Tag Archives: RTW2011

>Last night, after our light dinner, we walked over for one last goodbye of Red Square. The square was even more decorated for the big event, with what we felt were quite tacky items, including these two banners blocking the view of this great building…. They had also erected this...

>When we were here last week, we arranged to have a guided tour of The Kremlin with our English speaking guide, Ludmila. We had viewed it from all sides outside of the wall, but would now go within the walls. The first building upon entering through the Troitskie Gate, was...

>Happy birthday to my sister, Susie! I did forget to mention that yesterday, a day early in honor of her birthday, Cynthia and I visited the Russian Chocolate Museum (which was basically a store pretending to be a museum 🙂 to sample the Russian chocolates. We did determine that Belgium...

>We woke up this morning to the astonishing news regarding Bin Laden. We at first thought it couldn’t be true, but were able to get BBC on our TV to confirm the news, and to listen to the President’s announcement. As someone who had experienced the terror of 9/11 first-hand,...

>As we were finishing up breakfast at our hotel, we looked out, and the May Day parade was getting underway on Nevsky Prospect…Photos through the window on the second floor of our hotel… After finishing our coffee, we walked down to get a close up view… May Day is Russia’s...

>Our destination today, Tsarskoye Selo, or Tsars’ Village, is the site of the Catherine Palace… …a “little” suburban respite, extending 740 metres… …and about 16 miles outside of St. Petersburg. When the Russians took over this area from the Swedes, this land became the property of none other than Menchikov...

>We hired a guide and driver for half a day today to show us more of the sights.There is so much to see here! The primary focus of our tour was Peter and Paul Fortress and the city’s history. Some of the sights we encountered on our way to the...

>Today we headed off to the Menshikov Palace. Menshikov was the first governor of St. Petersburg….more about him later. On our way up Nevsky, we took some side street diversions along the way, first seeing this “live” statue of the Russian poet, Pushkin… …and then later a statue of the...

>Arrived in St. Petersburg last evening and checked into the Nevsky Forum Hotel. Not as luxurious as the Metropol in Moscow, but kind of funky, and located right on the main drag, Nevsky Prospect. We headed up Nevsky, getting our first view of the fondanka embankment… …one of the main...

>Easter Monday….we headed out to the State Historical Museum adjacent to Red Square (a couple of other museums that we were interested in seeing were closed on Mondays :-(. The Historical Museum was in fact a disappointment, as we felt that it focused on the wrong things, and did not...