2014 Day32 (London to St Petersburg)

First impressions of St Petersburg??? - HUGE, very cold, grey, speed limits do NOT apply.

First though, we had to get here, which involved the alarm going off at 5.00am which we are definitely NOTused to! A 15MIN walk in the dark/drizzle up to Victoria station where finding the underground section proved the first hurdle, but once we'd successfully negotiated the numerous stairs to the "District line"  a train came along in the expected 5 minutes and we were on our way - changed to the "Heathrow" train at Hammersmith (aren't we getting just so clever??) and arrived at Heathrow T5 right on 7 as hoped. Checked in, had a lovely muesli, juice and coffee at the "Giraffe" cafe by which time it was departure lounge time and we loaded right on time for  9.20 departure.

Weather cleared up as we headed East over North Sea, Demark Sweden, and into St Petersburg half an hour ahead of time (tail wind). Totally different landscape coming in -  dull green and lots of forest. As the aircraft approached the taxi-ways, out came a car with flashing lights and escorted it to a stand-by where the Captain advised us that as we were early, we had to wait for a plane to vacate the bridge before we could proceed. After 15 mins, little car arrived again to "guide" the aircraft in to the bridge, helped by a "paddleman" - haven't seeen one of those in years!

Airport terminal is large and grey (literally) and interesting lining up for passport checks - unlike all others we've encountered, each officer sits in a little cubicle which has smoked glass so you can't see her fom the line - you stand at the red line and wait fo a green light to show and then walk into the cubicle space with a mirror behind you and then you hand over the passport to a very severe looking lady who types an amazing amount of stuff into her computer, looks you up and down and uses a lot of stamps.

We were met by the transfer driver and it took almost an hour to get into the hotel along very wide streets with tram space in the middle and VERY quick - didn't see any speed limit signs and if there were, no-one was taking any notice!

So we've been here a couple of hours, taken a walk allong the river walk, entered a Russian Orthodox church nearby where there was a service of some sort going on - very intereting, with magnificent singing by the numerous  (unseen) priests involved while the people stood in a large open space. At one stage the lights were brightened, a door opened so you could see the priests and the music became quite beautiful harmonies. Then the door closed, the lights dimmed and it was back to chanting!

Had dinner tonight at the hotel restaurant - actually very good - I was very happy to be reminded that beef stroganoff is of course a traditional russian meal so I enjoyed the best stroganoff I've ever tasted and Elizabeth enjoyed a grilled trout - both followed with profitteroles (traditional Russian???)

So the next three days will be spent in this aleady obviously incredible city - should be fun!

Trivia: back to London for a moment - when the opened their "millenium" pedestrian bridge in 2000, it wobbled so much on the first day of use that they had to close it immediately - they then had to spend another 7 million pounds to "de-wobblify" it!

Cap report: The woollen Welsh cap is back in use!!!  This place is VERY cold.