GETTING LOST 2



me and my gggg grandparents Sourton Devon

 The last day of the road trip has arrived and we will both heave a sigh of relief when the car is finally returned in Oxford. Admittedly it has enabled us to get to see so many things that are inaccessible by public transport but navigating the minutia of the roads has been very tricky at times (most of the time truth be known). We spent two days in Devon on the edge of Dartmoor in Sourton ..where my Pellow ancestors emigrated from in the 1850s....my cousin (6th mind you)Mark Pellow treated us to a tour of Pellow "sites" and some wonderfu home cooking. I met Pellows still farming in Sourton although "our" farm(Beatdown)was no longer in use and the old farmhouse was a ruin. We wanted to do some walking on Dartmoor but it was very wet so that was a shame....it is very beautiful country and loads of history (bit like the rest of England really)....but the Iron Age sites are the most extensive in Europe. On the way here (Kelmscott) we crossed the Salisbury Plains so stopped in at Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles.....both were astonishing! Now we are in the Cotswolds staying at William Morris's old watering hole The Plough Inn. This is a Tudor hamlet, little changed since the 15th century and we will visit William Morris's Kelmscott Manor this morning (a 2 minute walk from here)...what a treat!! The sun is shining for the first time in 5 days so we will make the most of it... back to London and Ben this arvo on the train.... Kath xo

GETTING LOST

Great Dixter

Charleston

We will be glad to get back to train travel after the travails of deciphering the AA Road Atlas,negotiating the intermnable number of roundabouts and getting lost inumberable times. As it is taking 3X as long to travel the same distance it would at home we have had to modify the itinerary somewhat. We have travelled the lanes and hedgerows of Kent and Sussex, visited some great gardens (Sissinghurst and Great Dixter) and a medieval manor house(Igtham Mote) and Bodian Castle....as well as visiting the seaside "idyll" Of the Burnes-Jones's and their nephew Rudyard at Rottingdean. The car,however,has enabled us to visit Batemans (Rudyard Kipling),the amazing Charleston (Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant),Chawton(Jane Austen) and Selborne(1700's naturalist Gilbert White) ....so the trauma of driving in a strange and very busy place has it's benefits.....The English are very polite drivers and lessen the difficulty of the whole thing. We are in Bath now for a whole day and will take up the Mayor's offer(she/he sponsors these each day) of a free walking tour this morning, despite the rain that has just started to fall....and then on to the Roman Baths..... Sorry no photos as yet...still trying to work that out..Kathxo

THE PALACES OF CATH & LIZ

Catherine's Palace just outside St Petersburg with it's restored Amber Room (the Nazis stole the original and then it was destroyed by allied bombing)was a great experience...although the gardens were a bit easier on the eye...all that gilt was a bit much and I expect just a bit too much on the already overburdended taxpaying peasants of Russia (as we have seen).

We made it to London although it felt pretty weird getting here after a good night's sleep in only 3 hours....how civilised! Sue and I are camped on Ben's floor in Kensington and have been out sightseeing every day (of course)..straight out after depositing our bags to catch the last warm sunny day of summer & have a Pimms by the Serpentine and then on to Fortnum & Masons for a cuppa(as you do).....so far a fantastic Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate Gallery and a play at The Globe Theatre (As You Like It)...The Globe is such a hoot as everyone including the actors are out to have a good time and the atmosphere is like one big party. Hampton Court Palace yesterday and caught the boat back down the Thames to Westminster....and today caught the bus to South Kensington and visited it's museums(Natural History & V&A)....great stuff... ...and home to another gourmet dinner from Ben's kitchen (his mother did teach him well)....life in Katoomba will seem pretty dull after all this.... pick car up tomorrow in Kent..... Kath and Sue

ST PETERSBURG

The Hermitage

Well St Petersburg is very different to Moscow ...the wealth is not so evident and the pace is much slower. The architecture is very gentile(Stalin's monolithic and grand buildings are not here) and with the rivers and canals it has a elegant and cultured feel.
We are just a 40 minute walk from the Hermitage in a lovely apartment which we have to ourselves as Marina the only other guest is at work all day... a real luxury to have so much space after the cramped conditions of hostels and trains.
The walking tour we did with Dimitri took us to the backstreets and his knowledge of the city was vast ...so we got our bearings on arrival rather than as we leave! Dimitri's grandfather lost his parents and 3 siblings in the Seige of Leningrad (the only brother to survive was at the front)...so the horror of that time was brought home to us....and the impact of the war was so great on Russia (20 million dead)that the bravery and resillience of it's people is treated with the respect and reverence it is due.

Dostoyevsky's window

Statues of writers are here in abundance and their museums (as in Moscow) ... Dostoyevsky and Akhmatova are the only 2 I have been able to fit in.....I must say the bright and comfortable flat of Dostoyevsky's was not the dark and depressing place I expected (obviously I read too many Russian novels).
The Hermitage was sumptuous and decadent( no wonder there was so much unrest) ...and it was great to be in a room of Van Goghs' and not have to jostle for a position as we would for any visiting exhibiton at home.
Today we are tackling the Metro to get to Catherine's Palace to meet with the restored Amber Room(the original was destroyed in the war after the Nazi's removed it).
Sorry the postcards have been absent but you have no idea how hard it is to find a post office here let alone find someone in the PO willing to sell you a stamp!!...so they shall be sent from London which is were we are heading tomorrow morning.....dasvidanya Kath et al xo

MOCKBA 2

                                                  Tolstoy's grave

Tolstoy's Yasnaya Polyana was worth the 4 hour traffic jam it took to get there....it was very beautiful and inspiring. It has been kept just as it was during his lifetime despite the fact that the contents had to be evacuated to Tomsk in Siberia during WW2 as it was occupied by the nazis and only saved from a torching by some  valiant locals.The grounds were full of brides paying pilgrimage and looking for  photo opportunities.  Unfortunately the traffic deprived us of Chekhov's country house but Oleg our guide was very patient and as his English was so good we could ask him many questions about Russia so now have a better understanding of how things are here.

Gulag Museum

Lenin's tomb yesterday was a sobering experience as was the wonderful and comprehensive Contemporary History  Museum which covered the 19th and 20th centuries.Despite the fact all the signage was in cyrillic it was an enriching experience and not to be missed. Some things were glossed over though...in particular Stalin's horrendous crimes ,although The Gulag Museum goes some way to redress that I suppose.
Then on to Gorky's art nouveau home and the odd French pastry and cuppa tea......
I might add that nothing is easy to find as the street signs are all in cyrillic and maps do not seem to match reality...well that is how it appears to us and to find each of these venues requires (it seems)hours of walking and map gazing and attempts to find a Russian who speaks a little English!

Today it was a walk to the river and some tasty blinis and honeyed tea from the local monastry cooks selling by the side of the river....then on to St Basils....  more French Pastries ...train at midnight tonight for St Petersburg (so it is just as well we have all those pastries to fortify us)...will save the Kafka meets Godot experience at the PO for later!!

dasvidanya Kath et al xo

                                                             Red Square porta-loos

MOCKBA

Mixed feelings abound......this place is not at all what I expected and The Revolution is all but a distant memory for the under 35s it seems who are embracing conspicuous consumption as the new mantra.
Lenin (as far as I can ascertain) is a marketing tool for the tourists who flock to Red Square in droves to shop at Gum(now a very swanky shopping complex on the edge of the Square).and eat at Macdonalds!

The (small considering the millions interned) Gulag Museum hemmed in by Dior and Chanel(oh my god) was only opened fairly recently (60  years after Stalin's death!!) and was very moving..particulary as it had a few references to Nikolai Bukharin (my Bolshevik hero...shot by Stalin in 1938) and his noble wife Anna Larina.....I found the whole thing immensely moving and was quite overcome......and by the whole feeling of the place (Moscow that is) ....that the ideals of The Revolution have been trashed (having been brought up in a commie household with the noble beliefs of my grandfather ruling the day I have found this whole experience pretty shattering).

Went to the Kremlin today and a pretty impressive piece of history it is too.....the basilicas with their golden domes and medieval wall frescos are breathtaking (atheist sentiments aside of course).....

Found a vego restauarnt and yoga centre underneath this apartment block we are staying in which felt very 70s and hence deja vue...this place is pretty weird at times..and never what you expect....
...and yesterday we conquered the metro but am doing all I can to avoid going back there (walking  kms in other words).....pretty challenging when you can't read the signs as they are in cyrillic and NOBODY understands what you are asking/saying (of course it does not help that owing to my pathetic language skills I can still only say thank you and goodbye in Russian ).........another day tomorrow and out into the country with Chekhov and Tolstoy (hope they are ready for us)...
dasvidanya Kath and the Komrades xo

SIBERIA TO MOSCOW Triumph: thousands of kilometeres and a lot of birch trees later we have finally made it to Moscow. The Mongolian steppes ringed by mountains and peppered with the occasional yurt were breathtaking. The border crossings were not a high point,however,always in the middle of the night and always taking hours and with the toilets locked for the duration a challenge on more than one level. Siberia too was beautiful. The landscape from the border to Moscow pretty much the same...a lot of birch and conifer forests and ploughed fields peppered with Russian villages...dark wooden houses and immaculate vegetable gardens and always a greenhouse or two. The odd industrial city breaks the mould....and no cattle or sheep to be seen(except for the odd cow in a village)..I would think the -50C temperatures of winter are the reason for this. The people are friendly and helpful and willing to engage despite language difficulities. We visited Lake Baikal(the largest lake in the world) briefly and regreted not having more time here..it is very beautiful and unspoilt. Will and I were lucky enough to see the 2 Decemberists (1825 attempt to free the serfs and overthrow the Tsar which met with exile to Siberia) houses in Irkutsk which are now museums (while Sue and Jane valliantly looked after the bags at the station)...having miscalculated the train departure time by 5 hours as the train (not the staion) runs on Moscow time we had a lot of time to fill in here. Well finally we are here ...the city is elegant and impressive and teeming with nouveau riche in their flashy cars but as Lenin(a large statue of course) was at the station to greet us we sort of felt at home.Red Square is a 10 minute walk away and the Stanislavsky Theatre at the end of the street(this hostel is new and cheap and so well situated..as it turns out a real find).....we are ready for it after days of sitting! dasvidoniya Kath and the Komrades xo