Day of culture - Hermitage

The first Thursday of every month the Hermitage has free entry, but you still have to do the compulsory one hour kewing. We had done our research with the help of Lonely Planet so we had a plan. The place is grand, 1000 + rooms. The extensive use of marble, gold and chandeliers makes each room beautiful for its architecture as well as the amazing exhibits which include most of the world's great.

This chandelier would easily span 2 m in diameter.

St petersburg

We have one had a few days in this beautiful city and are starting to get our bearings. We are in an apartment very close to all historical sites.
Arriving at the place was like one would imagine from the old Soviet era.  Four keys to get in, two metal doors to get into the common stairwell, one normal door to get into the hallway and one final padded door to get into the apartment.

Entry to our apartment. A bit on the grungy side.

Don on the rooftop tour.

Lovely summer weather here with 20 hours of daylight, so you gotta have some fluid intake to sustain the pace. Sue and Bruce don't seem to mind the local drop.

Anyhow, inside the apartment it is really nice, so we are happy. Last night we did a rooftop tour of the town. Very interesting to walk on top of theses old apartment houses. We learned a lot .The  apartments were divided up be rented out as single rooms, so what used to be hallway for one apartment became vestibule for several, all consisting of one room, hence padded doors. 

All said about that. Being on top of these old roofs was very exciting . We had 2young guides who afterwards took us to a "secret" (=illegal) Chinese restaurant. Very grunge and dirt cheap so but a nice finale to our tour.

St Perertsburg to Gothenburg

So we are taking our bikes again and flying into a city, this time St Petersburg, to then ride to Gothenburg . Should be around 1400km if we follow our intended route.

We seem to have more "stuff"than earlier trips, so it was no surprise when the bike boxes were "a bit over" : 23.5 and 25.5, but the friendly staff at BA said nothing. Still a relief to get the check in done and putting them in the oversized luggage section.