St Petersburg

After 1,000km of cycling from Stockholm we finally arrived in St Petersburg.

 

Once in St Petersburg, you are once again in modern Europe .  It is like stepping out of the past into the present.  There are not so many Ladas and you can buy whatever you want in the shops.

 

We loved this city.  It has an grand feeling because of the large buildings, wide avenues and canals.  At 32 degrees celsius, it was the hottest August St Petersburg has had in a long time and all the girls were out in their summer clothing which meant lots of miniskirts and hot pants parading the streets.

 

 

Since leaving Brussels, Robert had been reading a book about the “ Amber Room ”, a room entirely made of amber, which was stolen from Catherine’s Palace by the Nazis during WWII.  The Amber Room was fabled as the eighth wonder of the world.  Now that we were finally in St Petersburg, Robert couldn’t wait to go and see the reconstructed Amber Room that was only completed a few years ago at enormous expense to the Russian government.

 

 

Catherine’s Palace was no disappointment as it is absolutely stunning on a scale that rivals Versailles but the Amber room turned out to be, unfortunately, possibly the ugliest room in the palace.  It is a bit like one of those pictures made of sea shells that tourists buy.  In a word “Kitch”…but that is just my opinion.

 

We celebrated Charlie’s mum’s 60th birthday with a trip to a grand theatre show of Russian folk music and dancing before heading back to Finland.

 

Russia

We crossed the border into Russia with a small amount of nervousness.  For months now people had been scaring us with stories about how wild and lawless the Russian countryside is.  Apparently our visas were in order because the actual border crossing produced no dramas.  In fact, we had nothing but good experiences in Russia. Our hearts sank when the police in their sooped-up Lada pulled us over…..but they just wanted to help us with directions.

 

 

Once into the countryside, it was obvious that Russia is the poor cousin of the region.  Most houses are all run down, entire apartment blocks and factories are deserted, fields are uncultivated and lawns look like they have never seen a lawn mower. 

  

It is difficult to see how people earn a living because we saw no signs of economy other than an occasional shop.  Many towns that we passed through did not even appear to have a shop (although we can’t be certain of that because shops were almost impossible to identify due to their complete lack of signage combined with the fact that we can’t read Russian).  Thank goodness for Coca-Cola marketing.

 

We found no campgrounds outside of St Petersburg and so we set up camp wherever we could find a quiet spot (such as a war memorial park or a beach).  Water was quite an issue since sometimes even the local people didn’t have running water.  Very third world.

Estonian Surf Adventure

In my latest quest to find the best of the massive European swells I dragged Charlie to Surf Paradiis located on the most western point of Estonia. My trusty Lonely Planet guide had advised me that here was the only spot on the Baltic where you can catch ridable waves.

It took us one day of bus riding from Estonia followed by a 60km cycle along dirt tracks through the forest to get to this remote location.

I figured that I would be able to get a good position in the line up.

It can’t be as crowded here as in Bali.

My excitment builds as I near my destination.

Oh! The promise of big waves has my heart beating.

You guessed it.

The girl at the campground had the hide to say “You should have been here yesterday”.

Hmmm.

Estonia

We caught the Ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn (Estonia’s capital) which has got to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The new part of town is quite clean and modern and the old part is like stepping into a medieval fairy tale.

Turreted town walls, cute old buildings all painted bright colours and a multitude of bars, cafes and restaurants make this place a delight for the traveler. Add to that the fact that the local girls seem to be genetically superior to the rest of Europe and you’ve pretty much got heaven.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving Tallinn, we followed the national cycle route, #1, east along the coast towards Russia . The signposting was so good at times that we would get lulled into thinking that we didn’t need a map. Then all of a sudden, a route sign would point us down a dead end road or into an industrial estate where we would get hopelessly lost and then spend the next hour or two trying to find our way out. When you have cycled for 10 kms down a rough dirt road, its hard to convince yourself to retrace your steps to the last sign that you saw. This only happened three times though so we can’t really complain.

The Estonian countryside is very similar to Finland. Patches of forest in between wheat, barley and oat fields. The only difference is that not all of the lawns are mowed and houses are unpainted, although this seems to be changing fast with every second old building looking like it is currently undergoing renovation.

This 16^th century castle has just undergone a facelift.