Better late than never, a 360 video of Palace Square in St. Petersburg

Another one of my signature 360 degree videos:

Better late than never, comments after our walk to the top of St. Isaacs

Just take a look....

Better late than never, a view from the top of St. Isaacs Cathedral

A view from the top of St. Isaacs Cathedral, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Better late than never, Church of the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

Video of the Church of the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Better late than never, a view of St. Petersburg

A view from across the river in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Better late than never, more video from St. Petersburg

St. Peters Cathedral, Peter & Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Better late than never, more of the Kremlin

The changing of the guards, the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia.

Better late than never, more on Moscow

Danielle gives us her thoughts on the arrival in Moscow.

Some thoughts on Russia

Danielle and I are sitting in Domodevo Airport for a few hours until we fly to Hungary, so I thought I would add a post with my thoughts on Russia.

Firstly for any travelers reading this, if you have to choose between St. Petersburg and Moscow, go with St. Petersburg. Moscow is interesting, but incredibly frustrating at the same time. Even in the most popular tourist locations like the Kremlin there is no English, or even pictures so you can figure it out, everything is in Cyrillic. Also the metro and train system here is very difficult to figure out, and finally the people are not approachable, and downright unfriendly to foreigners. I cant tell you how many times we were denied things, here, or told not available, just to turn around and get it from someone else.

St. Petersburg is the complete opposite, the metro has maps with both the Cyrillic and English Alphabet which makes it a breeze to navigate, people were friendly and willing to help, and as you would expect in the major tourist sites there were maps (pictures) and even signs in Languages other than Russian. Why the difference, maybe the proximity to Europe? Also we felt that the sites we visited in St. Petersburg were in all very rewarding, while some of the sites we visited in Moscow are not worth the entry ticket price.

For example, if I had to do it again I would not pay to enter the Kremlin, it is just as beautiful from the outside as from the inside. Also don't waste your money on the Amory, the jewel display is nothing to right home about, we were told you must see the Fabergé eggs, so we payed the 350 rubles, and when we got there said "is that it?". If you have seen the Queens Jewel House in London you will be very disappointed in the Amory. Also St. Basils is very beautiful on the outside, but not worth the admission.

So to sum up Russia, it is very expensive, you will find yourself charged for everything from using the toilet, to taking pictures of the skyline (we never paid for the use of our camera, only got busted 1 time). The country seems very insular, they are not geared up to support foreign travel and in fact make you feel very unwelcome. However St. Petersburg is a ray of hope, and if they can do away with the backwards visa rules and make it easy fro Europeans to visit, I can see that city taking off as a must visit city. The architecture, history and atmosphere are awesome.

Video of the Kremlin from across the Moscow River

A 360 Degree View of Red Square, Moscow

Moscow, Russia. Comming to you from a starbucks because it is raining outside.

Let me start by saying the 10 hour flight to Moscow felt way longer than it was. We tried a new sleeping pill to help pass the time, it worked, but had the side affect of making me queezy and causing Danielle to throw up into a zip lock bag on the train into the city from the airport. So not a good start to the day. Our next challange was to navigate Moscow metro, which is easier said than done because all the signs are in Russian alphabet Russian, and the maps are in English alphabet Russian. We found an English speaking women who helped us find our way. Subsequently we have developed a system using a printout we got from the hostel and the first 4 letters of the station name.

When we arrived at the hostel we were greeted with an ice cold shower because of some plumbing issues. However shortly afterward we had found our way to Red Square and were blown away by this beautiful spot and the scale! The square is surrounded by the Kremlin on one side, a beautiful merchantile building on the other side and St. Basils cathedral on one end. We took a stroll across the bridge over the Moscow river for a better view of the Kremlin which is just massive. We plan to spend the day in the Kremlin on our return to Moscow on Wednesday.

Today was very cool. It was a national holiday of sorts celebrating the paratroopers, so we were treated to a miltary parade in Red Square. I will post vide and pics when we get to St. Petersburg. We spent the rest of the day walking the gardens outside the Kremlin, visiting the Pushkin Museum and Church of Christ the savior.

Shortly we will be heading to the train station to catch on overnight train to St. Petersburg.

Trains, so many trains

So, you will not believe how difficult it is to buy train tickets in Russia. Its not so much difficult as it is frustrating. Every service out there is basically ripping you off with prices 100 - 150% more than the cost of the actual ticket and that does not include the price of shipping the tickets to you. If not you will need to hop a taxi in Moscow and try and find this agents office. Finally after trying to book directly on the official rail website with no luck (website: www.rzd.ru note, the site is in Russian so you will need a friend that can read/speak Russian, I fortunately did), I found the following woman who helps out struggling travelers for a fee. http://www.russiangirlfriday.com/, she is charging $65 for her trouble. We wired her the money, and she has purchased our tickets. Now lets just wait and see if we get them when we get to Moscow.... if not that was an expensive experiment :-)