May 31
Helsinki to St. Petersburg
[In the morning, we ready to leave Helsinki for a high speed train ride to St. Petersburg. Kiitos, Helsinki!]
[As you’ll recall, it’s just a short walk across the square from our hotel to the train station.]
[The train schedule, we’re the 11:00 on Track 9 . . . ]
[Seems like a civilized, stress-free depot . . . ]
[Here we go, Track 9 . . . ]
[Destination Pietari (St. Petersburg) on “flight” AE784 . . . ]
[The Super went directly to the bar car for a morning beverage . . . ]
[We’re traveling at a smooth 196 kph, or 122 miles per hour. Will we ever see such in the States?]
[Watching the countryside pass by . . . ]
[Absent the bridge, very much like our Boundary Waters . . . ]
[I don’t recall the specific cities . . . ]
[But Vyborg was our first stop in Russia . . . ]
[The Super holds up the route – next stop St. Petersburg . . . ]
[But before we get to St. Petersburg, YOUR PAPERS, PLEASE!]
[Actually, they were quite nice . . . ]
Welcome to Russia
[We were greeted in St. Petersburg by Tatiana. Of course . . . Tatiana. Russian. Statuesque. Darkly alluring. Wait a sec – is this some sort of dime novel?]
[Unfortunately, Tatiana was only with us on the bus from the train station to our boat. Then she was gone. Forever. Dosvedanya, Tatiana!]
[Hi! I’m in Russia!]
[Hmmmm, shopping?]
[You can identify a statue of Lenin from miles away . . . ]
[This at the Finlyandsky (Finnish) railway station, from which we just arrived . . . ]
[I have reason to suspect this is (or was) the St. Petereburg jail . . . ]
[Generic shot of . . . a parking lot?]
[There’s lots of new construction along the banks of the Neva River – this appears to be apartments or condos. The Neva, incidentally, is the main river of St. Petersburg though it’s only 46 miles long – but it’s relatively wide and deep as it flows from Lake Ladoga to the Gulf of Finland.]
[Smolny Convent, a major landmark visible all along the Neva . . . ]
[St. Petersburg is 5 million, and growing . . . ]
[There will be several more shots of Smolny! 🙂 ]
[Not Smolny, but certainly renovation of a classic place . . . ]
[That I can’t identify . . . ]
[The buildings in St. Petersburg are usually yellow or light colored to improve the attitude of a populace usually subjected to dark or gray weather. New apartments have all sorts of exciting exterior designs . . . ]
[Peter the Great Bridge near Smolny . . . ]
[A nice day for a walk along the river . . . ]
[More building exteriors . . . ]
[Not even our guides were sure about this – best guesses, a restaurant still under construction . . . ]
[Close to the boatyard . . . ]
[And ours is in there somewhere . . . ]
[Big Obukhovsky bridge . . . ]
[Cruise boats and the Big Obukhovsky . . . ]
The cruise . . .
[And here’s our boat – Viking Akun . . . ]
[And we’re in – here’s our dining room . . . ]
[And our menu . . . ]
[And the outside the dining room, Tom checks a selection of hot beverages available 24/7, sometimes with cookies . . . ]
[There’s an option?]
[And this our room . . . ]
[Now where am I going to put these?]
[Yup, we had a balcony – usually used as a place to dry sink washed clothes . . . ]
[First food on the boat!!]
[After eats, we went out for a walk in “the neighborhood” . . . ]
[Tomorrow we will begin our assault on St. Petersburg.]
I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. ~ Woody Allen
Up Next: St. Pete
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