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Everyone to the map page quick!
It is now current, as of today. Click on the tabs. Learn a little something about how the trip went or just see a small part of the world through our eyes. Whatever, just check it out and sate the cartographic demon inside.
Swapping StP for MCW
OUTLINE
- Check out of Sabrina before 12, got our first smile out of our hostess. She must be happy to see the back of the English. Our bags were packed and waiting – I guess we really wanted to leave
- March to the train station (without getting lost this time) head down, record time. Still found time for a few pictures!
- Used the locker room beneath the station to store our bags for the day. The place could have been a KGB safe room. Bet experience in St.Petersburg yet
- Sightseeing can begin now the mornings work was complete. On to the Church of the spilt blood. That’s the one everyone recognises from the postcards
- Everyone splits up and I get a bit moody. I blame the Lemsip. James and I wander the streets in a really nice part of town talking and exploring
- Finally look behind the main street facades. They hide a mess of broken pipes and Ladas and frosty smashed windows. Also link ways through the massive city blocks and crumbling inner city housing projects. Kind of looks like an exciting place now, a bit dangerous though. We take a couple of snaps and keep moving
- We pluck up the courage to walk out on to a frozen pond
- Due to meet Jay and Sarah at the station we walk in the opposite direction in to a very rich looking part of town and an open area enclosed by a huge icey palace and some grand looking law courts. A great city space – finally. We bolt back down the 6 lane highway towards our sleeper train to Moscow.
- unlocking the bags from the KGB lockers is easy and so is locating our train.
- No sleep on the freezing sleeper
- Picked up by a long haired, short armed Russian taxi driver with a small beige Mercedes cab. He’s not happy to see the size of our bags
- Godzilla’s Hostel looks top. There’s a party going on when we arrive involving all the staff. The taxi driver uses a special phrase to get us into the small green door “WOMAN, PLEASE!”
- Finally get some sleep after the drunk staff force feed us beer then decide to leave us alone
Musical showers are rubbish – loads of buttons but not much water.
Bright sunshine and a new city ahead leave smiles on every ones faces.
James’ camera has battery issues.
A frozen looking couple pose for photos on a pretty little bridge covered with pad locks. It’s definitely an Eastern tradition.
The biggest snow flakes fall in great blinding sheets on our way to the train. Makes me feel like St.Petersburg wants us to stay after all. I’ve had ups and downs here and it’s not as beautiful as I had heard but it is interesting and there is lots to discover under the harsh exterior. I’m definitely glad I visited.
This sleeper, not a private train like our Vilnius beaut, had a brisk, thin Russian lady working it – she was not nice. The water was brown and dirty, the lights were never turned on and the heating was not used. One final dig for StP.
Getting picked up right off the train is a great thing especially at 3am in a big strange city. But it does cost allot.
Drunk Russian jokes aren’t so funny when all you want to do is sleep.
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Sabrina where are you?
OUTLINE
- 8.30am arrive in Saint Petersburg. We leave our comfy sleeper for a noisy, cold, dirty, smokey city
- Discuss methods to reach our hostel – decide to march
- Arrive sweaty and tired at the small crumbling doorway entrance to hostel Sabrina
- Enjoy tea and jammy swiss roll while awaiting an English speaking taxi driver to take us to another Sabrina hostel. This one has a singing shower (?)
- 45 sleepy minutes later the crease faced, leather cap wearing crazy taxi driver shows up and we weave through busy traffic to our real hostel
- No visa registration, it’s a 10 day Russian holiday
- Explore the city to shake our dark first impressions of the district around the train station. We walk and walk but nothing really changes
Tonnes of Lemsip and a frantic march with a huge pack will do wonders for a cold.
Bums in train stations are the same the world over but in Russia the police are meaner.
Jay can’t map read.
Russian people are either stern and a bit rude or crazy and really nice but mos of the time they are all drunk.
St. Petersburg – Venice it ain’t.
Heating inside Russian homes is always on Max, this explains the huge stripey, puffing chimneys which dominate the skyline.
Sarah’s Russian is ace.
Russian tv looks 40 years old and is really over the top.
Driving is total madness and crossing the road is a leap of faith.
St. Petersburg is busy.
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Vilnius to Saint Petersburg
The train stood a clear 9ft tall and a million miles long as we climbed from the subterranean locker room to the platform at Vilnius station. This was the train I had been waiting for. Well, I mean, we’d waited for plenty of trains up till now but for me this was the kind of train which would make this whole experience. Making a carriage your home for however long you have to is a real skill on the transiberian. This relatively short stint, approximately 14 hours, would decide if I could enjoy this kind of ordeal or if we would wilt under the pressure of close confinement.
The silver and red colours made the train look like a sleak 50’s American relic. The roof of all the cars, stretching far off into the Lithuanian night as far as the eye could see, were snow capped and the walls plastered thick with ice. Each wagons chimney belching thick black soot into the purple evening sky as the deep roar of the diesel engines echoed around the empty station.
Each carriage has it’s own attendant and ours was a large cosy looking woman. She beckoned us forward and asked each of us our nationality in turn. She quickly scanned the tickets and passports and showed us aboard. Our backpacks barely fitted through the tiny train corridors as we brushed past the business end of the coach and fairly ran towards the seats assigned us for the night. After some initial excited wrong turns we found our places were the very first births as we entered the train.
On the left a four birth open cabin shared space with a slim corridor and two extra bunks aligned with the small passage way. We were lying in the corridor beds.
All the blankets for the wagon (grey and red heavy wool items ideal for the subzero climate) were piled on my bed. The upper bunk of the two corridor births. We had to wait for the other travelers to collect them before we could fully move in. Me and James sat hunched beneath the expertly engineered platform of my bed and slowly acclimatised our selves with our much anticipated surroundings.
The four birth cabin opposite housed a Lithuanian couple with enough luggage to fill a shop, we concluded they were either emigrating or off on an extended holiday in Russia. The boarder guards would enjoy quizzing them. Also here was a middle aged woman who seemed intent on sleeping the entire journey. We moved all the blankets obstructing our bunks onto the upper bed on the sleepy woman’s side of the four birth, and made up our beds. Crisp linen folded carefully over firm but fair benches and the luxurious wool blankets made for a very inviting bed.
Behind us the wagons offices and toilet were expertly nestled in the smallest possible spaces, allowing only a small private sleeping cabin for the original attendant. She never seemed to use this room, instead preferring to march the length of the carriage serving tea and coffee. In there was also a younger Russian version who would tend to these duties beyond the boarder. She would display a very different, very Russian style of service, all scorn and annoyance.
Me and James walked the train, as we tend to do now once we get settled. We marvelled at everything; the WC’s at either end of our wagon, the smoking areas beyond both and the open link way at the very ends of each coach, with their noise and growing frost and disturbing view down to the speeding rails below. Our journey took us from our 2nd class cabin through the seated class and into first. The carriage housing the restaurant was small and filled with tables and chairs all and conversation. The whole train was buzzing with communication between strangers and it felt warm and homely. First class was quiet and sterile and we attracted some strange looks on our way back to our beds.
I watched the very nice and kind woman in the next compartment answer her grand daughters questions about the foreigners sleeping in the beds next door and was rocked to sleep by the motion of the train.
A boarder patrol guard woke me with a grab of my leg and asked for my passport. I handed it over and fell back to sleep. I had sat through long boarder crossings before and knew there was nothing to be done but enjoy the time in my warm bunk. I was woke again to receive my documents back and then again inside Russia where a guard would search all the baggage storage bins for stowaways using an ancient military lamp as a guide. The crossing wasn’t half as distressing as we had read it could be.
I love this train, the warmth, the sense of belonging, the smells and the adventure, the water boiler and the attendants (even the moody ones hvae their good points). 2nd sleeper class is defiantly a first class way to travel.
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Chargers Win, Chargers Win
OUTLINE
- Everyone is up in plenty of time for our train but we still end up running late and only just making it to the platform in time
- Everyone sleeps on the train but me
- TopTrumps – I win
- We are asked to move carriages because we are sat at the wrong end of the train. This end stops at the Poland – Lithuanian boarder. The other end carries on to Vilnius. Thanks to Mr. Conductor
- We change at Sestokai by crossing the platform and boarding a Lithuanian ‘First Northwestern’ train to Vilnius
- Our hostel booking is wrong but the city is quiet and we get another easily, quickly and only a short walk away
- We drop our bags and head out for some food. Nationwide is not working again!
- Food is cheap in Vilnius, we order a three course meal at midnight. The first meal of the day
- Euros pay for my bed and I get to sleep for the first time in 48 hours
I.S.C. sweet Polish train station buns. Apple filling, score -1!!!
Sarah does not understand TopTrumps.
Polish – Lithuanian boarder is a white hut housing a small suited man and a green ping pong paddle.
Vilnius is small and beautiful especially in the snow.
Our fashionable pod style hostel is disorientating but a bed is a bed when you’ve been watching NFL all night.
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Another day, another train & another hostel & another currency & another language & another & another & another ….
OUTLINE
- Check out of Berlin hostel.
- Train to Warsaw
- Change money to Zlotis
- Book tickets for train to Vilnuis, Lithuania. Nice one Marta.
I went ‘free breakfast’ loco filling up for a long day of sitting.
My luck is turning. I got out of paying for the hostel. 70 Euros in the bank.
An A.T.M. accepts my Nationwide card and gives me some cash. It seems the building society only exaggerated.
Traveling to Poland from Germany is like moving backwards in time, and the train station is totally confusing.
Warsaw looks amazing on first glance – deeper snow & the start of Eastern block architecture.
Oki-Doki hostel is the best, simple as.
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Honeymoon period is over, the real work begins
OUTLINE
- Generation Europe Brussels Hostel to Brussels Midi via a very scary taxi ride
- Train to Koln
- Connecting train to Berlin
- Book into our Berlin Hostel
- Show the Germans how to celebrate New Years!
On the Koln stopover my search for the ‘International Snack Champion’ (I.S.C) begins. A giant cheesy pretzel scores a solid 7/10.
I lost my phone in the dash from our hostel – if your out there please get in touch!
We taxied to our hostel to save any more marching through unsavoury areas. A Belgium hangover.
Card rejected at the German hostl. Nationwide are liars.
The Brandenburg gate at New Years resembles a war zone complete with screaming and a million explosions.
Euro pop sucks.
Maria is a mad party hard club with big queues and big etry fees but it was ace.
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Brussels : Arrived
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The windows were black and my ears were popping like mad but as the train pulled in and the lights illuminated strange signs the excitement poured over me again. Pockets full and weighed all the way down we made our way into the mild wastes of Brussels. What a dive. We waved away taxis in favour of the tram and further Independence. Immediately I regretted it. We walked fully around the station and deciphered the randomness of the Flemish signposting methodology to find the shiftiest tram stop beneath the train station. We fought our way onto the rickety thing through the tiny slot folding doors and when outside we realised that in the dark the stop sign were invisible. Guessing our way to the slummy part of town we walked the directions we had then had to ask in French at a Kebab shop for better ones. Jay kept pushing on and his persistence finally payed. The hostel was grim but once we stepped inside found to be warm and cosy and perfectly serviceable. A four birth room would be ours for about 6 hours until we had to report back to the train station again for our next leg – to Berlin.
Meetings and Eurostars
After a while waiting for some sign that my fellow travelers had already begun their own journey’s I decide to attempt to contact them myself. No response from any number stored in my emergency phone and I started to panic again. I tried to be more useful and fill my time by picking up the train tickets, which turned out not to be possible without Jay’s bank card. While doing this i realised that our train was delayed and all of a sudden I was in Manchester again waiting but going nowhere. Just then as I sat down cold, grey and dejected James rung. We were to meet outside WHSmiths. I walked, again, the entire length of the station to find him. He was 100 metres behind where I started. His mum was really nice and she took she took some great hyped up ‘lets go!’ type action snaps. Around 5 minutes later Jay rang. He had arrived back from his aborted first attempt out and was now outside WHSmiths. Sarah was next after meeting and saying some final goodbyes to her mum and our holiday could begin properly. Jay handed out some presents for me from Katie and Doug, Alex and Kavita. They were amazing – I only opened them later but I was so blown away by the gifts that I just had to mention it.
We checked into the Eurostar lounge where the temperature was through the roof. I suggested we relax having just made it through passport control and dropped our bags when the call was made to proceed to the platform. The queue which I thought gave us twenty minutes wasn’t for our train and when we realised we had to scoop our bags up and burst past ticket check. At first we ran as little joke, we couldn’t miss the first train! When we realised we were heading in the wrong direction down the platform the joke stopped being funny and we sprinted to our coach and jumped on board. For some reason we had been bumped up to first class, our fellow travelers didn’t seem to happy with it as we puffed and panted and pushed our massive bags into our seats. The hostess on board wasn’t best pleased either. Still, the service was worth all the downward looks. Free champagne, free wine and beer, free food and over sized chairs. A great way to begin our trip.
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Lone Trip
Everyday for weeks leading up-to today I had been apprehensive about what we had decided to undertake. Now the beast had caught up with me finally, I resolved to take each leg one step at a time. Manchester to London being the very first. Manchester felt like a place I used to live, with memories and issues all of which are behind me now. It feels like somewhere I wouldn’t want to be for long, visits – OK, maybe.
The Mega-bus was late, mum was getting teary and dad was snapping pictures. All I could think about was missing my St. Pancras connection. The Eurostar was only due to leave at around 5.30pm, the clock read 9.10am. I guess i was in no danger. Was I just anxious to begin or itching for an excuse to pull the plug on the whole terrifying ordeal. The replacement bus rolled lazily around the corner of Portland street and Chorlton Street and once on board with bags stowed and comfy I couldn’t stop smiling. The answer felt good when it arrived.
London, in contrast to all of my previous visits, felt welcoming maybe because I knew i wasn’t staying and only had one clear objective in mind – cross the city with all of my stuff in time for the train. I had done meticulous preparation for this simple task. I researched the line, the number of stops, the subways final destination and the general compass direction. I even had an alternative route plotted in-case i had to walk to Kings Cross from Victoria. My mega sack now hung light off my shoulders as I bounced through the streets striped with low slung winter sun from the coach station towards the tube. Once underground my cold weather clothing became strikingly out of place. The heat was stifling but the pain was over quickly and I felt a swell of pride as I wandered up through St. Pancras station looking for a place to sit and eat the last of my packed lunch. I walked the full length of the arcade upstairs and down and also did at lest one full circuit of the stations plan. I thought it an excellent way for me and my rucksack to get to know each other better. It was heavy but not too heavy, cumbersome but not unmanageable. I settled on a seat next to a separated couple handing over their child. He was from Leeds and she had a strong Birmingham accent. At first I thought how did they meet? But then a second question replaced it, why chose here to perform such a personal ritual? They seemed like good friends now and their son was happy. Everything was clean and shiny and my adventure had begun.
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