Imperial Palaces of St. Petersburg

Our visit to St. Petersburg wouldn't have been complete without visiting the Imperial Palaces of Peterhof and Puskin.  We decided to approach Peterhof by hydrofoil (speed boat), which seemed to be the quickest way of travel with its 30-minute- cruising time.  When arriving to Peterhof, our first glance at the palace and gardens was already impressive from the sea-side and it got even better and better the closer we walked to the famous fountains.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

We wandered in the direction of the palace through the Lower Park, which lies between the Grand Palace and the seashore and boasts the world's largest system of fountains (150 fountains and 4 cascades in total). The most impressive is the Grand Cascade, located directly below the Grand Palace and featuring a golden statue of Samson grasping the jaws of the lion.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

Peterhof is often referred to as the 'Russian Versailles'... but the scale and granduer of the gardens of Peterhof even overcomes that of Versailles. As we walked up the stair to the Grand Palace, the view was just stunning... there is nothing to describe it better than this panorama:

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

After visiting the Grand Palace, which is also pretty impressive and well worthwhile seeing (see pictures in our Album), we walked around to enjoy the numerous fountains, statues, and pavilions within the Lower Park. Afterwards, we entered the Upper Garden, located on the other side of the Grand Palace, which is a typical French-style formal garden with five fountains including the one below, depicting Neptune, the God of the Sea:

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

Later in the afternoon, looking for a taxi to take us to Pushkin, we were lucky enough to find a nice lady at a fruit stall who arranged a cheap cab for us (1000 RUB - apx 25 EUR for a nearly one-hour-drive)... Cathrine's Palace, painted in light blue with its reach white and gold gilt decoration appeared magnificently in the middle of the park.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

We arrived at the castle just in time to enter with one of the last visitor groups. At least that's what we thought... It turned out however that it was already 5 p.m., one hour later than on our watches since we mistakenly only changed it by one hour. So our visit inside the Cathrine's Palace will have to wait until our next trip to St. Petersburg, but at least we did not oversleep and miss our flight back to Zurich as well ;-))  


Visit our entire photo album on Peterhof and Pushkin here.

EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

White Nights, onion domed cathedrals and Russian art collection...

... all of these you can find in one single place, if visiting it in the right season: St Petersburg. It was Zoli's old dream to visit this city, so we chose to spend a few days in Russia's second largest city in the beginning of June, during the legendary period of the White Nights, when the sun never really disappereas from the horizon; at 5 a.m. we woke up on the brightest sunshine ever - believe it or not, first thing Zoli was asking for while still lying in the bed, were his sun glasses -, and at 10 p.m. we were still walking around with them. There was something magical about it... we walked down the bank of the river Neva at after midnight to watch the raising of the bridges and the banks of the river were packed (with tourists, teenagers, families and yourng couples, all admiring the sunset). The sun was just starting to dip below the horizon, but the time between sunset and sunrise, around 2 a.m., looked like dusk and was very short.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

Thus our days were also much longer and had plenty of time for sightseeing and St Petersburg had enough to offer for our relatively short, 4-day visit:

• The Church on the Spilled Blood, the city's most Russian-looking onion-domed cathedrals was one of our favorites with its interior decorated with 7500 square meter of exquisite mosaics.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

• The Hermitage Museum, one of the largest museums in the world hosts a collection of more than three million works of art and artefacts of the world culture. The main architectural ensemble of the Hermitage situated in the centre of St Petersburg consists of the Winter Palace, the former state residence of the Russian emperors.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

• Unbelievable, but true: the financial outlay of the St Isaac's Cathedral (the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral) with its richy decorated interior was more than six times that of the Winter Palace. It is decorated with fourteen kinds of marble, as well as frescoes and 600 sq. metres of mosaics, more than 400 kg of gold, 1000 tons of bronze and 16 tons of malachite...

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

• The illuminated Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress was glowing through the dusk at midnight. Under the shining Cathedral tower rest nearly all the czars of Russia, including Peter the Great, himself.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

It is said that during the White Nights St Petersburg's residents become relaxed and charming, all enjoying the midnight sunlight and the festival atmosphere taking over the city, socializing and chatting with friends until late evening near a cup of coffee.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

We don't really know if it was due to this special atmosphere of the White Nights, but it was a positive experience to find very friendly and helpful people everywhere ... it was quite challenging understanding their advice though as English is rarely spoken (not even among young people). However, the biggest drawback for tourism lies not in the language barrier and not even the entry tickets which were double as high everywehere as for locals, but the regime and state regulations - visa requirements, tourists having to register themselves at the local policy upon arrival, lengthy document and security control at the airport (we almost missed our flight, reaching the gate after well after scheduled departure time, even though we completed check-in well in advance). Despite the challenges though St Petersburg is still a very attractive tourist destination and has a lot to offer, which one may not find in any other place of the world.

You may check out here our entire Album on St Petersburg:

EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

(Photos and blog entry on the Grand Palaces with follow soon...)

Gorges of Switzerland: Aareschlucht

A few weeks ago we were planning a hiking trip in Berner Oberland. Unfortunately the hiking trail we have planned to follow was still closed due to the snow in the mountains, so 'accidentally' we discovered another gorgeous place well worth visiting: Aareschlucht, or 'the Swiss Grand Canyon'.

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

We have never heard about this place before (but Switzerland is always full of surprizes, especially in the natural wonders category), so we quickly googled up: "the Aar Gorge is a section of the river that carves through a limestone ridge near the town of Meiringen. It is an indirect product of glaciation; 10,000 years ago, just as the Ice Age was coming to an end, torrential runoff from melting glaciers eroded a deep, narrow chasm through the limestone barrier. Although barely 1.6 km long, this passage is bordered by sheer cliffs up to 50 m high on either side. At the bottom of this steep drop the river is scarcely one meter wide.."
Again, we have learned something... and discovered another natural beauty of this country.
You can find here some more photos of Aareschlucht.
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Cycling Tour around Geneva lake

We're realize we are way behind with posting the latest news about our life (and travels) on the blog, but life is rolling now pretty quickly and we didn't have any free time for a few weeks. In the last three weeks, we did the tour of Europe, from Brussels to Eindhoven, then St Petersburg, Madrid... and this weekend going again to Kolozsvar for our friends' wedding. No complaints at all ... just looking for good excuses for being so lazy with the blog entries.

Well, let's get back to our cycling tour around the Geneva Lake, back in May. We have been planning this for a very long time and got finally the perfect timing: a long weekend (due to a bank holiday on Monday) and weather predictions for wonderful, sunny spring days.

Day 1: Montreux to Lausanne
We started the tour in Montreux on Saturday morning, by visiting the Château de Chillon, the most famous castle in Swizterland, which enjoys a spectacular location on the eastern edge of Lake Geneva.

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

The first 10-15 kms back to Montreux and then further on to Vevey were an easy ride, with spectacular views  and a few stops at well-known tourist spots, like the statue of Freddie Mercury in Montreux or the one of Charlie Chaplin in Vevey, continuing afterwards our way along the lake towards Lausanne, our end destination for Day 1.

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

However, the lake-side road ended at one point, so we had to cycle through the vineyards up on the hill, which was a little more demanding (there were however still no complaints at this point of the tour). Arriving to Lausanne after about 40 kms of cycling in Day 1, we still had some energy to do a little sightseeing and have a nice dinner together with our ex-classmate, Reka and her boyfriend.

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

Day 2: Lausanne to Nyon
Our plan for the second day was to continue our tour from Lausanne to Nyon (another 40 kms...) By riding around the town and especially along the lake-side in- and near Lausanne, we felt like this was one of the places where we could actually imagine living (if our French would be a little better than... nothing). It was probably the very large green areas full of people enjoying their Sunday morning piknik, children playing around, the atmosphere on the sea promenade and the nice houses on the backstreets which made us think that this was the place to live in (ahm, anyway, we still have some years ahead to improve our French... and save some money for a house).

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

Later in the afternoon we faced some real challenges with our efforts to find a restaurant or supermarket open to have something to eat (there was only one Mc Donalds, which we of course decided to skip only to realize later that everything was closed since lunch time was 'officially' over). Luckily cheese plates are sometimes considered as dessert, so after a short 'dessert break' we continued our ride... uphill ;-((... through the vineyards:

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

After an exhausting  afternoon ride, we finally reached Nyon, our end destination for Day 2 and had our wonderful, well-deserved dinner at the lake-side, after which we took a train to Geneva (first of all, because there were no rooms available in Nyon, and secondly, because at least one of us refused to ride any further).

Day 3: Geneva to Nyon
To cover the last remaining part of our Montreux-Geneva tour, on last day we decided to cover the remaining 40 kms from Geneva to Nyon. But first of all, we did some sightseeing in Geneva, cycling along the lake-side to the Jet d'Eau (one of the city's most famous landmarks),

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

climbing up the tower of the Cathedral and cycling around the various International Institutes (WIPO, WTO, UN, WHO, WMO).


To view all our photos from this tour, you may check out our Album here.