so different from other services. But the cleanliness and comfort was superb and here was never more than six of us in a compartment. All the hours spent downloading to my MP4 player were worth it – I have now used up the battery and its recharging as I speak. It was dark when we reached Berlin and can honestly say that during the 20 minute hairy/scary taxi ride we didn’t see a lot of the sites!!! That’s to come tomorrow. We’ve had a couple of beers and some peanuts (all food places are closed now, so its lucky I had my burger) and now we are settling in for the night.

We were quite concerned when we read the reports on Trip Advisor for our hotel – Golden Tulip – but I suppose some people always complain. Its very friendly, the room is more than comfortable and the bathroom is all mod cons. It will do us nicely for the couple of days we are here.

All in all we have had a really good start to our “holiday” and all credit goes to Margaret for the arrangements. Colin is looking forward to breakfast (will there be ten courses like he had at Aldborough?) Then it’s off to Check Point Charlie and the Berlin Wall (just a little appetizer before the big Wall in China) on the open top bus – weather permitting – been a bit showery and a bit sunny but mostly dull today – to see the sights. But now its 1.00 a.m. and time for bed.

Goodnight . . . .

The Night Before . . . . .

Tomorrow is 22 July 2006. Last September when we started putting our trip together this date was just a dream. A date in the future never to arrive. A fantasy. But now its tomorrow! We are both quite excited – forget that we are both about 4ks over with our luggage and that our plans seem to change daily this week:

Our trip from St Petersburg to Moscow changed from a train to flying – the Russians have cancelled the train service we were to use. Flight times from Russia to China have been changed. On Tuesday the train staff at Waterloo tried to thwart us by threatening industrial action resulting in our Eurostar being cancelled. Thankfully Margaret at Ffestiniog Travel was on the ball and quickly rearranged our tickets. Thirty six hours later the strike was off and we were back to our original plans. But being efficient I had sent our tickets back to Wales! Luckily the courier arrived this morning with our new tickets. All this and we haven’t even left home yet! But hey – do we care – we are off on a “great adventure” and we will be on the 08.39 from Waterloo tomorrow.

In answer to many questions, we are still trying (well Nick is anyway) to put a map of our route on the blogsite – not so easy as it appears, so hopefully before we get home you will be able to see where we have been.

Thanks to everyone for their emails, letters, cards and good wishes for Bon Voyage. Thanks to Juz and Dave AND Holly, Nick and Adam, Andy and Kerry and Sandy and Alex, for the super balloon (I hope we have mentioned everyone this time!). We have eaten our way through several scrummy meals this week with family and friends – it was lovely to catch up before we leave – but I think I need this holiday to get some exercise – is trekking and rafting taking it too far??!?

Despite our luggage being overweight, I have found room for a “Worry Angel”, very kindly sent to us by Linda. The instructions tell me to keep her close and tell her of my fears and anxieties – I have had plenty of those this week and as we are still on course, she must be listening. Linda, I will keep talking.

Thanks to Ray and Jean for taking us to London tomorrow - sorry about the early start. But Ray, you will still be able to have your mid morning nap and afternoon siesta, so it will seem like just another normal day. We should arrive in Berlin soon after 9.00p.m. after three changes on the train.

We would like everyone to keep in touch and we will be posting blogs as often as we can (thai shite, GPRS connection and time permitting of course). Look after yourselves, keep well and keep reading the blogs.