If you’ve ever rented an apartment in St Petersburg from the net, you’ll know how it goes.
You give the address to the taxi driver who drops you outside this gorgeous, stucco and sculpture fronted building. And you think . . . Wow. Am I really staying here?
But then you discover that all the wonderful [...]

This site is being comprehensively updated. If some stuff doesn’t work and the old posts look a bit iffy . . . well, that’s to be expected. In the meantime, I am posting some pics from St Petersburg. The view is just simply too high and too wide to get around it - even with [...]

Having my shaving gel confiscated at Stanstead the other day prompted me to post this old Wondermark cartoon from 2006. It still isn’t funny. Click for bigger image.

In these cash-strapped times, I think I should focus more on the delights of bus travel. I suspect everyone will be doing more of this.

Personally, I give Riga the Billet D’Or for the best bus station ever. And in general terms, don’t you travellers think you’ve had it with airports?
Always taking my shoes [...]

Panoramas are great. If you like to mind travel to places on the net, there’s no better way of virtually being there.
I was very impressed with the collection of panoramas on St. Petersburg com. It reminded me just how far you can walk around in this vast, spread out city and why your feet always [...]

Actually, none of the people in the picture are Alex or Natasha. They’re just some Russians who turned up at the house one day with booze and party shopping. If you like impromptu, this guest house is definitely for you.
Alex and Natasha’s place is a beautiful old (original) German house in the heart of Svetlogorsk. [...]

According to the souvenir book I bought a few years ago, the Aurora fired the defining shot in 1917 which signalled the storming of the Tsar’s winter palace.

…It appears to celebrate 60 years of Russian women wearing too much eye make-up, though I’ll admit to being short of supporting documentation. I’d like to dovetail this post with the one I wrote earlier about Russian Tourists.

In Prussian times - in fact until it fell apart in the ’60s, Svetlogorsk had a pretty funicular railway to take weary beachcombers back up the dune. … But with all the repro-Prussian initiatives in Svetlogorsk, it’s possible that the lift will sport a red-tiled, gabled hat by next year.

Whether it’s the new cold war or the credit crunch, there seem to be very few foreign tourists in Russia this time around. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s Autumn. But definitely my impression.
Time was when you could tag on to any old tour party in St Petersburg and get a free English commentary. Now you [...]

The fab four even appear in stained glass windows, though to see them to advantage you’ll need to go during ‘business lunchtime’ when the sun gets down into the cellars. The walls are plastered with ‘that takes you back’ pictures as well as actual plastercasts - handprints from other bands who have come along to pay and play tribute. Live music is most nights.