Three weeks tour of Russia and parts of Scandinavia

Just back from a three week – marathon trip of four cities over three countries with my Parents, Sister, Uncle, Aunt and Cousins (9 of us). From Amsterdam I flew to Moscow to unite with them and on the same day we caught a train to Saint Petersburg to reach there by late evening. Spend two days in this grand city and then caught another train to Helsinki.

After half a day of sightseeing in the Finnish capital we boarded a cruise to Stockholm. Early next morning we landed in this beautiful archipelago city where we spend one and a half days before it was time to get back on the Cruise to where we came from – Helsinki. Sadly was only able to spend yet another half day at Helsinki exploring some great architecture by the Finnish master – Alvar Aalto – before I had to get on my last long trip - a train journey to Moscow.

After all that adrenalin from travelling soo much... seeing many great museums, churches and a bit too many palaces, I needed to slow down two gears and catch my breath before I could soak in this might city. But finally I had the time to do that and in fact more. I had more than two weeks to see it all in the only city in the world that has ever really challenged New York to the title - ‘Citiest city of all’!

Besides being a freak of Architecture, Art and Nature and as you might have guessed travelling, it’s next to impossible for me not to record every interesting thing I see. My desire to click photos (millions of them) is almost pathological now. And almost nobody I know has thanked the inventors of digital cameras as much as me : )

It would therefore be a mammoth task for me to try and blog all the significant stuff I have seen on this trip. So I shall only blog the most amazing, dearest or inspiring of all and as for the rest I will resort to the easiest way out – online photo albums. Anyways as the old saying goes “Pictures speak a thousand words”.

So here I start city by city –

Saint Petersburg, Russia

The highlight of St. Petersburg for me was the late night boat ride thru the canals and the Neva River; though I had been on similar rides in cities none of them quiet have the scale and grandness of this most European city of Russia.

However, despite this fact I prefer Venice and Amsterdam – two cities which actually were the inspiration for Peter the great to design this city which would become his new capital.

Besides the boat ride there is the never ending Hermitage Museum (which houses one of the world's largest and richest collections of Western European art),
Many interesting Cathedrals and even more Palaces – the most spectacular of which is Peter the greats’ own palace - Peterhof – with the fabulous Grand Cascade and Samson Fountain facing the Gulf of Finland.

Photos from Saint Petersburg

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Moscow, Russia

Moscow Zoo

While in Moscow I magaed to make a trip to the Zoo, here's some snaps from the Moscow Zoo - the largest and oldest zoo in Russia.It was founded in 1864.
I have to say that I am quiet fond of how old zoo's like this one house animals from different parts of the world in enclosures which generally tend to use different vernacular styles of architecture to emphasize the animals exoticism.

This is the main duck pond in the centre of the zoo.

This is a small enclosure for a species of monkey.

The Orangutan enclosure with one the city famous Seven Sister buildings in the background.
This photo was taken from the bridge that connects the two parts of the zoo.

One more snap of the Seven Sister building as seen from inside the zoo. The view reminded me of walking inside New York's Central Park and looking at the city's sky-scrapers towering above the park's beautiful trees.

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The above Google map shows the Moscow Zoo. You can zoom in to see the park better.

Photos from Moscow

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