Day 10

This morning we left the hotel at 9.10 AM, heading for the palaces and gardens of Peterhof, about 15 miles southwest of Saint Petersburg.

Day 9

We breakfasted at 9.05 AM, looking for potential beetrooters.  Because our two week tour was actually two one week tours, today we’d be getting some new people.  Very exciting.  There didn’t seem to be anyone in the restaurant who looked like a likely candidate, and at 10 when we saw Sasha in the lobby he explained that the newcomers would join the group on the walking tour which Rob and I had done yesterday.  We turned up just long enough to meet the new guys and hitch a ride with them into the city.  There was Charlie, a single brummie in his fifties on a world tour.  Mike And Julia were a middle aged couple from New Zealand, also on a world tour.  Finally there was a trio of flat sharers Matt, Simone and Tanya, also from New Zealand and in their late twenties.

Day 8

On the morning of our first full day in saint Petersburg, we had reached the halfway point of our trip.  Breakfast

was good – we met Sasha, and collected our passports, then did some laundry before we left the hotel.

The metro was busy as we fought our way on, and then took a trolley bus into the centre of town.  This was Sasha’s