Petersburg Part 7

Continuing on with the chronicles of Petersburg, I arose early the next morn and we were off to Pskov. If you have never heard of this town, don’t feel bad, neither had I. However, you should know that it is one of the oldest cities in Russia, somewhere around the 1000 year mark. So that’s almost interesting. Anyways I was there for 2 two days, and it was actually really fun. Although it was a 4 hour bus ride, just to get to our hotel. The good news was the hotel was right across the river from the Pskov Kremlin, so we had a nice view.

We had a quick lunch at the hotel and then we meet our tour guide, who was really cool for once, and went to tour the Kremlin. The Kremlin was about the same as every other Kremlin I’ve had the pleasure of touring in Russia, which is about 6 or so. This one was different in that it actually had a death trap at the entrance (long corridor with many archer windows, which was cool), but it only had one church, so we were like whatever (Moscow’s Kremlin has 4, Novgorod had 3 I think, Ryazan had maybe 3). Still, this particular church had the remains of Alexander Nevsky, if I heard the tour guide correctly. Either way it was very beautiful.

We then headed back to the hotel for dinner; I think it was chicken again. Russians really seem to like chicken, at least that’s all we ever get on these excursions. After dinner, a few of us went to a café. I had green tea and ice cream, cost me like 2 dollars and it was delicious, I love Russia. I think we closed of the night with some uno and “hanging out” at the hotel.

Day 2 in Pskov started with another hour on the bus. This time we ended up at an old fort near Pskov, I can’t say I was listening to hard to what our tour guide was saying so I don’t really know anything about the place or the name or where it was or why we were there, oh well. It was really beautiful, I mean like Russian countryside at its best.
There were hills and a lake and trees and a dog .That dog was cool followed us around and everything. There was also a little mountain side waterfall and like 7 swans. After the fort, we went to a monastery in another small town. (Although this small stand had a blini (pancake) stand, that was so good) The monastery was also pretty neat, but every time wee go to one of these religious sights it’s a little weird. You know large group of loud Americans in what is a place largely full of monks and pilgrims.

Next, it was back to the hotel for dinner or lunch, I think we only had two meals that day. I think it was chicken again; no maybe it was cow this time, whatever. That night we went to a sauna. This was fun. The place was great, it had a nice hot sauna room which was adjacent a larger room with a pool, plus it we had the whole place to ourselves. I was surprised at how good it felt to sweat for 15 minutes and then jump in a freezing cold pool; you really do feel good afterwards. The sauna was also a bar so you could order say a beer or ice cream, which I did, right in your own private room.

This ends our time in Pskov it was short and sweet, tomorrow we were off to Novgorod and then back home.