Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Into Russia!!

The whirlwind continues. We landed the next morning in St Petersburg, the ferry ride was very good with a very nice dinner on board and a smooth ride which didn’t provoke any sea sickness.

Not the nicest first view of St Petersburg

 Once they let us onto the car deck it was a simple process of driving round to the customs and waiting. There was only about 12 cars & bikes so our turn came quickly and the customs officials were extremely helpful in helping me fill out the necessary paperwork for the bike. 20 minutes and we were through. Apart from the girl not giving us the piece of paper to get out of the port everything was fine. She chased us to the gate and looked very sheepish as she handed the gate keeper  the necessary pass.

10 km ride through the crazy traffic was enough to get us to the hotel and even though it was so early they let us check in, gave us a big coffee then started ringing around to find insurance for the bike. By 16.00 I had the insurance and we planned the next days sightseeing around the city.

St Petersburg

The church of the spilled blood

It was cold

The Hermatage

It was bitterly cold in St Pete’s, but we rugged up and managed to walk into the main town centre and see some of the beautiful sights there. Modelled on Venice by Peter  the Great the canals and rivers intersect the city to give a wonderful calm to the place. We didn’t have the time to queue for the Hermitage Museum, but saw enough to satisfy our curiosity.

The buildings around the side of the Palace

The Venice of the North

Rural Russia is still as one might picture it. The old wooden houses line the side to the main road south to Moscow and while a lot are still occupied with some of the occupants selling fruit and preserves at the roadside to supplement their income, a lot have been left to decay and fall down. The traffic on this road is horrendous. It’s the main truck rout through from the Baltic states to Moscow. We spent the night in a small town called Torzhof and had fun trying to order something from the menu when nobody spoke any English. We ended up with a very nice meal though. The next day saw us battling the truck again and heading for Moscow while trying to organise some off road tyres for Mongolia. We arranged to meet Denis Panferov (the go to guy for tyres in Russia) at 14.30 at the hotel  About fifteen kilometres out from Moscow we ground to a halt with an hour to go before we had to meet Denis. Luckily a guy on a R1200GT came alongside and after a few hand signals and pointing at the booking.com sheet he led us into Moscow and right to the hotel. We made it with 5 minutes to spare. So to Alexander Politov a massive thank you.

 Alexander (left) and Denis a big thank you.

They say that New York is the city that never sleeps. Well I can tell you that it has a rival in Moscow, well at least in the bars below our hotel. Non stop from the time we got there until the time we left.

Red Square empty not something you see often.

St Basil's from the back

The State University

The walls of the Kremlin

The Bolshoi Theater

It took three attempts to see Red Square. The Friday night we walked down in the evening only to find that It was closed due to a concert and party for the secondary school leavers (which apparently  is a big thing here) and then the next morning we went back only to find that there was some military thing happening and it wouldn't be open until 14.00. We had to find Claire a case for her home flight so we braved the metro to go find somewhere. The Moscow metro is supposed to be the finest decorated stations in the world and although we didn't find the fanciest the ones we saw were impressive.





Finally into Red Square


Claire left on Sunday. I spent the rest of the day repacking and filling up my new found space in the panniers.

I fought the traffic out of the city on Monday morning in the rain. Not the best way to leave but everyone it seems was taking care, so that was a good thing.


Next stop Volgograd (ne Stalingrad)

Monday, June 16, 2014

The Baltic States

There’s a marked difference between the prosperity in Poland and Lithuania. As soon as you cross what used to be the border, it becomes a lot more rural, until you hit the capital of Vilnius where all the money is, and it shows, large cars, and around the hotel where we stayed, some expensive shops.

 Our Hotel

The pedestrian gate we went out of.

We stayed in an old Monastery (again) which was right in the old town and while the GPS was having fits about where we could and could not go, I ignored it and drove straight through the no entry signs to the place. I still don’t think they apply to motorcycles anyway.

Vilnius Cathedral


Like in South America this was a country a day through the Baltic the next being Riga. The high temperature we had all through Austria and Poland disappeared and the rain came too, not constant but some heavy showers that managed to soak us. We had chosen a nice hotel about 6km out from the centre on account of the fact that the centre hotel prices in Riga can rival the best in Paris or London, I kid you not! $160 for a crappy one bed room with a shared bathroom, up to $5000 for two nights in the better ones. We caught the bus into the city the next day and were pleasantly surprised at the old town centre again.

Riga Old Town

Statues of days gone by

 
Apparently St Christopher came from here



Commemoration today of the Latvians taken to the Gulags

A local brew which is supposed to be restorative. It tastes like cough medicine!!

Yesterday we started on the final leg up to Tallinn. No rain this time, in fact glorious sunshine most of the way but the temperature was only about 14 degrees and with the wind coming off the Baltic Sea it felt even colder. This hotel is only 100m from the ferry terminal and about 500m from the old town centre again. Although we were tired we made the effort to walk into town last night and we were both glad we did. I think Tallinn old town centre is the best we’ve seen yet with a lot of Medieval cobbled streets and spires. We found a nice restaurant in the centre of the old marketplace and after a good meal and a glass of red we wandered back to the hotel and flaked out.

Tallinn old town

The town hall

Time for Dinner



Originally Medieval, noice!!

 Panic this morning to find I haven’t packed the Russian maps for the GPS, so now sometime today I have to find a 2 gig SD card to put them on again while we are on the ferry tonight heading to Russia!!

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Turning north

Five days is a long time when you are on the road, especially on a trip like this one. Now where were we? Ah yes, Salzburg. We had picked a hotel that was slightly further out from the city centre and although we were going to catch the bus in we ended up walking it. Sore legs later we had a good look around the city and the castle overlooking it. My recollection of when I was there forty something years ago was the shop signs in the old town and at the time the fact that McDonald's had not been allowed to put up the golden arches because they would have looked out of place. The street is still the same and brought back good memories.


Good street art on the way into Salzburg


The Scottish restaurant sign


Mozart Platz

We took the funicular railway up to the castle and had lunch up there overlooking the town and after all that hobbled back to the hotel.







Summer has arrived early in this part of the world. The last couple of days has been up in the 30’s, and with all the rain they get at other times it make for a very humid climate. It’s been alright while we are on the move but very hot and sweaty once you stop in all the bike gear.

Next stop the Czech Republic and new territory for me in Prague. We met some old friends of Claire’s for lunch, after a short walk around the town the night before. I

My boots had arrived and after using the box to pack the bike boots, we found the main post office in town and without much fuss managed to post them back to Paris. Time will tell how long they take to arrive. Prague is a wonderful old city, and one that I would like to return to one day, maybe in the winter when there are lees people there. I thought we would beat the summer rush but apparently not, or if we did then it must be an absolute bun fight at the height of the season.









The boots have made a big difference and I can now reach the ground again which makes getting on and off a lot easier. Again time will tell once I am on my own again how easy it will all be.

I made a bit of a miss calculation with the next days ride from Prague through to Krakow. We were due to have a stop halfway but in the end we did a big 590km day. We did have a look around the old square that evening, but took the decision to get back on the bike and backtrack a short distance to visit Auschwitz. I’ve been in two minds whether I wanted to go but decided that as we were so close I would regret not going. It’s a sobering experience and not something that is undertaken lightly so I’ll just post some of the photo’s I took. We ended up cutting short the tour which was far longer than we expected. We didn’t do the second half in Birkenau, one because of the time, two because it was 32 degrees and there is no shade there (and neither of us had a hat or sunscreen) and thirdly because it was probably even more confronting than Auschwitz.














Krakow is another stunning city and well worth another longer visit. The old square is alive at night with some very good restaurants where you can eat your evening meal and do some people watching.









Not being a Vodka drinker we decided it was time I tried it. I've heard tell that the one below is the best so we got a small sample bottle. We might get another larger bottle!!



So today we have had a very nice (and hot again) ride through to Warsaw. We have got a nice little apartment with good safe underground parking and nice facilities. Time will tell if we decide to do anything this evening or if we just get some nice smoked salmon and salad and a bottle of wine and just have a rest. We are going to be on the road for another three days straight before we get to Riga and have another day off.

Glad to see the comments from people that are managing to follow the spot tracker. One or two missed end of the day messages, and it’s not that I didn’t send them it’s just that the satellite signal was lost before the could get out. I’ll try to hit the button slightly earlier.