Saorrento

Six weeks, seven countries and twelve cities later, our tour to Russia the long way round has finally drawn to a close. It has been the most incredible experience and I am very glad to say there isn’t any one thing that stands out well beyond the others, there were so many magical moments of our trip: seeing snow and wild Elk in Golden Colorado and dining out with Jon and Julie who we both had a fantastic time with; the neon extravaganza of both Las Vegas and Times Square in New York City; the climb to the observation deck of the Empire State Building; seeing Phantom of the Opera on Broadway; my first rail trip in England going out to Bristol and the Eurostar voyage to Belgium; pub crawls and luxury dining in Belgium; hiking through the snow in St Petersburg to various World War II monuments; getting up close to Soviet and German war machines and other various relics of the Cold War at a number of Museum exhibits; travelling from St Petersburg to Moscow by second class rail, with snowy landscapes out the window; cruising down the Rhine river in Frankfurt past the many vineyards, medieval styled castles and villages. These are just a few of the highlights, simply put; ‘The Long Way to Russia’ has been an EPIC adventure!

What’s next? Well this trip has wet our appetites for so much more travel; I personally would love to see a great deal more of Colorado during the ski season as well as re-visit Frankfurt and spend time touring about Germany. Things like a Route 66 road trip in the United States, a month long stay in Germany and other Euro Road trips are just some of the ideas buzzing through my head for the near future.

Of course then there are also new exotic locations such as the likes of Egypt, Antarctica and Dubai which are pretty high up on the list of new places too. So if nothing else, WATCH THIS SPACE!

The snowy haul to Moscow
If you haven’t already realized by now dear reader snow is something that I am easily excited about. Having seen snow only once (in my life) for a week whilst skiing in Australia before this trip, I have now seen it multiple times in different countries and it is fantastic. Unlike the locals I am not as yet put off by the slushiness occurrence that happens after snowing, it is still rather magical to me.

We are currently travelling by train from St Petersburg to Moscow, and the outside view for lack of a better word is spectacular; we have passed a number of snow lined forests, villages and streets buried in snow with dim light glowing from the windows and smoke pouring from the chimneys, it is incredible to see.

The railway yard leaving St Petersburg was also rather extensive, it seemed to take forever to finally leave the compound, passing various war torn buildings and rail lines and engines that had long since been discontinued.

I am eagerly looking forward to Moscow, but I have been warned that it is a lot different to St Petersburg. For one, the population is incredibly larger, and that alone produces its own problems. Law enforcement is a lot more strict; in the metro stations random passport checks are done on both tourists and locals (yes, Russians have both domestic and international passports), and in earlier reported cases, most dating back to 2004 some police officers would for no reason confiscate a tourist passport expecting the tourist to pay a bribe to have it back. In addition, pick pocketing in metro areas and around various tourist attractions is also a high risk.

As an initiation to Moscow we have arranged an ‘on foot’ tour in the morning to introduce us to the metro system (and hopefully purchase a week long ticket) and various other parts of Moscow. Two hours after that tour we start a night tour which is a more generalized city tour. The photographer in me whom especially likes to take night photos will be seizing this opportunity (with a Russian speaking guide) to do so, as I am not yet too sure just how much roaming the streets at night I want to do in Moscow, let alone with a camera and a tripod – it couldn’t be more obvious that I was a tourist even if I had a flashing neon sign saying so in Russian.

Aside from having to be a bit more travel conscious, which we initially treated St Petersburg with also, I am looking forward to a new landscape, new tours and a different perspective on historical significance. I will however miss the extreme low minimums and maximums that St Petersburg had on a daily basis, Moscow from the looks of the forecast is a lot warmer, with a maximum of around 14 degrees and a minimum of 6. I’d say there was a very slim chance of us seeing snow in Moscow.

The capture of Leningrad was one of three strategic goals in Hitler’s initial plan, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, for invading and conquering the Soviet Union. Hitler’s strategy was motivated by Leningrad’s political status as the former capital of Russia and the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution, its military importance as a main base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet and its industrial strength, housing numerous arms factories.

The Siege of Leningrad, also known as The Leningrad Blockade was an unsuccessful military operation by the Axis powers to capture Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) during World War II. The siege started at 8 September 1941, when the last land connection to the city was severed. Although Soviets managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city at 18 January 1943, the total lifting of the siege happened at 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest and most destructive sieges of major cities in modern history and it was the third most costly in terms of casualties.

The 872 days of the siege caused unparalleled famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more, mainly women and children, many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment.

The siege continued until January 27, 1944, when the Soviet Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive expelled German forces from the southern outskirts of the city. In the summer of 1944, the Finns were pushed back to the other side of the Bay of Vyborg and the Vuoksi River.

On October 29, 1966 a monument to the Road of Life was erected. Entitled ‘Broken Ring,’ this monument pays tribute to the many lives broken by the blockade.

Daily forecast: Max 3 degrees, Min 0 degrees

The amount of walking the day before in the near zero degrees had started to pay its toll, Michelle and I were less than energetic to get out of bed for what was to be our last guided tour in St Petersburg; exploring Yusupov‘s Palace. Finally, after summoning what little motivation we had left we made it down stairs into the lobby where our tour guide was already waiting for us.

“I hope you brought your umbrella!” she said greeting us, both Michelle and I looked blankly back at her, still waking up, and our bodies not eager to return outside into the cold.

I then recalled the forecast that I read from the night before; maximum of three degrees, and a minimum of zero with a chance of showers.

She then continued “It has been snowing all morning”.

Hearing those very words I suddenly snapped out of my fatigued phase and my face lit right up. We then proceeded out to the street where our driver was waiting. Opening A gentle gust of snow filled breeze blew into our faces greeting us as we exited through the hotel doors.

Our guide ran straight ahead to get into the car as if trying to evade a torrential down pour of heavy rain, but it wasn’t, it was snow! From her eyes and those of any local bystander we must of looked ridiculous, we were in complete awe, observing everything the snow had touched, taking photos of each other and of the canal in front of us. Eventually we made it to the car and began our tour.

Almost every word from start to end of the tour was white noise for me; I was too captivated by the view outside. The entire cityscape seemed to transform, what was a cold dull-looking post Soviet city (which despite the gloomy description I loved) was now a white, almost happier looking city (which I loved even more). There was no doubt about it, St Petersburg was built for the snow, and everything about it took on a happier transformation. I couldn’t help to think how fortunate we were, although various internet sources reported that the first snow for Russia is usually expected by mid October (hence my insistence on touring Russia at the end of our trip), our travel guide a few days ago dimmed that hope saying that it usually doesn’t snow until January/February.

We arrived at Yusupov‘s Palace, located across from the grand bay that cut through the very heart of St Petersburg. Entering the palace I glanced back over my shoulder taking in one final look of the snow falling outside as it was more than likely the snow would of melted away by the time our four hour tour was completed.

The palace itself was very impressive, each room carefully restored back to its original glory – the palace boasted a number of drawing rooms and lounge areas, each decorated in a unique colour scheme, usually a blue, red, yellow and green room. The floors were paved with only the highest quality marble and wood finishing’s, the plaster work on the ceilings easily rivaled those of European castles I had previously seen.

Interestingly though, more important than the value of a material was the perceived value of the end result. Although there were a number of extremely intricate designs that boasted genuine gold and genuine oak materials, there were equally a number of design features mimicking particular materials which ultimately were more expensive to produce than their genuine counterpart. Examples of this were the marble pillars in one of the guest lounges; the room although square in design had pillars placed in a circular fashion giving the room a cylindrical illusion. The marble pillars, almost sky-blue in colour were in reality nothing more than the result of an acrylic process. Although they looked real, they clearly were not as the colour was not a natural marble colour. Yet, despite the fact that the pillars are fake, they are worth more than if they were cut out of genuine marble. Another example being the wood carvings; a lot of the embossed carvings in the wood were in fact simply plaster mouldings stained to look like oak and then glued onto the wooden piece, be it a door or wall feature. Value didn’t seem to be a case of what materials were used rather what the end result looked like. Similarly the chandeliers, although a fair few of them were genuine gold and crystal, a number of ‘gold looking’ ones were in fact nothing more than paper mache painted gold.

No matter how incredible each room we passed through looked I always gave glance to the windows first determining whether or not it was still snowing. I felt like a kid on excursion waiting for the recess siren to sound so I could go out and kick a footy. The only difference was I was paying for this class.

Class ended two hours earlier than expected, partially because being the start of the off season the palace wasn’t nearly as busy as what it usually was so we had no waiting times to enter the individual rooms and partially (not from our guides lack of asking), we (especially me) simply had no questions for her.

We collected our coats from the dry room and started pondering what we should do now. Michelle suggested visiting the statue of Lenin that we had passed in the transport that picked us up from the airport the day we arrived. Fortunately, although a good thirty minutes out of St Petersburg, both our driver and guide take that direction home, so we went along for the drive as far as the statue of Lenin, less than a couple of kilometers from the Broken Ring monument where the 1941 Leningrad Blockade took place.

The three of us parted company with our driver, our guide supervising our metro ticket purchase back to St Petersburg central before leaving us in the wilderness and then we were on our own. We raced back upstairs from the metro underground to street level which had a good few centimeters of snow on the paths with it still snowing and headed straight for the Lenin monument. It is funny to imagine that less than six months earlier we were in the tropical heat of Vietnam taking vodka shots from a water bottle in front of a Lenin statue we found and now, in the midst of a Siberian snowfall, in front of a larger than life statue of Lenin in RUSSIA. Unfortunately this time we didn’t have any vodka, more so to just keep ourselves warm than to toast Lenin. For reasons I have yet to fathom, the Vodka here is a lot smoother to drink than the crushed-ants-tasting spirit we are familiar with in Australia.

After sliding about in the snow, taking numerous amounts of photos and pegging snow-balls at each other in less than zero degree weather, whilst snowing, we began walking towards a obelisk looking structure in the distance, which our guide had informed us was the Broken Ring monument.

The Broken Ring monument was massive. It was the center feature of an even larger multi-lane roundabout, clearly marking the entrance into St Petersburg. Beyond the monument looking outward away from St Petes was a vast landscape of snowcapped trees and valleys. In August 1941, some 68 years earlier, all railway lines to Leningrad had been severed, and the city was encircled on land by Finnish armies to the north pressing onto the very spot we stood and German troops to the south attempting to invade through Stalingrad.

None of this, neither the Lenin statue nor the Broken Ring monument would have looked anywhere as impressive without the snow blasting the statues from the side as it currently was. We wandered around for probably close to an hour before realizing that we were slowly losing sensation in our feet and in our hands. Stopping at a pizza hut store on the way back to the metro we warmed ourselves back up both agreeing that this experience bet all three guided tours hands down. This was the real Russia both of us had been looking for.

Colorado has been amazing, and continuing with the American spirit we have experienced thus far, the people have been really friendly too.

We arrived in Denver Colorado at 5.25pm, almost three hours later than we were initially scheduled for. Although it may not sound too much a lot happened in that time; for one, what was a sunny afternoon three hours earlier had begun to fade into the night, and secondly a front was coming in, which meant the one full day we had in Golden Colorado will probably be a miserable one.

We were picked up from the airport by Jon, a work colleague I befriended last year in Sydney and his wife Julie. They proceeded to check us into our accommodation before inviting us to join them for some dinner at a local steak house. The four of us hit it off right away and we had a fantastic time just exchanging stories and getting to know one another, they really are a great couple.

The next day after being somewhat well rested (as much as one can be from a late flight, a later dinner and three episodes of back to back Criminal Minds) I headed out to visit Epilog and take a gander of their factory where they engineer and assemble some of my favorite office toys.

Golden has so much to offer its community, and many work forces recognize this by extending the lunch break so workers can enjoy the great outdoors that Golden has to offer. On a clear day Golden offers anything from hiking, fishing, mountain bike riding, photography, on a winter’s day, there is skiing and even more photography. Golden also caters for hunting, long interesting Sunday drives into the mountains and even gold panning (though this is mainly a tourist thing). After all that, why not stop at the Coors Brewery for a free beer or three? Yes, FREE! Oh, did I also mention this is the largest brewery in the world?

Right now every bone in my body is saying ‘move to Golden’, and perhaps I am jumping the gun on that a little – there are a couple of down sides, though none to do with the county itself, moreso the country. For instance, 2 weeks annual leave a year! I am still trying to figure out how I managed to score 8 weeks annual leave this year, there is no way I could go from 4 to 2. At the very least though, Golden has just skyrocketed up my list of destinations; return perhaps a week earlier next year and hire a car and spend a week around Golden; take day trips to Aspen and South Park. Hire a bike and go riding through some of the most majestic scenery I thought only existed in Europe, and then when the snow comes in, trade the bike for skis.

The day started cold and damp with heavy cold drops in the streets of Golden, little did we know however that as it was raining in the Valley, the alpine trees on the mountain side were getting laced with fresh powdery snow! Around midday we headed for lunch at the Red Rock Amphitheatre / Café well over 6000 feet above sea level. The view was phenomenal – the mountain range extended as far as the eye could see, from the base of the escarpment the vegetation changed from red rock formations to green alpine and then further above that a white snow line running across the mountain side, and everything above that was snow.
Shortly after that we headed up into the mountains. The rain was coming down quite heavy at that stage and it was almost as if we were driving into the storm. The rain pelted onto the wind screen with quite a bit of noise, then all of a sudden the noise was gone – the rain drops had morphed, dancing across the bonnet and wind screen in the form of snowflakes. You have to understand, the day before we were in Phoenix in high 40’s heat, on the evening of our arrival into Golden it was still at least 28 with clear skies, in the morning raining, and now snowing – four seasons within a 20 minute drive – Fantastic!

After spending some time just wandering in the snow and poorly dodging the snow balls my girlfriend was pegging at me we headed back down into the valley of Golden, but not before coming across some giant Elk.
We pulled the car up on a private drive way to get a closer look at these massive creatures, as the lay in the snow. I took a few photos from the car with the window down before stepping out to take a closer look nearly tripping over Michelle in the process whom by that time was crouched down beside my door more interested in handling the snow rather than photographic these majestic creatures.

The vegetation continued to change as we drove back down towards Golden, changing from its white frosting appearance to almost autumn one of light greens and oranges. We then made our way to the Coor’s Brewery for free beer from only the largest beer brewery in the world. I mentioned it was free didn’t I? Oh well, it’s worth mentioning twice, three times at least.

Finally the day ended with a Mexican meal with our new found friends at a very authentic Mexican eatery – the food was spicy and served to us by a real Mexican!

We both had a fantastic time in Golden, it seems to be the central hub for everything related to outdoor activity. You really do feel alive – or perhaps it’s the high altitude making me feel high.

Next stop New York City! The Big Apple.