In Russia!

Day 19 – 07:34 – 13/06/2010 – St Petersburg, Russia

Well we’ve made it into Russia. Yesterday was good, apart from the coach journey where I got a massive 2 hours sleep. Bad times. We got to St Petersburg early, at about 6:15am (due in at half 7) and we got the metro straight to the hotel where they have very kindly let us use the room to dump our bags and have a shower (the showers are communal).

We’ve left the luxuries of Europe and are now in the hybrid of Asia and Europe as Russia. We are luxury backpacking on this trip, we’re doing it on a budget but not an extremely tight one However, in St Petersburg, £35 a night gets you nothing. Our room has no curtains, and has 4 single beds in each corner of the room. There are no real facilities in this room, just beds – for £35 a night. Breakfast is included, not today, obviously. We shall see if that has any redeeming features.

Nevertheless, the people we’ve met have been so far hospitable. The coach driver told us to get off a stop early because it was closer to where we wanted to go. The metro staff helped us get our head round the token system (you literally buy a coin and insert it into a slot to get on) and our hotel staff have been nice too. So much for stereotypes – even the border inspection wasn’t that bad. Hop off, check passports, through customs, back on again.

Anyway, yesterday – our last day in Tallinn we got up at a reasonable time, had breakfast and checked out , leaving our bags with the staff. The room was excellent, as was the breakfast, and the staff. We had everything in our room, for £18 a night. I miss it already!

In the morning/early afternoon we walked around the old town perimeter, gazing at the beauty that is the castle round the other side – you can’t actually go in the castle, it’s where the President lives. We had lunch in a nice park round the back of the old town wall and it was very nice but very windy. We made our way back slowly, all the way round and back into old town where we watched more festival activities and some football too. All in all it was a very relaxing and nice day.

For tea we treated ourselves and went to a medieval restaurant called Olde Hansa. It was fantastic – albeit expensive! Laura had “Himalayan lamb with lentils, nuts and a “bean bag”” and I had “Bear, Wild Boar and Elk sausages” with pickled cabbage, caramalised onion (way too sweet) and swede. It was very nice although I didn’t particularly like the beer, which was full of herbs, despite the recommendation of it being good with sausages!

We then went back to the hotel and headed for the coach station where we – luckily – found the café there showing the England – USA game. I was very excitable as always with football and enjoyed celebrating the goal. When Robert Green the England goalkeeper fumbled the ball into his own net to make it 1-1 however (I’m still livid) I was not impressed and shouted “You dickhead”. Quite a few people laughed, despite not being English, they obviously still knew what I meant!

Anyway, it’s time to explore St Petersburg. What’s done is done, we are here now and Prague, Krakow, Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn are behind us. We’re planning on coming back at 11am or so to have a nap. Exploring either side – as always!