Suzdal & Nizny Novgorod

Суздаль & Нижний Новгород
Distance Travelled: 2781 km

Ok then...

Morning of hangovers and on to the station, since there was a train to catch. Plans slightly altered the destination was now Suzdal, which is a world heritage site only a short ride out of Moscow.

We found our subway, and our station, relatively easily but then the luck sort of ran out, as we had apparently lined up in the wrong cue, which we naturaly only found out when it was our turn, after about an hours wait, wonderfull - Russian cueing, you either love it or loathe it.

So instead of another hours wait, we decided to give up on the train altogether, since it wasn't really working for us, and go for the bus instead, which turned out terribly easier, as this was quite simply a matter of boarding the first bus we saw, and paying the 150 ruble ticket, on the bus.

Well it all seemed a bit to easy, until i sat down in my seat, very much wanting to go to a hard sleep - but no - this being russia, my bloody seat didn't work - meaning i couldn't lean back for about 2 hours, through Moscow traffic and everything! After which i got so deperate that i actually managed to fix the seat, probably out of sheer desperation.

Once we had reached Vladimir, it was on with a local bus - had a fair bit of difficulty buying tickets for the bus, since the dear Babushka at the ticket counter, asked me something in Russian, and refused to go any further before i had answered a question, which, one would think, it was fairly obvious I didn't understand. Well luckely the lady in the counter next to her, seem to feel some sort of sympathy towards us, and away we were - on some German citybus - or atleast the entrance said bitte nicht aufsteigen :)

Arrived in Suzdal in late afternoon - and it turned out to be absolutely beautiful! especially in the twilight (the pictures should speak for themselves) . Well, as their always seem to be some minor complication going on in this country, obviously the Hotels were all full, since it was weekend - and a nice little weekend trip from Moscow.

Luckily we managed to land a room in Guesthouse (basicly a room in their house) at a wonderful and kind lady, it was so nice, and an absolute bargain! she even gave us biscuts and jam in the morning :)

Next morning we cruised around a bit and saw most of the sights (Suzdal is a rather small town, it does seem to have more churches than people though) and then it was of to Nizhny Novgorod, which turned out to be somewhat of a dissapoinment. However rooms was sold out, so we stayed in a proper western style hotel room - bathtub and everything - otherwise Nizhny is just a drab industrial town by the Volga..

We did have good fun ordering food here though, Russian/Cyrilic only menues. so it has basicly been a food lottery as of late - fun fun! and things havent gone terribly wrong yet! :)

Anyway, im outta time here at the internet place in Kazan, so.... to be continued :)