St P to the end!!

Friday 9th January

Enjoyed quite a relaxing day. First up was to make our way to the Mariinsky Theatre again for a matinee performance of The Nutcracker. It’s quite a long, but very beautiful walk from the Metro station to the theatre, but this morning we took our time and enjoyed the sights.

The Metro station itself is in the Sennaya area around which Dostoevsky set Crime and Punishment. From there it’s a lovely walk along a canal (currently frozen) which can be crossed by any one of several beautiful bridges. As is the case for most of St Petersburg, the architecture of the surrounding buildings is also something to be seen.

The Nutcracker was fabulous – we both thoroughly enjoyed it. The festive season was also quite an appropriate time to see this ballet.


Outside the Mariinsky Theatre

Continued exploring the area immediately around the Mariinsky and then made our way – once again admiring beautiful canals, bridges and buildings, to St Isaac’s Cathedral – one of the largest domed buildings in the world.

The dome of St Isaac’s, which dominates the city skyline, is over 21m high and is covered with over 100kg of gold leaf. There are several massive pillars, both in and outside of the building, made of granite brought from Finland on ships and a railway that had to be specially built. As you can imagine, the interior is extremely grand.


Phil (no - it's not an Eskimo) outside St Isaac's

Saturday 10th February

Up early for our second visit to The Hermitage. Today’s focus was 19th and 20th Century art from around the world. Particularly enjoyed the French and Russian sections. Completed our visit by viewing the ‘museum’ pieces (Egyptian, Roman, Greek etc) and then that was it – according to the map we’d seen it all! But as we said previously, only 5-10% of the collection is on display at any one time, so next visit to St Petersburg will definitely require another excursion or two to The Hermitage! Could quite happily do this display all over again anyway.

Walked along the beautiful (frozen) Neva River for ages but resisted the temptation to actually walk on it (others were!).

Wandered through Mars Field – an open space which was a military parade area under Alexander I and is now a memorial area for the victims of the 1917 Revolution and civil war.

Visited the Church on Spilled Blood (so named because it is built on the site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II) and marveled at the mosaics (the work of over 30 artists) which cover 7000 sq meters. It’s hard to imagine that during the time of the closure of churches in Russia, this one was used to store items such as potatoes and theatre props. Unfortunately this was the fate of many churches during this period (one up the road was turned into a swimming pool!) – some are still undergoing restoration after decades of neglect. This one took 27 years to restore.


The Church on Spilled Blood

Just across Nevsky Prospekt – the main thoroughfare through St Petersburg – is the Kazan Cathedral. Built in a very different style, it reflects Tsar Paul’s wish to unite Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Unlike St Isaac’s or Spilled Blood, this one is not classed as a museum but is a working church. Very interesting to visit.

Restaurants are plentiful in St Petersburg. We found a great one and enjoyed a fabulous meal before calling it a day.

Sunday 11th

Spent all day at the Peter and Paul Fortress which is across the Neva River from The Hermitage. There’s meant to be a Metro station right beside the fortress – but the train sailed straight through and on to the next one! Is that what the man was announcing over the loud speaker?? How would we know??

After a very long (but what’s an extra kilometer or two of icy paths?) but interesting walk we made it to the fortress.

Peter the Great had the fortress built in the early 1700s to help defend the city against the Swedes but it’s actually never been used for this purpose. Throughout history, it has mainly been used as a prison – inmates have included Dostoevsky, Trotsky and Gorky.


The fortress is on the banks of the frozen Neva. Here, Phil is deciding whether or not to 'walk on water'

There are several building inside the fortress, including the beautiful Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral. Other buildings now house museums and various exhibitions including a fabulous one on the history of St Petersburg. The actual prison cells are also open to the public. You can certainly spend hours here – which we did!


Inside the walls of the fortress - Ss Peter and Paul Cathedral on the far right

Made our way to the Mariinsky district again (we’re really good at this trip now!) but this time to the very modern Mariinsky Concert Hall for a fabulous performance – a very contemporary version of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. Another great day!

Monday 12th

Sadly, this is our last day in St Petersburg – we leave tonight for Novgorod. We’ve seen so much and yet have hardly scratched the surface of what this city has to offer.

Firstly, we ventured to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery – a working monastery founded in 1713. In the grounds are a couple of different cemeteries where some of Russia’s famous artistic figures are buried. We made sure we saw the graves of Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky. There are also several beautiful buildings in the grounds.


One of the cemeteries inside the monastery walls - beautiful buildings in the background

From there we headed to the Russian Museum which houses a magnificent collection of Russian art. As our time was limited, we concentrated our visit on the 19th and 20th Centuries and still didn’t see everything from this period – this definitely goes on the ‘must return’ list.


Admiring some of Kandinsky's work - a bit hard to see but no flash allowed!

In typical ‘nick of time’ fashion, we made it to the train station with seconds to spare (no worries – heaps of time!) before we boarded our train for the three hour journey to Novgorod. This train was quite unlike the ‘romantic Orient Express-type’ train we’d taken from Moscow to St Petersburg. It was quite the practical (sitting class only and quite ‘Soviet’ style) passenger train – lots of laminex! Clearly for local use. For some reason (what did she say??) we were ushered to Carriage 2 and not allowed to go to Carriage 1 (which was clearly written on our tickets). We’re sure she said ‘sit anywhere’ (or something like that…) but for the first ten minutes everyone else in the carriage (ok – maybe a slight exaggeration – a couple of people) kept kicking us out of seats telling us (we think) that we were in their seat. Oh, to know just a little Russian!! When you’re trying to argue your case (in a completely foreign language that no-one, repeat no-one understands) and stand your ground, but the whole carriage (not exaggerating now) goes absolutely silent and stares at you – you know it’s time to just give in and move to a quiet corner. Eventually found a nice, quiet spot that apparently no-one else found at all appealing – peace at last and a chance to read up on our next destination – Novgorod.

Arrived in this very small town at about 8:30pm with just – quite literally – a mud map to help us find our hotel. The streets were very quiet and we really had only a very sketchy idea of where we were going. We headed off in what we thought looked like the right direction – backpacks on and wheelie bags in tow. The wheelie bags would have been more useful if they floated and had a rudder. The path we chose was perhaps not the best because it eventually became obvious that what we thought was a path covered with light snow was actually a massive, massive puddle – more like a pond. It was the railway station car park. However – overcame all obstacles and quite easily found our hotel.

Went out in search of the action – but couldn’t find any. This is a very small, quiet town. Settled for a lovely meal at the hotel instead.

Tuesday 13th January

Had a lovely, peaceful day exploring Novgorod. This is a fabulous town which has been in existence since the 9th Century. It has one of Russia’s oldest Kremlins (originally built in the 9th Century) which is surrounded by a beautiful park.

The Novgorod Kremlin wall

Inside the Kremlin grounds are several wonderful structures – including the Cathedral of St Sophia (finished in 1052 – one of the oldest buildings in Russia) and the Millennium of Russia Monument (a 300 tonne sculpture built 1862).


Cathedral of St Sophia in the background

The Millennium of Russia Monument

Across the (frozen) river is a fabulous collection of churches – each with its own particular style of architecture. All were built somewhere during the 14th – 17th Centuries and they’re peculiarly clustered around each other (ie: within meters). We spent quite some time wandering around the outside (and inside of whichever ones were open to the public) – marveling at the architectural variances.


One of the many beautiful churches in Novgorod. We went inside this one - the walls are covered in frescoes which are hundreds of years old.

More beautiful churches in Novgorod

Completed our visit to the city by trudging out to a suburban Russian shopping mall (5 storeys!) – this was quite an experience. If you’re interested in clothes, shoes, mobile phones or pharmaceutical items then fine – if not (as in – if you want to buy some food or groceries) then look elsewhere. What an eye-opener.

This city suffered at the hands of the Nazis, but the fact that its Kremlin was high on the reconstruction priority list of the Soviets is a sign of its importance. We’re really glad we took the time to stop, spend a night and take a look. The architecture was absolutely beautiful and the slower pace was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of the big cities!

Made our way back to the train station for our overnight train to Moscow. Novgorod station is one of those lovely old ones without a platform. This makes you feel like you’re in one of those old war-time films where people are down beside the train waving goodbye to loved ones. A great image – but not so easy when it comes to getting two 20kg bags up into the little doorway (ask Phil how his back is!). Once again, the glamour of our ‘Orient Express-type’ train was a distant memory. This was a far more practical, commuter type long-distance train – not a bit of caviar in sight! And once again, the language and alphabet barrier prevailed. Were we in the right cabin? Were we even on the right train? Were we heading in the right direction? What was the uniformed lady standing in our doorway asking us? (Worked out pretty quickly it was whether we wanted vodka or vodka as our complementary drink – after some deliberation we chose vodka!). Quite comfortable, though, but didn’t sleep very well as this was not an express train and each stop tended to ‘jolt’ us awake.


Our 'practical' train

Wednesday 14th January

Back in Moscow! Arrived at about 6am, which is incredibly early when the sun doesn’t get up until after 9! Made our way via Metro to our hotel for this leg of the journey – a different area to the one we stayed in last time.

Today, we decided to enjoy the marvel of the Metro itself. The Moscow Metro system is used by approximately 9 million people each day. It’s an incredibly efficient public transport system that literally runs like clockwork. But there’s more to the Metro than efficiency and people moving. Each station is a work of art – some more grand than others. It’s not unusual to see fabulous, enormous bronze statues flanking escalators, stained glass features, mosaics or chandeliers suspended from marble ceilings. We did the rounds, hopping on and off, and checked out what each of the more spectacular ones has to offer.

Spent the afternoon at the Contemporary History Museum which traces Soviet history from the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 to the 1980s. Wandered for hours looking at the fabulous exhibition which included various propaganda posters and Bolshevik memorabilia.

It’s not as cold here this time around – about -4 or so. Nor is it as crowded now that the holiday season has officially ended. This is more like the Moscow Louise remembers from her previous visit here 10 years ago.

Decided to spend an evening in with wine and cheese – this is not as easy as it sounds. First of all, finding a grocery store in Moscow is no mean feat, then comes the obvious challenge of actually asking for the item you want. Successfully accomplished the mission and enjoyed a relaxing evening.

Thursday 15th January

First stop today – Lenin’s tomb! This is a must-do when in Moscow. First of all, you have to leave all large bags and any cameras (including mobile phones) in the cloak room. Then you file along a set path flanked by very, very serious police, through a security check (including an inspection of any small bags you may have with you) and along the base of the Kremlin wall, then down (underground) into the tomb. You are not allowed to speak – if you do, police officers tell you to ‘sshhh!!'. You file, completely silently, along the passageway and past the embalmed leader. Then you come back up and out the other side, and have the opportunity to look at the graves of others buried at the foot of the Kremlin wall including Stalin and Brezhnev. Quite an experience. At Stalin’s request, Lenin has been lying in that state since he died in 1924 – an eerie sight.

Next, we ventured out to Gorky Park, which is a beautiful park beside the river with a small amusement park in one corner.

From there we headed to Sculpture Park – quite a solemn space where there is a collection of Soviet statues which have been housed here since post-1991 when they were torn from their original positions and ‘retired’. Heaps of statues of Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev as well as some more contemporary works of art.


Statue park - L and L

Sculpture Park is in the grounds of the State Tretyakov Gallery which houses a fabulous collection of 20th Century Russian art. As we’ve become huge fans of this type of art, we spent several wonderful hours here admiring the vast collection and learning more about the definite ties between politics and art during the Soviet era.

Tomorrow is our last day in Russia. It’s our last day in Moscow. It’s our last day of our holiday! Still so much to see and do!

Friday 16th January

Decided to have a bit of a walking day – enjoying some of the quieter parts of Moscow – slightly more suburban than the ones we’d previously visited.

First stop, though, was the White House (officially the House of Government of the Russian Federation). This is quite an imposing building on the bank of the Moscow River. You may recall images of Yeltsin climbing on a tank here in 1991 and of the building itself on fire in 1993 as a result of the incidents arising from the clash between the President and the parliament. Incidentally, on the walk to the White House is a small park which contains a memorial (quite an unusual one – lots of information and photographs rather than statues etc) to those killed during the 1993 incident.


The White House

From here we enjoyed a lovely walk beside the river through a residential part of Moscow, to the Arbat district. This is a nice area which has a few restaurants, antique and art shops – and, of course, souvenir shops along a quiet pedestrian mall. Completed our time in Moscow doing a little shopping and having a meal before facing the confronting task of packing for the return journey. This is when you really know your holiday has come to an end.


The Arbat district

This is it. We leave the hotel at 5am tomorrow and, after a couple of long flights and about 12 hours in Hong Kong, arrive home at around midnight Sunday.

Thanks to all of you for tuning in and for your comments. Thanks, also, to those who’ve commented via email or text message. It’s been great to have contact with you all. See you soon back in Brissie!

From London to St Petersburg!

Hello again! Sorry it's been a while since we posted - time has flown and internet access isn't always easy!

Friday 2nd January

Spent the morning mailing excess stuff home (funny how it accumulates, isn’t it??) and visiting theaters to organise our tickets for the next couple of nights. Enjoyed a refreshment stop at the Black Friar – a fabulous old pub at Blackfriars – before wandering along the Embankment to Temple.

The Black Friar

Enjoyed an afternoon visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum then met our friend Tim for dinner and a show. Tonight – Wicked! Brad and Ben, you were right – this is an awesome show! And thank you Tim for sealing the deal. So glad we went – had a fabulous time.



Saturday 3rd January

Today was a designated shopping day. Headed off to Portobello Road antique market to spend the morning checking out all the street stalls and the shops. Also enjoyed looking at the beautiful houses around the Notting Hill area.

Then it was off to Carnaby Street – via Oxford and Regent Streets. Those post-Christmas sales are great!

Made our way to Islington Town Hall where we were married - for old times' sake. Had dinner at the restaurant over the road, one of the places where we celebrated on the day.

Tonight’s entertainment was Oliver! starring Rowan Atkinson as Fagin. What a great show – and Rowan Atkinson was superb. Our last night in London! Vowed to return next year.

Sunday 4th January

Literally spent the day travelling. Tube to Heathrow – then plane to Moscow!! The transport we had organized from the airport to our hotel went off without a hitch and before we knew it we were checking in.

Even getting from the airport to the car and from the car to the hotel was absolutely, positively, extremely freezing!!!!! Apparently it’s about -15 maximum here! Don’t even want to know the minimum!

Really looking forward to exploring tomorrow!

Monday 5th January

Set off to conquer the Moscow Metro – an extremely efficient underground train system - quite easy to navigate – even easier if you understand the Cyrillic alphabet!

Naturally – first stop… Red Square! There’s no doubt about it – this is an amazing place. Standing at the top of Red Square – St Basil’s Cathedral at the far end, the Kremlin to the right (and of course – Lenin’s tomb), GUM department store on the left – you really know you’re in Russia.


Red Square to the left. St Basil's at the far end. Kremlin wall and Lenin's tomb to the right.

Changing of the Guards at the Kremlin wall

Had a great time exploring St Basil’s. It really is a beautiful building both inside and out. Inside is just a crazy maze of rooms, staircases, nooks and crannies – quite unlike any churches we’re used to.

St Basil's Cathedral - above and below

Next stop – the Kremlin. Had to queue for ages to buy tickets. It was absolutely freezing! Louise was here 10 years ago and can’t remember it being this cold or this crowded! There are people everywhere!! It snowed while we were waiting – a lovely diversion. We (spot the stupid Australians in the queue) whiled away the minutes (hours??) collecting snowflakes on our sleeves and competing to see who caught the biggest!

Visiting the Kremlin is an awesome experience. Once through security and inside the gates you’re in another world. It’s like a city within a city, with roads leading to government buildings, lanes leading to beautiful cathedrals and soldiers on each corner who will not hesitate to blow their whistle and direct you elsewhere in no uncertain terms if you dare to stray from the tourist trail.


The Tsar Cannon - which has never been fired!

The Tsar Bell - which has never been rung! It broke while it was cooling.

Did we mention how freezing it is?? Each cathedral or museum we visited inside the Kremlin was not only a fabulous cultural experience but also a welcome point of refuge!! Sometimes we lingered just that little bit longer to admire the iconistasis.


Cathedrals inside the Kremlin

Wandered past the Bolshoi theatre on our way home to investigate the possibility of buying tickets (no luck today) and then enjoyed a nice meal (what an experience – but that’s another story!) before heading back to the hotel for a much needed sleep!

Tuesday 6th January

Our hotel is quite near a fabulous market which is renowned for its Russian souvenirs. Spent the morning deciding which chess set and matryoshka (Russian doll) sets to buy, before checking out.

Attempted to go to the Andrei Sakharov Museum (covering human rights issues). Travelled quite a long way via Metro and on foot but… it was closed! At least we think that’s what the guard was trying to tell us when we attempted to get in the apparently locked door. According to the guide book, it was meant to be open today – perhaps it’s closed for the holiday season(??). It’s Russian Orthodox Christmas tomorrow… Oh well – it was great to have a walk through some outer Moscow suburbs.

Next stop… the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum. Caught the Metro (we’re experts now!) straight to the spot. We kid you not – the queue was at least 200m long. It went down the main street and around a corner. Did we mention how freezing it is?? We decided to leave it a little while and have another go at Bolshoi tickets – and maybe some lunch!

Returned a couple of hours later – a vast improvement!! This time the queue was only about 100m long. We decided to join and before long there were heaps of people behind us.

Eventually got in and explored the museum – a lovely way to spend the afternoon – glad we made the effort.

Conquered another restaurant before making our way to the train station for our overnight journey to St Petersburg. This is really exciting!!

Eventually (after three attempts) found the right train station (there are 9 major stations in total – 3 are right beside each other – all names are in Cyrillic – aaaggghhh!!). Just as well we anticipated the challenge and allowed ourselves plenty of time.

After establishing we were in the right place and knew all platform details etc, we were enjoying a drink when we heard an Australian accent. Shared a drink with three fabulous guys – one from Australia and two from St Petersburg. They gave us heaps of tips for St P – great! Thanks, guys!

Getting some tips from Michael, Alex and Gleb

Eventually it was time to board. This journey is something we’ve both been looking forward to since we booked it – and we weren’t disappointed. If you conjure up everything you’ve ever imagined about an ‘Orient Express’ type train – this was it. Timbered cabins, fringed curtains, beautifully upholstered bunks, caviar – it was all there!! We thoroughly enjoyed the experience and slept peacefully all the way to St Petersburg.


Our train to St P!

Wednesday 7th January

Arrived at St P at about 7:30am – still dark. We haven’t been up this early since we left home!! Were able to check in to our hotel before we set off to explore our home for the next 6 days.

We walked, and walked, and walked. St Petersburg is beautiful! It’s a grand city built around a beautiful river and loads of magnificent canals (all of which are frozen!).

Phil enjoying a stroll along a frozen canal

Our main goal today was to secure tickets to as many performances at the Mariinsky Theatre as possible. We successfully achieved this by making our way to the theatre itself – a magnificent building in a beautiful location.

Had a wonderful evening at the Mariinsky – a performance of Swan Lake. To attend a performance at this theatre, which is the home of the Imperial Russian Opera and Ballet companies and has seen premieres of Tchaikovsky ballets, was an absolute treat. Can’t describe how beautiful the performance was.

Loving St P already!!

Thursday 8th January

Today was devoted to The Hermitage. Probably should say it’s the first day we devoted to The Hermitage – knowing from everything we’ve read that one day is not nearly enough to see everything this wonderful place has to offer. This is something we’ve been looking forward to for a long, long time.

The courtyard of the Hermitage

The Hermitage (the Winter Palace)

The books were right. This fabulous museum/art gallery/palace is absolutely magnificent. We spent a whole day just seeing one of the three floors. Rembrandt, Titian, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Rubens, Botticelli, Raphael, Canaletto, Murillo – you name it, it’s here. And apparently only 5-10% of the collection is on display at any one time. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate on the art because of the beautiful surroundings. The collection is displayed in the rooms occupied by the Tsars and the architecture is absolutely amazing. Neither of us has ever seen anything like it before.

The Jordan Staircase - inside The Hermitage

One of the many beautiful rooms inside The Hermitage

Stayed until closing time and then enjoyed a wonderful walk back to the hotel – it snowed all the way. Beautiful. We love it here.

Boxing Day to Hogmanay!

Boxing Day

A beautiful, clear day in Saas-Fee. We had three goals for the day.

1. Successfully negotiate the many winding paths through the village to find the beautiful stone bridge over a running stream we had seen from the gondola yesterday.

2. Go for a snow walk in the mountains.

3. Build a snowman.

We managed to do all three.

Even though it was absolutely freezing we enjoyed a lovely walk through the town (typically taking short-cuts through knee-deep snow to find our little bridge). It was as beautiful as it looked from up high.

A little further on we found a perfect place to build our snowman. The snow was so beautiful and powdery, it was hard to get it to stick - but get it to stick we did!

Meet Hugo

He's not huge - but he's the best we could do with non-waterproof gloves (Phil donated his gloves, hat and scarf to 'Hugo' anyway!).

Spent the afternoon taking a wonderful, long walk through the mountains on one of the snow-walking paths. It was lovely to have the time to actually take in the beauty of our surroundings.

Completed our day with a night-time stroll through the village.

Saas-Fee is another one that definitely goes on the 'must return' list.

Saturday 27th

Said good-bye to Saas-Fee and got back into our little car for our journey into France. Did some more driving through the magnificent alps before crossing the border and heading to the Mont Blanc ski town of Chamonix.

There is a tunnel right through Mont Blanc from France to Italy. Couldn't resist 'popping in' to Italy for a pizza! Drove through the tunnel (an experience in itself) and then for about an hour beyond to the lovely town of Aosta.

The drive from France to Italy

Once again, found ourselves driving through the middle of the old town square (much to the astonishment of the locals - don't think we were meant to do that!) and eventually found a lovely pizzeria.

The town square of Aosta - Italy

Headed back into France and continued on our way to our destination for the evening - Annecy - 'the Venice of the Alps'. What a beautiful town. Annecy sits on the shore of what is apparently the purest lake in Europe. A river flows from the lake in canal-like fashion through the old town and the buildings are literally built on the river - Venice style. Took a stroll along the river and to the lake and marvelled at how perfectly clear the water was. We've never seen anything like it. You can see straight to the bottom. Ducks can be seen perfectly clearly as they dive to the bottom of the lake for a feed.

Annecy


Louise at Lake Annecy

We really knew we were in France. Shuttered windows. Little balconies. Dozens and dozens of restaurants and cafes. We ended up in a fabulous piano bar listening to a four-piece jazz band (just locals jamming - very talented!), enjoying French wine and cheese. Louise is in heaven!!

Sunday 28th

Our morning exploration of Annecy was made all the more fun by the fact that the local produce market comes to town on a Sunday morning. Every second stall sold cheese(hooray!!!). Every other stall sold sausage. It was bustling. Stayed and wandered for quite some time.

Reluctantly left and continued on our way to our next French destination - Riquewihr in the Alsace region. After a fairly big driving day, we arrived by nightfall.

Riquewihr is a small town with a positively ancient old town centre surrounded by an intact old city wall. We're pretty clever and catch on quickly - so we decided not to drive through this old town centre!! Instead, we parked the car and walked to our hotel (pretty fast learners, hey!!?? Shame we're leaving Europe in a couple of days...!) On checking in we discovered that this is one town square you actually can drive through if you're staying inside the walls (groan!!).


Riquewihr

Spent a lovely evening exploring the old town - beautiful half-timbered buildings mostly dating from the 1500s - quite unlike anything we've seen. There were quite a few other people enjoying the sights which added to the atmosphere. Had a lovely dinner of food and wine from the local Alsace region to complete the day.

Monday 29th

Spent the morning exploring Riquewihr by daylight - beautiful. Continued on our way north towards Frankfurt where we're spending tonight in readiness for our morning flight to Edinburgh tomorrow. The drive took us through some beautiful Alsace region vineyards - quite spectacular scenery.

The Alsace region (above and below)



As we had the whole day at our disposal, we decided to take a detour through the Black Forest. At this time of the year it's more like the white forest, really beautiful under snow.

Arrived at the Frankfurt airport hotel in the evening - feeling very proud of the fact that we were so well organised and could get up in the morning and enjoy a leisurely breakfast before driving 10 minutes to the airport. We were just congratulating ourselves on the success of our European journey and the fact we'd made it without a hitch (what's driving through a few town squares between friends?). Well - we obviously should have touched wood at that point...

We're not sure why, but it was at about that minute that we both had a sudden urge to check how many airports there are in Frankfurt - call it a 'feeling' - are we staying at the right one? A quick bit of detective work (thanks, Google) and... guess what?? There's more than one airport at Frankfurt and we were staying near the wrong one!! The one we needed is about 100km away! So much for a leisurely breakfast. Had to get up an hour earlier and skip breakfast to make the flight. Oh well - we nearly made it without a hitch and our waistlines could certainly do without another continental breakfast - but it was our last one!

Tuesday 30th

Made the flight in plenty of time and arrived in Edinburgh around lunchtime. Spent the afternoon wandering along the Royal Mile - it's nice to be back! Edinburgh is very different at this time of year - all geared up for Hogmanay. The gardens are turned into a bit of a fair ground (including an outdoor ice-skating rink) and there are people everywhere - a great atmosphere!

Visited a beautiful old pub on the Royal Mile for dinner and met a great couple - Barbie and Graham from Newcastle. Had a fun couple of hours chatting - lots of laughs.

With Barbie and Graham at 'The Mitre' on the Royal Mile (go Newcastle!)

Ventured on to our next activity for the evening - a stand-up comedy venue. Can't remember when we've laughed so much! Three spectacular comediens and a very funny compere - all had us in stitches. Had a brilliant time and met another great couple - Danny and Rachael. All the best for continued succes with 'Mrs Bucket' (it's Bouquet!!) Rachael - sounds like the business is going brilliantly! Congratulations.

Getting excited - it's Hogmanay tomorrow!!

Wednesday 31st - Hogmanay

Spent the morning exploring Edinburgh Castle. There's so much to see! Museums, fabulous architecure, exhibitions, a war memorial, a beautiful chapel... we spent hours here.

Phil at Edinburgh Castle

Enjoyed an afternoon visit to the Scottish National Gallery - a really impressive collection of art from a whole range of periods (including Rubens, Titian, Rembrandt, Van Gough, Monet, etc).

And now for the purpose of our visit to Edinburgh - Hogmanay!!

We had an absolutely brilliant time! Wandered through the street party on our way to the Ceilidh in the Gardens. There was a really great atmosphere. The ceilidh was a separate ticketed event and the number of people there was perfect. The dance floor was actually the open air ice-skating rink covered with a rubber floor - a great idea. While people were packed into the area, there was still enough room to dance - and dance we did! Strip the Willow, the Dashing White Sergeant, the Gay Gordons - didn't even feel the below zero temperature (not sure if those wearing kilts would agree)! By the end of the night, we had become 'experts' and were actually teaching the steps to others! We had a really fun time and met lots of great people. At midnight there was a brilliant firework display from Edinburgh Castle - it was a real show-stopper. Had another few dances before making our way home. The ceilidh at Edinburgh's Hogmanay was certainly a great way to see in the new year.

Fireworks from the castle


Happy Hogmanay!

1st January 2009

Happy New Year!

Spent our last few hours in Edinburgh walking up the very steep hill (at the foot of the Royal Mile near Holyrood Palace) to Arthur's Seat which affords a spectacular view over Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth. Well worth the climb.

View from the walk to Arthur's Seat - Edinburgh Castle in the background

Back in London now for a couple of days - preparing for our next adventure - two weeks in Russia!

Wishing you all a very safe and happy 2009!