COUNTRYSIDE, CATHEDRALS, CHURCHES, CASTLES, CELTIC CROSSES, COWS

Well our trip in Ireland is coming to an end tomorrow, we fly to London. But the title sums up our visit here. We have been so fortunate and enjoyed Ireland with mostly clear blue skies. The people are very hospitable and there are no signs of road rage, just the opposite. We have been down many backroads, dodging the sheep, pigs, cows, tractors and horses. Travelling 100kph on a road that one car should only fit on, with hedges on either side. Suddenly there is a large truck coming your way certainly makes us appreciate taking out all the insurance we did on our car rental. Alan has done a super job of driving. We have managed to put not a scratch on, but with our luck and history of windshields we did pick up a rock on the motorway yesterday and now have a chip.

Being out of tourist sesson has allowed us the convenience of finding great accommodation without too much planning. Also the sites we have visited are not crowded, in fact sometimes we are the only ones there.

Flying to my nephew's in London tomorrow afternoon. We will certainly enjoy his family and seeing Hannah (5) and Ethan (3).

Typical Day of being a Tourist

Road Trip

Irish countryside.

Cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland, looking out to the Atlantic Ocean.

Dublin Ireland

We arrived in Dublin Sunday night. So nice to hear English. Life seems so easy. Dublin has only 1.5 million people, we are enjoying less crowded conditions. Irish are so helpful and very happy lot, must be all the Guinness. Yes we did the tour of the Guinness Plant. Lots of walking around Dublin and seeing the sites. We did the Literacy Pub Crawl last night. The buildings seem to lack something after visiting the Palaces and Cathedrals in Russia.

The photo is of a bronze statue on the street in Dublin, it is of Molly Malone selling cockles and mussels alive alive o.

Back to the airport this morning and picked up our DIESEL Ford Focus, so Alan is happy, didn't take him long to get used to driving on the left side.

We are presently in Westport on the west coast of Ireland just north of Galway.

Moscow Metro

The metro has mosaics, chandeliers and sculptures.

Red Square

inside the GUM department store, you would need to have a Tzars income to shop

Moscow

Russisan Quick Step

Military Parade on the centre square of the Kremlin

The BALLS of the Kremlin

Kremlin Wall and Tower

St Basil's Cathedral Red Square

Glorious clear day. This cathedral is something out of Disneyland. Built by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century.

Moscow

We arrived in Moscow by bus as we departed the ship in the fog. Not too much to complain about as the weather is so crisp and clear when the fog burns off the river. But to keep on our schedule of Moscow city tour they departed us early at the side of a lock over train tracks and dodging a busy highway.

Moscow is a city of 12 million people and 9 million cars. The traffic is worse than our trip to Calcutta. The pollution is not as bad but the traffic sits in gridlock.
We both prefer St. Petersburg for simple beauty. Kremlin was special yesterday as we had a military parade complete with horses, twirling rifles, and shooting rifles. Was like a firing squad and then they pointed the rifles in the air. A bit unerving as we remember the Soviet Era.
Red Square means beautiful square and of course St. Basil's Cathedral is located there. I think we took 100 photos.
We still can't understand how there is so many BMW, JAguar, Mercerdes Benz, and modern cars on the roads. People are dressed very stylish but their wages are low and real estate is very expensive and the interest rate is @20%....I think the mafia is alive and well here.

Volga-Baltic Waterway

Cruising down the Volga River we are treated to such incredible sites.

Kizhi UNESCO Heritage Site

Lake Ladoga and Svir River

Leaving St. Petersburg we entered into the water system that connects to Moscow. Lake Ladoga, Europe's largest lake, lies in Northern Russia near the Finnish border. It is ice free only 6 months of the year. We visited a quaint Russian village called Mandrogy, it had cobble stoned streets and unique architecture. It is a village made for tourism with craftsmen showing their crafts. Very interesting. and of course lots of Handmade Russian Crafts to buy......... We continue our cruise along the 139 mile Svir River into Lake Onedga.

Lake Onega has 1650 islands and 59 rivers entering into the lake. It contains over 40 species of fish. We docked at Kizhi our northerly most point. There we visited the most ancient habitated sites in Russia, today it is an open air architectural museum and a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Transfiguration Church is built completely of wood without a singel nail and boasting 22 timbered onion domes. It was a pleasant day and the guide commented how warm it was because of no wind. (4'C).

Our next stop was Goritzy after passing through several more locks, 18 in total from St Petersburg to Moscow. In Gortizy we visited the Kirillov-Belozersky Monastery founded in 1397. Set on the lake shore of Lake Siverskoye this is a beautiful site especially since we have clear skies.

As we cruise down the river we are treated to mile after mile of orange, yellow, and red colours of the trees changing and then there is another church with onion domed steeples.

Yaroslavl was our next port of call, it is one of the golden Ring cities. It just celebrated its 1000 year anniversary so the city was it fine display. We visited another Greek Orthodox Church that was founded in the 11th century by Prince Yaroslal. The city is 18 miles on both banks of the Volga River. It has a population of 600,000 people.

During our down time we have Russian History and Russian Language lessons.

Today we had to sit in the middle of the river for several hours as the fog was too thick for us to continue, Russian regulation. We were treated to spectacular scenery when it lifted. Uglich a small town on the Volga was our next stop. We took a walking tour. The town dates back to Ivan the Terrible, 1148. Great shopping.

Well I think I have caught up, just too busy taking photos and enjoying the scenery.

Better Internet, some Photos

Too Busy

Life is too busy.... we are having a grand time. Thursday we visited Catherine's Palace at Pushkin. The park and palace is an exquisite monument of Russian art and culture with a worldwide reputation. This was the summer home of the Russian Tzars. It is a fantastic splendour of the most magnificent and richest residence in Europe. It was built between 1744 and 1756, for Catherine I by Peter the Great.

We had a city tour of St. Petersburg so we feel we have a good sense of what this city has. The city is spread over 42 islands interlaced with close to 70 canals and rivers spanned by 300 briddges. Referred to Venice of the North. It lies in the same latitude as Alaska, yet its winter climate remains milder due to warming Altantic air masses crossing the Baltic Sea. The city boasts 200 stunning palaces in Baroque and neo-classical styles. The popluation is 5 million and they have 2 million cars. We certainly seen lots of them, in the deadlocks of traffic.

Friday October 1.

We took our private tour that we had arranged before leaving Canada. We visited Peterhof Palace. Peter the Great had a cabin 29km west of St. Pete. on the Gulf of Finland to oversee construction of his naval base. He liked it so much there that he built a whole series of palaces. This Russian Versailles has spectacular water fountains that were built over 300 years ago and engineered by water pressure from an under ground lake above the palace. At 1100 in the morning the fountain is turned on with great grandeur of music and water cascading over the gold leaf statues.
We then boarded a hydrofoil for a 30 minute down the Gulf of Finaland to the centre of St. Petersburg. We then toured the inside of St. Issacs Cathedral. The 3rd largest cathedral in the world but the most expensive to build due to its rare marble pillars and icons. Words can not decribe it just leaves you standing with your mouth open.
From there we went to Yussupov Palace located in the heart of the city on the Moika River. Built in the 19th century it was one of the richest palaces in the city. Queen Elizabeth declared it to be include in the top 10 Palace in the world. The palace is famous also for the scene of the murder of Rasputin in 1916.
Our last stop was the Church of the Spilled Blood or Ressurection Church. This is a mosaic wonderland both inside and out.

We had a full day. Our ship left the dock at 7pm and we sailed into the Neva River to Lake Ladoga. The staff of the boat had balloons they released off the back as we sailed away playing the national Russian Anthem.