Russia
Day 25: Vilnius
Our train arrived in Vilnius at an ungodly hour of the morning. We disembark and then try to figure out how we can get to our hotel. We had mapped out that a taxi would be the best bet, however we had no local currency, and the shops were all closed so exchanging it was somewhat difficult. Off in […]
Day 24: Saint Petersburg
And continuing on with our last (full) day in Russia!* (there is a good story about this at the end. It involves borders, bribes and Brits). We arrived at Kazan Cathedral. Like all active churches, we couldn’t take photos inside, but suffice to say it was much like St Petersburg itself: very Russian but oddly […]
Day 23: Saint Petersburg
So where were we….? And let this be a lesson to make sure you keep going with the momentum that you have, since otherwise you might end up like this post and be “in the queue” for an inordinately long period of time. On the plus side, memory recall is very strong and these photos […]
Day 22: Saint Petersburg
We finally arrive in St. Petersburg after what can only be considered a hot and horrible train ride. It makes us wish we did what the Chileans had done (which was take the bullet train between the cities, during the day). Oh well, at least this time our driver was present and waiting for us […]
Day 21: Moscow
[aside: still alive and still posting – just getting distracted with summer gardening] Even with the late night we were able to spring (or crawl, depending which one of us you ask) out of bed. We headed down for breakfast with Rodrigo and Jose – which turned into just breakfast with Rodrigo since Jose slept in. […]
Day 20: Moscow – the rest of it (kitchen sink included)
And when we last left our weary travellers… It was 12:30 and we were hungry from completing our Moscow Subway Tour. Our guide was very kind and had asked at the start of the tour what our plans were afterwards so that he could end us at an appropriate metro station. In our case we […]
Day 19: Moscow
Admittedly it has been a little while, but rest assured we are not done posting yet. Apparently it takes a while to unpack and start to sort through 7500+ photos, but I digress… since we’ve just arrived in Moscow (at this leg of the journey). The adventure of not having our driver pick us up […]
Days 15, 16, 17 and 18: On the train – truly in the middle of nowhere
KM Marker 5185… When we first boarded the train, I am happy to report that we managed to find our birth with no major difficulties. It was one of the cabins towards the end of the carriage, #8 out of 10 to be exact. Amazingly we were excited at our future trek (this feeling would […]
Day 15: Irkurst
Today we were driven from Listvyanka to Irkutsk. The driver came by right on time and was also carrying the Canucks into town (it was much easier for them to hitch the ride at a reasonable fare than try the “public bus”, if you can call it that). Before leaving the night before, on the […]
Rails Across the Curtain 
Day 20: Moscow – Metro Tour!
Today is the day where we had originally hoped to visit Stalin’s bunker. This hope was dashed as we found out a week or two before the trip that it was cancelled for some unknown reason (we later guess it may have had something to do with the May 9th celebrations). Instead we opted for a tour […]