Sun19Jun16: Hop-on, Hop-off Tour Bus

Getting up is a bit easier each morning, but the breakfast is just the same stuff - this might get monotonous in a while, but at least there are several selections.  Skies are starting to cloud over as the morning progresses and its getting cooler as we walk down to the Petrogradskaya Metro station.  Up the escalators at Nevskiy Prospekt, liberate 5,000p (CDN$100) from an ATM, then purchase two tickets on the City Tours double-decker hop-on hop-off bus for 700p each.

  Logic suggests that a tour bus will be faster in light Sunday traffic, but what actually happens is that the driver gets to each stop faster and stays there longer in order to keep on his regular schedule.   Eastward to the round-about at Moskovskiy Railway Station, then westward across town, bridges across Vasilevskiy Island and the Neva River and Petrogradskaya Island, the hopped off at Hare Island for lunch and a pit stop.,

That Burger King was full of young trainees so service was friendly and fast, but most important the toilets were clean.  The clouds now began spitting, which turned into light rain and the wind picked up to make it quite cool and damp all afternoon.

 On the return circuit we stopped at the Rostral Columns on the spit, and then into the Zoological Museum for the collection of taxidermy wildlife which included several mammoth skeletons.

 Across the Neva again and we hopped off at the statue of Nicholas I, to visit the cavernous St. Isaacs`s Cathedral, and then the open-air Bronze Horseman statue dedicated to Peter I ( a.k.a. Peter the Great) and Catherine II (a.k.a. Kathryn the Great).  Our Kathy snapped pictures of a wedding party drinking champagne after their photo event, and two actors in 17th century period costume.

 

  Amazing how time flies when you`re on a slow bus and checking out so many sights, but it`s already 6pm and time for supper.  Kathy buys the drinking water, Dave takes care of liberating the Mariposa Malbec 2014 on our walk home from the Metro.  Another supper at our hotel restaurant, cheap and filling, but the food is so bland that table-top pepper just isn`t near enough seasoning.  Another late evening of writing the blog, editing photos, and watch a Euro2016 football match on television.
        

Sat18Jun16: Walking tours - City`s Waterways & The Islands

The alarm went off at 7am but our bodies are still out of sync with this time zone, so Kathy snoozes for another two hours while I putter on the blog.  We've really got to get downstairs for the hotel breakfast before they close up shop!  Nice assortment of foods; orange juice & great liquid yogurt, 3 cereals, typical European hot food of sliced wieners and scrambled eggs, plus numerous odds and ends for variety.
The Andersen Hotel is in a mainly residential area, but southward along Kavenostrovsky Prospekt becomes commercial, shops and bars and restaurants, with Mcdonald's / KFC / Pizza Hut near the Petrograskaya Metro station.  Buying metro tokens is a snap; put a 100rp note on the counter, hold up two fingers, two tokens and 30rp change get pushed out towards you.  Signage at every station is in both Cyrillic and Roman letters, with enough English words to make things easy for the traveller.  Time to put the bicycle bag on my chest for security, put the token into the slot, and it's a long escalator down
to the subway level, probably 70m or so, vertical lamps along the median, everybody stands on the right to let the speed demons bump

down the left side.  Trains come by every few minutes but even on a Saturday the empty seats are scarce, however, potential passengers are polite and let passengers dismount before they rush in.  Three stops later we get out at Sennaya station, take the long escalator to the surface, and are at the starting point for our City Waterways walking tour.  The route leads along a wide canal lined with neo-Classical buildings, crossed by arched steel-railing bridges, towards Nevskiy Prospekt - the main shopping throughfare in this city.
We cross a cable bridge headed by four griffins, join the crowd inside the heavily colonnaded Cathedral of our Lady of Kazan, then its on across another canal to Dvortsovaya Plaza (a.k.a. Palace Square) bounded by the Winter Palace / Hermitage and the General Staff building.  Back to the canal, past Pushkin's apartment (click!), toward the artistic and colourful Church of Spilled Blood.Saturday afternoon in June is popular for weddings, with several wedding parties having their photographs taken near scenic bridges, churches, parks, etc.  The crowds have been getting larger and the streets are crowded, so we stop at Subway for a meal and to use their facilities.

Into the the Nevsky metro station, buy two more tokens, then down to the #2 Blue Line tracks for another short ride, this time to Chernaya Rechka station.  This is the jumping off point for Kamennyy and Yelagin Islands, a semi-rural setting on the northern side of the city, cycling and walking paths, small canals, and large `dacha`residences - some original wooden structures, others being newly constructed -
on 10 acre lots surrounded by parkland.  The clouds have been building all day, occasional spits of rain, but it`s nearly 5pm so we walk back to our hotel for a well-earned shower and rest.  Supper again at the hotel then time to do laundry while we watch some matches of Euro2016 on the television (all dialogue in Russian).

Fri17Jun16: Brussels - St. Petersburg

Up this morning at 6am, packed and took the 6:30am shuttle to Brussels Airport, checked-in with Brussels Airlines (don't you just love the English corporate names! in a country that officially speaks only French and Flemish?), paid E50 for my bicycle box to be shipped, and went out to the departure gate for a relaxing breakfast.
They began loading our A320 on time, but we sat at the gate for several minutes.  Finally an announcement was made that there was a strike by ground crew that began at 6am that morning, NONE of our checked baggage was on the aircraft, and we now had to wait to be pushed away from the gate before the crew could start the engines.  Turns out that this airline charges for everything - water, snacks, beer, soft drinks, chocolate bars, etc. - but at least the crew was friendly.

We arrived 30 minutes late in St. Petersburg and were told that everybody had to register their checked-in baggage as LOST LUGGAGE and fill out the usual forms.  Turns out that the usual forms were one form for each bag - both carry-on (we had 2!) and checked (we had 2!) - and done in duplicate.  Since there were about 100 other passengers on the same flight similarly affected, and the airport didn't put on any extra staff, we finally filled out the 8 forms and had them stamped in just over 2 hours.
When we entered the Arrivals area, there was no sign board with "Ford" written on it.  A phone call by the girl at the Information desk revealed that our tour company (Budget Travel) had sent the limo driver home after 1-1/2 hours and we would have to get our own taxi into the city.
Just like in any modern city, road traffic in St. Petersburg is quite heavy at 5pm on a Friday afternoon, and then there's the pedestrians leaving their offices and running across the street at every break in the traffic.
Our taxi driver reached the Andersen Hotel about 6pm (twelve hours from the Novotel Hotel in Brussels to the Andersen Hotel in St. Petersburg, and only 2-1/2 hours of that actually in the air).  The taxi driver wanted to be paid, so I hope we can get reimbursed from Marina at Budget Travel, otherwise we've paid twice for the same trip. Supper in the hotel restaurant, 650rp (CDN$13) for a decent buffet meal, the room made lively by a bus group of teenage students on a field trip.

After supper we went out for a walk around the neighbourhood, found a 'bottle shop' for Mariposa Syrah 2014 (Chilean) wine, and a grocery store for a 2L bottle of water (tap water is not recommended in Russia because of the old pipes).  Then we went for a longer walk to find the Metro station, got turned around with the crazy street system, went further than expected in our search, but made it back to the hotel a bit wiser.

Thu16Jun16: sunrise over England - Brussels

Katrina didn't sleep, and I only able to get a few minutes of fitful sleep before the interior plane lights came on and breakfast was being served.  Opened the window shade just in time to watch Dover pass under the starboard wing, then the English Channel, then Calais, then we started descending into Brussels.  Brussels Airport is old, "tired" as Kathy puts it, and when the plane unloads we join other passengers and create two long lines for the passport control kiosks - one for Europeans, one for Others.  At the luggage carousel we picked up our red duffel bag, found the cardboard bike box, and headed out to Area E for the hotel shuttle.

  Novotel Airport Hotel is a non-descript building right under the runway, nice staff, small rooms, and the toilet closet is a separate room from the large washroom.  Kathy decides to get some sleep, but I walk 15 minutes into Zaventem to check out the village and get some Euros.  Quiet little place, three Thai restaurants amongst other small shops and bars.Back to the hotel for an hour of sleep, we watch a bit of the Euro2016 England/Wales football match,, the shuttle back to the airport to catch a train into town.  Heavily armed police police revent people from bypassing the new security tents into the airport, soldiers with assault rifles patrol the airport and railway station in pairs.

Round-trip train tickets cost E11.20 each, trains depart every 6 minutes for the 16 minute ride to Brussels Centraal, a great place to start a walk of the old city centre.  Should have checked a city map ahead of time to see where things lay, but after lots of gawking, we finally find the hordes of tourists, follow them to the  "Manikin Pis", the Grand Place (surrounded by guild houses), and the Centre de la Reine shopping mall.  Back to the train station, the airport, and a Quick burger meal before taking the hotel shuttle back to the Novotel.

Watching the Euro2016 Deutschland/Poland football match while we unwind and get read for a better sleep.

Wed15Jun16: Winnipeg - Montreal - the great unknown...

Alarm in Room 323 went off at the Best Western Plus Winnipeg Airport at 6am this morning - we forgot to check that the previous occupant of the room had left a setting!  Down for a very filling and relaxing breakfast in Dalton's, then hauled our gear out to the shuttle van at 7:45am.

Lady driver took us to the airport, snapped our departure photograph, and we went through Air Canada check-in.  Our flight is 1-1/2 hours late, oh well.  Only $50 for the bicycle box, nothing for the other checked bag.  Oversized Baggage took out his box cutter and zipped open the cardboard box, inspected the contents to make sure I wasn't smuggling a helmet inside, and taped the bike box up again.  Through Security and just hung around until our flight was called.  Our dinky little Bombardier Q400 'flying cigar' and a 4 hour flight to Montreal.
Moe's is closed so no great "Montreal smoked meat sandwiches" today, so we went to a Canadien's Restaurant for supper, then on to Gate 65 for our flight  to Brussels.  

Tue14Jun16: Brandon - Winnipeg

Spent the morning in Brandon tidying up loose ends, running errands, and cleaning the house.  Puffer cried all the way to her temporary home at the Pet Warehouse, but experience tells us that she'll soon forgive us for the move.  Stopped at Sheena & Sparky's house on the way out of town, for one last opportunity to hold and hug sweet goodbyes with Macoy.  Dropped by Cathy & Neil's house in Austin for coffee and some butterscotch cake (leftover from Wingrove Days).  Reached Winnipeg during the "Drive at 5" so traffic was horrendous; no collisions or close-calls.  Checked in at the Best Western Plus Airport Hotel and ensured out bike box would fit into their airport shuttle van.  Out for supper at Red Lobster, then back to the hotel room for a final re-pack and plan for our upcoming flights.    

Sun12Jun2016: Packing

Today we finished packing my tour bicycle in a cardboard shipping box and labelling it for transport to the Andersen Hotel in St. Petersburg. This afternoon we'll get into the "practice pack" for our carry-on baggage

.