Into Russia

Ford Focus Rusky style!
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We arrived by overnight train from Riga on Friday morning having passed through immigration at one in the morning on a darkened train in the middle of nowhere, it felt just like a John Le'Carre novel!  And they let us in, all that hard work with the visas paid off!

The city it great, laid out on a grand scale, very different to Vilnus and Riga.  We spent yesterday at the Hermitage, the largest museum in the world, and despite having to queue for over two hours to get in, it was unbelievable.  It's a huge art gallery in the old Tsar's winter palace and the interior decoration is just as impressive as the art.  Huge marble rooms with gold everything, very bling and very Russian.  The art wasn't bad either...

St Isaacs cathedral - funnily enough also very bling inside.
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We've spent today wondering around in the sunshine, its nearly 30 degrees outside and very humid, but there's plenty of opportunity for drinking cold russian beer by the cannals.

Clare added:

I love Russian weddings - Russian wedding parties are having their photo's taken at every St P landmark.  I particularly like their stretch Hummers - bright pink obviously....

But my feet really ache - how big is this city???