Travels

Apologies for the blog silence. Having arrived at the end of term with very much relief and very few blog posts, I headed straight out the next morning for 5 days in St Petersberg, followed by 3 days visiting family around the country.

St. Petersberg was warm for this time of year (about 10 degrees). Graeme was attending an Archeology conference for work, which was taking place in the Hermitage (museum, formally the Tsar's winter palace) so I went with him and managed to have a good look around. The place if a maze with room after room of artefacts and artworks stretching right back from Neolithic times to the modern day. I can't claim to know much about art but I did enjoy seeing the impressionist paintings and the building in general.

I also managed to get to the fortress and to a couple of cathedrals.

There was a conference trip to Novgorod. It was an archeology meeting so the trip included a tour of the archeology museum and an excavation site. It all meant very little to me but the others seemed to enjoy it ("Oh look, more pottery"). Our guide seemed to be fixated on showing us churches. Some of them were interesting but at the end of the day when you don't know much Russian history it's all a bit out of context.

The thing I found most interesting was seeing the river where sheets of ice were flowing, next to a sandy beach complete with umbrellas.

Graeme and I were adventurous and made our own way, by metro and dodgy private minibus to one to the summer palaces, the Katherine Palace. The palace is nausiatingly opulent, with gilt everywhere and a room decorated entirely in amber (no photos allowed), that it begins to be less and less surprising that the royal family's days were numbered. Especially when compared with the houses of people in rural villages.

After reterning to Heathrow we visited Graeme's brothers and their families and had a fab day out at Marwell Zoo. It's been a few years since I was last at a zoo. We even managed to have a picnic outside when the sun came out for half an hour.

I have some knitting and gardening news to add but I'll save that for tomorrow. Watch this space.