Russia

Sadly a week has already past and today we fly to our next destination but what a fun filled enjoyable week it has been!

We are flying to Ulan-Ude in Siberia this afternoon so first job of the morning was to pack our bags and get ready to leave the apartment later today. We had done some washing yesterday so it was nice to have a clean suitcase of clothes again.

We were kind of retracing yesterday’s steps and going to the Faberge Museum which we’d missed. We stopped for breakfast at the coffee house we’d first breakfasted at before continuing our walk to the museum. It was such a gorgeous day today - the weather was sublime! It was very pleasant walking along the channel in the sunshine. There was no more ice now - it had all completely melted.

It wasn’t a huge museum - there was one room with the Faberge eggs and a couple of other rooms with various gold and silver pieces. Most of the eggs on display had been commissioned by the royal family. We had audio guides and it was really interesting to find out the story behind each egg. They really are a work of art. When the Bolsheviks took over I think Faberge escaped and the company was disbanded.

I liked the detail on the one with all the miniature portraits over it - they look almost like photographs! I don’t know how someone can paint something so small with so much detail! Some of the eggs were present given by Tsar Nicholas to his wife or mother, one was to commemorate the coronation etc. Eli had been really looking forward to this and said it was a highlight for him.

We then had a long trek back to St Isaac’s Cathedral. We stopped at a massive book shop / souvenir shop / stationery shop on the way. Eli and Kyria bought a few books and I bought some St Petersburg mugs.

Michael and Kyria took Heidi to the playground while Eli and I made the climb up St Isaac’s Cathedral for the view - all 200 steps worth. I think I only just made it!! It was a fantastic view over the city.

We met Michael and Kyria back at the playground which had since dried up completely, no more slush! Heidi looked like she was having a ball.

We had to leave the apartment about 3pm to get to the airport - it was a bit of a rush getting the last minute things packed (I just remembered I left my chocolate cow in the fridge 😩). The lady came to lock up behind us and we had arranged for a taxi to meet us out the front. Funnily enough it was the same guy that had dropped us off!

He had quite a nice car and was getting annoyed at Heidi who kept putting her feet on the back of his seat. I spent the rest of the trip trying to keep her feet off 😬 once we arrived at the airport and we were all out he was in there cleaning his seat! So like Dad 😂

We were travelling with a relatively budget airline to Ulan-Ude and they appeared to be very strict with carry on luggage size. They had a very small box that it had to fit into with the lid shut and they were making everyone put their hand luggage in and sometimes taking pictures. As there were quite a few of us we managed to get through without them checking our had luggage as we didn’t think Kyria or possibly Michaels would pass. They took soo long to book us on. Then we had to combine the backpack with Heidi’s bag otherwise we would have had to pay for an extra bag even though Heidi’s was way under limit. So with all that we escaped carry on check. Then we had about 2 or 3 security checks we had to go through! They’re pretty high on security here - I even got frisked as I think they didn’t want to put me through the full body scan machines they had going!

Then we didn’t even have seats together - we were all sitting separately, except for me and Heidi. Kyria, Heidi and I went on a different bus to the plane as we were at a different end of the plane. Heidi hadn’t had a sleep and she wailed for most of the first half hour. She fell asleep eating pringles and then woke up for the way down and was going to start wailing again until I offered her more pringles (I was getting desperate). People were giving me looks and it didn’t help that eli was sitting at the other end of the plane. It was not a pleasant flight to Moscow.Read more