Summer Trip 2017: Day 14 - Moscow Day II

Our last full day in Moscow we planned to spend time indoors in the afternoon because rain was in the forecast.  We began the day with breakfast at KFC.  Then we got on the Metro and traveled to the Bolshoi Theater.  The theater was built in the late 18th century and is very beautiful.  Yulia and I once attended an opera there.  This time we just looked at the exterior.  The opera house in Astana seems to be patterned after it in many ways.  There was a fountain outside, and that attracted the kids immediately.

Bolshoi Theater

The kids were immediately glued to this fountain by the Bolshoi.

Another fountain we saw nearby.

After visiting the fountain, we went to Red Square and paid to go through St. Basil's cathedral.  The church is very interesting inside - and quite different.  The highlight of the visit was a group that was singing old Russian hymns on the top floor.  The acoustics were amazing, and they sang very well.  The group was selling cds, so we bought one.

Inside of St. Basil Cathedral

                                                  Men's group singing old church song.

After visiting the cathedral, we walked through the GUM store to take a look at how lovely and elaborate it was.  Then we walked up to Old Arbat street.  The street used to be the area that was full of art.  It was very different from when we were there last time - it was much more commercialized and had much less art.  We wondered if the weather played a factor in that too.  After walking for awhile, the storm that had been threatening really started looking wet.  We saw a shake shack and went in and sat down for lunch. We missed a huge rainstorm while we were eating.  It cleared up after we ate, and we walked from there to the Dom Knigi (House of Books) and spent a few hours browsing there - missing a big rainstorm while we were there.

Arbat Street

Arbat Street

Arbat Street

This was probably the biggest bookstore we've seen, especially in Europe. The kids were in heaven!

Waiting out a storm in the reading corner.

After we waited out the worst of the storm, we walked to the metro and took a train back to our hotel.  We spent a few hours just relaxing and then went over to the same restaurant we'd been to the night before and enjoyed another great meal.  It was a nice calm day in Moscow.

Summer Trip Days 11-12: Travel to Warsaw and on to Moscow

We had purchased our tickets to take the train to Warsaw from Krakow, and so checked out of our hotels about 9:00 and met the Stices on the square in front of the train station.  We were about an hour early, and spent the time sitting and waiting.  The train arrived a few minutes late, and then there was a mad scramble to get everyone on board.

We were in different cars on the train, but all of our family was in one compartment.  There were eight seats, but the six of us were the only ones, so it was pretty comfortable.  The train trip was pretty similar to the journey that we had taken from Prague to Krakow a few days before. We spent most of the time reading books.  The station in Warsaw was underground, and there wasn't an announcement, and we just sat for a few minutes, until a group of young people came to get in our car and we asked them if we were at the station.

Reading while riding on the train to Warsaw

Lina reading on iPad

We exited the station and found the office of the apartment rental company and got our keys.  The Stices were in a different building right next door, but their room wasn't ready yet.  Ours was, so we walked a few blocks and dropped off all our bags.  We walked back to the mall and ate a lunch/dinner at McDonald's.  The next thing we needed to do was to find out where the bus stop was where we could catch the bus to the airport the next morning.  We wandered around a bit, but then found it, and bought tickets for the next morning.

By this time it was about 5:30 p.m., so we walked back to our apartment and just settled in for the evening.  The apartment was a bit spartan - it didn't have full curtains, just gauzy filmy ones, and the beds were not great.  We had bought some groceries to have breakfast the next morning, so we were up early (5:00 a.m.) to eat and get to the bus stop.  It had rained all night, but it had broken.  It started up again when we started walking, so we were quite wet when we got to the bus stop. The bus came right on time and we got to the Chopin Airport as planned.

We flew Baltic Air to Moscow, with a layover in Riga, Latvia.  The plane from Warsaw to Riga was a turbo-prop with high wings, but a nice airplane and a beautiful view of the Baltic Sea as we landed.  We had to go through passport control and wait for about an hour before boarding our plane to Moscow.

Baltic Sea from up high

 We got through passport control and customs okay and were able to get tickets on the train just in time, so we made good time.  We took the metro from the Belarus train station to our hotel.  The hotel was in an area that had three streets named the same thing, and we had to wander a bit and ask directions before we found it.  It turned out that it was very easy and close to the metro station once we knew how to get there.

The hotel wasn't sure we were coming, so they had given one of our rooms to someone else.  We had a two-room set up with a shared bathroom that was supposed to be just for the girls, but we settled into it okay and the girls bucked up and shared two beds and did okay.  We also saved a bit of money.  The hotel was a standalone building - it was older, but had been remodeled and was very nice, and in a good location.  We were out of the center of the city, but not too far, and very close to the metro.

Cool painting at our hotel

We settled in, and then went across the street to a KFC to have dinner.  It had been a long day of travel, and a long couple of days of travel with the day before's trip to Warsaw, so we settled in for the evening.  The kids were happy because they could watch television and understand it (we watch Russian television at home usually anyway).  We were settled in to our last hotel of the trip, and ready to see the sites of Moscow the next day.

Dinner at KFC

Relaxing at the hotel.

Summer Trip 2017: Day 3 - Tsarskoye Selo and the Amber Room

Another place that we didn't go to when we were on our trip 13 years ago was to the palace at Tsarskoye Selo in Pushkino.  Yulia's friend, Vera, told us that we should really try to go there - especially to see the Amber Room, which had been restored relatively recently.  The trip out to Pushkino was another adventure - we had to take the Metro out to where we caught it from our flight - the Moscow station - which is way out.  Then we needed to take a bus for about 35-40 minutes.  It was an even longer drive than our trip the day before to Peterhoff.

We arrived and bought tickets to see the grounds of the estate.  The land was given to Peter's wife as a gift from him, and it was another summer palace used by the royal family.  We really liked the gardens at this estate - they were simpler, but very beautiful and peaceful and had wide paths and ponds.  The grounds have two connected palaces - the Catherine Palace and the Alexander Palace.

Chapel at Catherine Palace

The palace from the outside

Family photo outside Catherine Palace

The day was beautiful as was the entire estate

The landscaping was meticulous

This was part of a walking gallery that was not restored

Nika sitting on the steps of the walking gallery

View from the gallery

View of the palace from the gallery

The walking gallery

More of the grounds

This small lake was great

Bird Watching

Resting near the lake

These squared off trees were amazing.

Ladies in waiting

Little hermitage at the end of the park

The main attraction is the Amber room, which is located in the Catherine Palace.  It was a room with walls decorated elaborately and completely by amber.  It was considered the 8th wonder of the world, but disappeared during WWII after being taken piece by piece by the Germans.

The room was rebuilt beginning in 1979 with donations from Germany and with many skilled craftsmen working.  It was completed in 2003.  The day on Monday was very warm - and since both the Hermitage and Peterhoff were closed, the whole complex was busy with tourists.  We had to stand in line for two hours to get into the palace, and then buy tickets and take a tour.  The palace system was very inefficient, and was quite frustrating.

Standing in line.  For two hours just to get inside....

Picture of Amber room taken from just outside where photography was still allowed

The palace was set up to show how it would look when in use - rather than simply as a museum, and we enjoyed seeing the fancy lives of the Russian royals. The Amber Room was amazing.  We couldn't take pictures of it, but we enjoyed looking at it.

A dining room set up in Catherine's Palace

Ballroom

Dressed in period costumes

Parlour

Music room.  Furnace in the corner.

Art Gallery with the furnace.

Once we were done, we had to walk back and catch our bus, which we did.  It was hot and another 40-minute ride was in store for us.  We got to the station and decided to eat at the McDonald's there.  We ate and then took the Metro from there home.  Yulia got some food for breakfast since we had to leave the next morning at 5:30 to be on the Metro when it opened at 5:40.

We enjoyed our whirlwind not-quite-three day trip to St. Petersburg.  It was a good start to a summer trip adventure.

Summer Trip 2017: Day 2 - St. Petersburg Peterhof Palace

One of the things that Yulia and I missed on our visit to St. Petersburg 13 years ago was going to the summer palace at Peterhof outside of St. Petersburg.  We learned that it (along with the hermitage) were closed on Mondays, so we decided to go on Sunday.  Yulia has a friend from Krasnoyarsk that lives in St. Pete, and who she hadn't seen for 14 years, so we decided to meet there.  The trip out took quite a while - we had to go to a metro station more on the outskirts of the city and then take a van to the palace.  We ate breakfast first, at our nearby KFC and then headed out.

Riding the escalator in the Metro is always fun in St. Pete - deep tunnels. 

On the Metro

The station was beautiful.  Moscow generally has nicer subway stations, but some of them are nice in St. Pete as well.

We arrived at about 10:20 and bought our tickets and went inside.  The fountains - the main attraction outside in the gardens turn on at 11:00, so we got a good spot and waited.  Yulia's friend and her family met us at about 10:30 and we visited while we waited.  The fountains near the palace are beautiful, as is the canal that leads out to the Baltic Sea.  The canal was built to allow ships to sail right up to the palace.

The fountains turning on. With the view down to the Gulf of Finland

Yulia with the fountains and palace as decorations.

Looking back at the palace and at the canal

The Gulf of Finland.  

Looking out at the sea.

The seagulls in St. Petersburg have brown heads.

Yulia and I posing in front of the chess board fountain. 

Gardens with beautiful violets and tulips. 

Once the fountains were done, we walked through the park.  The kids especially loved two "trick fountains" that were designed to get you wet.  One of them was activated when you walked on certain rocks, and the other was turned on at random by a few attendants (it was designed by Peter originally, but rebuilt only within the last 15 or so years).  Peterhof had been very damaged during WWII and it has been rebuilt and restored since then.

This tree was a hit.

More pictures of the gardens.

Statue of Peter the Great.  People tried to throw coins in his boot.

Our girls trying to throw coins in his boot.  They spent more time picking up coins - making some good money in the process.

This group was playing near the fountain.  It was beautiful.

Showing the damage and the extent of the rebuild.

We opted not to go inside the palace, since we had been to the Winter Palace (Hermitage) the day before.  We spent about two hours walking around, and then it started to rain a bit and we had seen the grounds.  We said goodbye to Yulia's friends, and then took a "meteor" ship from Peterhof to the Hermitage.  The boat trip was really nice.  We got to see a number of large ships, the view of St. Petersburg, and the shipbuilding facilities at the mouth of the Neva river.  All in all, it was a fun trip.

Both families after a nice day at Peterhoff.

Riding the meteor!

The docks 

It was still drizzling when we arrived, so we walked toward the Metro station.  There was a McDonald's nearby, so we ate there - fighting the crowds to do so.  We went back to the apartment via the Metro, and were there for a few hours while a massive thunderstorm raged outside.  When it broke we went to a Pelmeni restaurant which was just down the street.  The food there was very good - the best Restaurant Russian food I've ever had and it was reasonably priced.  After we ate, we returned to our apartment - just in time to miss another massive rainstorm.

Walking out of Palace Square

Lunch!

Dinner at the Pelmeni restaurant.

Rain after dinner.  This wasn't the worst of it.

We really liked the day - it was full, but not overfilled, and we missed the worst of the weather. Our St. Petersburg adventure was shaping up nicely [1].
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[1] As an aside, when Yulia and I were there in 2004, it was my least favorite part of our trip.  It was cold and rainy in May when we were there and the people seemed sullen and rude.  This time it was sunny (except for the rainy afternoon on Sunday) and people were quite friendly.  It changed our opinion toward the city quite a bit.