Entries 15

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I’ve by now adjusted to the new timezone (La Professeure hasn’t). It’s been a fun month with trips to Sydney first, and then to Russia. But now it’s back to normal routine, and I have to look for...

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For a change, we did not have to take an early flight this Viking cruise. So we took a leisurely morning, having breakfast at the restaurant first, and then the panorama room, saying goodbye to t...

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We woke up at 6:30 for a 7:30 tour to visit the Peterhof palace today. That was a price to pay for the early admission. There were very few visitors at the time we got there. It’s billed as the “...

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We woke up early in the morning (after having a late night the previous night) to go to Catherine’s Palace at Pushkin. The palace was nice; we took a guided tour round the garden first, and onl...

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We docked for good at St. Petersburg, and had a busy Hermitage-focused first day, which consisted of visiting the Hermitage museum, its impressionist wing, and its storage and restoration center,...

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We docked early at Mandrogy, which is what our tour director describes as “Disneyland of Russia”. It was like a Russian village themed amusement park, complete with a visitor’s center and a carto...

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Today we crossed lake Onega to visit Kizhi. The lake was very calm and made for smooth sailing. We also had a visit to the wheelhouse in the morning. It was amusing, the controls look like they a...

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Today we docked at Kuzino, got bussed to Berillov, and then got bussed to Goritzky to re-join the ship. This all happened in the morning, within 3 hours. There is nothing at the port of Kuzino,...

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We spent the morning in Yaroslavl. That is supposed to be an industrial town but we weren’t taken anywhere near industrial buildings. Instead we went to the old part of the town, where there are ...

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Today we made a port call to Uglich. The ship didn’t dock till 2pm, so in the morning we had lectures (about Romanov dynasty and Russian language lesson). The time passed by. Viking is good about...

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This was the first day we had an early start, because we had to squeeze in a morning excursion before leaving Moscow in the afternoon to get to Uglich in afternoon the next day. We left around 9:...

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Today we had a long day, visited the Cosmonaut museum in the afternoon, and a night tour of Moscow. But the morning was again idle. We got a late start, with me getting breakfast at Panorama bar...

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The first full day in Moscow was spent on the boat at first. La Professeure had a late start (she still had jet lag), so I got breakfast and checked out various public areas of the ship. Then she...

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My in laws had to pass through the ‘thorough’ custom check because of medications they were taking, but ended up getting routed through the normal custom that we went through - which was actually...

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We left for Moscow on a direct flight, from 7pm to 11:30am: 9 1/2 hours flight + 7 hour time difference. La Professeure did the airport transportation arrangement and it was very smooth… We left ...

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