Moscow/St. Petersburg

2 years later and I am finally finishing with a brief post on our time in Russia. What brought about this late posting? A new adventure is heading our way. In less than a month we will be heading to Lithuania for a 3 year (maybe longer) stay. I'll continue blogging about our adventures there, but in the meantime I thought that I would bring some closure to our time in Russia.

We left Saratov on July 6, 2010 on the overnight train. By then we were old pros with the Russian train system. We arrived in Moscow on July 7 (Katie's 10th birthday).

Happy 10th Birthday Katie!

A driver delivered us to our hotel (no air conditioning in a HOT summer). We got showered/took a nap and then headed off to see some sites. We went to Red Square and paid to tour the inside of St. Basil's Cathedral. I think this was a birthday that Katie will never forget. We had dinner right by Red Square in a Sbarro - the kids were thrilled to have pizza that tasted like home.




St. Basil's Cathedral

The next day we used our guidebook to go on a walking tour of Moscow - We didn't get lost which was a major accomplishment! We walked along the Kremlin, the Moscow River, viewed the Church of Christ the Savior, a Statue Park and popped in at Gorky park. At Gorky park we took the kids on a roller coaster - the Eurostar - that was an adventure!


A view of the Kremlin

Church of Christ the Savior

Statue Park



Eurostar in Gorky Park

 We also found time to view Lenin in his tomb (not a highlight for the kids)! We shopped, ate ice cream, had dinner at a restaurant called MooMoo and basically exhausted ourselves walking around the city. We did figure out the metro which was helpful.


Lenin's Tomb

Fountain in Moscow

GUM - on Red Square

The Kremlin

 After a few days in Moscow we boarded a 4 hour train to St. Petersburg. A lovely train - air conditioned, comfortable... We arrived in St. Petersburg and used our map skills to find our hotel - The Sweet Hotel. The surprise in St. Petersburg? Because is was built on a swamp the have water/sewer issues - tp was not flushed it was put in the trash. That was a chore to remember! We met up with Maria in St. Petersburg. She was friends with Anna from Saratov and Anna contacted her and asked her to be our  guide for the weekend. Maria was amazing. Her English was fantastic and she was a wonderful guide. We walked all over the city viewing churches, palaces, water, shopping for souvenirs. We had a meal at Teremok which sold blini - yummy! Our second day we went by bus to Peterhof - a palace that is situated at the Gulf of Finland. We dipped our toes in the Gulf and toured the grounds of this amazing palace. Instead of bus we returned by boat.

Church of the Spilled Blood

The Winter Palace

Cooling our feet and viewing the Winter Palace

Katie at Peterhof

Katie and Dylan at the Gulf of Finland

A view from Peterhof - the canal that reaches to the Gulf

Peterhof

Maria with Katie, Dylan and Amy

Train Station - St. Petersburg

We took an overnight train back to Moscow and visited with our friends Kate and Ann from Nizhny. It was very hot and we were all tired from our travels so we went to an air-conditioned mall and shared a meal and talked. We did take one final trip to Red Square tired legs and all.

Ken and the kids saying goodbye to Red Square

 The morning of our departure we were lugging all of our suitcases down to the lobby of the hotel. Katie and I went in the first elevator and were sitting outside waiting for Ken and Dylan. Ken came out and shared that as they were getting in the elevator the door shut before Ken could get in. Dylan was lost in Moscow's largest hotel! Luckily Ken overheard some women talking about an upset little boy. He figured it was Dylan and it was. Dylan was soooo happy to see Ken. When he got separated he noticed that the elevator went up not down. He eventually figured out how to get to the floor that our rooms were on and he waited to be found. With Dylan found we headed to the airport and flew back to DC.  We had a truly amazing time in Russia.