Traveling through the waterways

Our trip is progressing through several different waterways. After leaving St. Petersburg, we were on the Neva River then Lake Ladoga which is the largest lake in Europe. This crossing was at night so we did not see anything. We exited the lake and entered the Svir River. We had gone through a lock on Lake Ladoga, but did not realize it, now we entered another lock and hydropower stations. We stopped to visit the town that operates the power station and were divided into groups of 16 people to go to individual homes where the hostess shared about her life, gave us tea, pastries, and candies. Our hostess had grown up in this town and her husband worked at the hydropower station and his father before him so they were given a house. Their older son worked there as well and when he married, got the grandparents house. The younger son continues to live with his parents and is working on building a new lock for cargo ships. The process takes quite a while since only one ship can go through at a time. We continued on the Svir River with another lock taking us into Lake Onega which is the second largest lake in Europe. That night as we moved thru the lake a couple of musicians played and sang Russian songs, the DJ was funny. We went to the end of the lake which has about 1300 islands to the island of Kizhy which has very amazing churches built of aspen trees and without nails. This island is very small and a UNESCO sight where they are preserving this type of architecture. They have also a small village with old fashioned homes where several generations lived in one house, had a place for their animals,workshop areas, places to keep their boats and sleds and rooms for both summer and winter. They also had a bathhouse that is built on the side of lake in case it catches fire and also so you can jump into the cold water or snow. There was a small little wooden chapel with a belfry and a bell ringer gave a mini bellringing concert.The people who live there today are part of the restoration team including growing rye, oats and barley. There is a special mineral of very dark color that somehow produces heat to make it possible for them to grow rye. The lake also has fresh water pearls which they make necklaces to sell. There were three other boat waterways tours as well.
Our boat has a lecture series by a guest lecturer who is a guide and university professor of ancient history as well as Russian history. The assistant cruise director has given a couple of Russian language classes, but can only remember a couple of words and cannot tell you all the letters of their alphabet. Today we had a lesson on how to make Russian pancakes and vodka tasting. The pancakes are used for snacking while drinking vodka and served with caviar. Bill liked the pepper flavored.
Our weather has been very good with mostly sunny days with just a couple of days with rain showers. Today we did have fog and had to stop for about 30 minutes before it lifted. The trees are turning color each day more and more. There are two more trips before they stop for the season--the weather might be quite different in a week.




- Bill and Marilyn
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St. Petersburg from the AMA Katarina ship

Hello,
We got on our ship, the AMA Katarina on Sunday afternoon. On Monday we had a full day of sightseeing. We started out on buses. We were divided into different groups by colors. We took in several churches and palaces. We went to the cathedral of St. Peter and Paul where most all of the tzars are buried. We heard a magnificent choir of five men in a little chapel. After lunch, we went by hydrofoil to the Peterhof or the "Versailles of Russia" the workman were taking down all the scaffolding from the laser show for the G20 conference. Peter the Great built a small get a way house, but his daughter Elizabeth liked everything to be very big and build another beside it. Peter the Great was a very tall man and it is said that he slept sitting up because he thought it was healthier. Empress Elizabeth like parties and clothing. It is said she never wore the same dress twice and when she died she had 18,000 dresses. Peterhof is a ways from St. Petersburg in the bay of Finland. Several wars have been fought for this section of land.
On Tuesday we went to Pushkin where Catherine the first had her palace and park. This palace has huge amounts of gold gilding all over the interior and a park with a lot of water features surrounding the palace. There is also a room that is done in Amber. Milky white, honey, red and a couple of other kinds.The older the Amber is, the more valuable it is. This palace had a lot of destruction by the Nazis in World War II. In the afternoon we went to a museum on the siege of Leningrad (the name was changed to Leningrad after the revolution.) It is a grim reminder of how devastating war is. During the war they wrapped their statues in wood and put grey cloth over domes so they were not as easy to spot. Now during the winter, they put wood over the statues or bury them to protect them from the snow and wind.
They also store the plants in buildings over the winter months. After dinner we took the hydrofoil to see the ballet Swan Lake in the Winter Place opera house.
Today was the trip to the Hermitage again by hydrofoil. Miles and miles of painting and anything else that they considered art.

This evening we leave St.Petersburg for Moscow, six days away.





Statue of Catherine the great and her men

- Marilyn and Bill
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Greetings from Russia

Hello
Bill and I are traveling in Russia with Pam and John Roeth. We had a good, but very long flight from LAX to Moscow. It seemed just as we fell asleep they turned on the lights to serve chips and a little bit of water. We were dreading customs, but it was uneventful, thankfully. Hope we can safely keep that little customs paper. You keep your passport handy because everyone wants to register them. We had a ride arranged to the Moscow Hilton of course it was rush hour. It was a little tight with us and our luggage in the Mercedes but we made it! It was a rainy day that day and the next as well.
About noon we walked to the train station to take the high speed express train from Moscow to St. Petersburg. We were told the train would be there 40 min before hand,it was there 15 min ahead time. The train was completely full, but we left on time and got there two min early. The train was a good way to see some of the country and to get a feel of the people. It turned from rainy to sunny and about 5 hours later we were in St. Petersburg and the hotel picked us up and took us to the hotel. At the end of the street, there was a London Pub so we decided to try that for dinner. It was a bit of an adventure because there were not any usual foods on the menu and our language issues did not make it any easier. We got some snacks and beer, wine and coke and called it a night. Some people that worked the G20 conference were saying at our hotel. They brought back all sorts of goodie bags, but we didn't get any.
Today the police that had been brought in for the conference were gone and the hotel was quieter. After breakfast, we took the bus and found the street with shopping, historic points and took a boat ride through canals and on the Neva River.we then found a Baskin Robbins and had an ice cream cone and toured the Church of the Spilled Blood and strolled through a couple of parks. There are many palaces in St. Petersburg. We decided to go for Georgian food and asked at the desk where we should go, she wrote out the name of the restaurant in English and we headed out. We could not find it after walking all round looking for it, we saw a place with Georgian food and decided to eat there. After we sat down and started looking at the menus that we were at the right restaurant after all, that the Russian spelling which was on the outside sign was completely different. The food was good.
Tomorrow we get on the Anna Katarina ship for our cruise, but stay 2 more days with a full itinerary in St. Petersburg.
T'il the next time.
Marilyn and Bill








Photos from the top floor of the Ambassador hotel in St. Petersburg, Russia 9/8/13 -Marilyn
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