Sunday 9 July 2006
Highlights: Peter and Paul Fortress

With a 6 am wakeup call and an excellent buffet breakfast (I might like touring after all!) we were off to Russia. Passing the border was an interesting experience, first you go through the Finland border (which didn’t take long), then you enter a sort of no man’s land, and then through to the Russian border (which took longer but wasn’t bad).   On the Russian side of the border heaps of trucks were waiting to be cleared, our guide Ilya (who was born in Russia) said once there was a 20 km line of trucks to get out!

We got into St Petersburg in the late afternoon we got to visit the Peter and Paul Fortress which was really the founding point for this city.   We visited the Cathedral and visited the tombs of the Tsar’s including Nicholas II and his family.

Peter and Paul Fortress