I really love looking back at the most amazing year of travels – all the photos, adventures, and memories to last a lifetime. Writing at a seaside café while it rained in Novy Svet (Crimea). I might have gotten rained out of several days’ worth of sightseeing, but on the flip side it was the…
Twelve months ago travel was pretty much at the bottom of my 2014 agenda. Twelve countries later, this turned out to be the most travel-intensive year of my life. Some of the journeys were for work, some for fun, and some were undertaken on a whim. By the end of the year I have crossed…
Moscow and Saint Petersburg are about 700 kilometers, or 440 miles, apart. That’s the same distance as between Washington, DC and Boston, or between Barcelona and Monaco. Basically, if you’re in one town, the other one isn’t somewhere you just pop over for a day trip. That said, there are plenty of convenient and affordable…
Onion-domed churches are one of the most defining visual symbols of Russia. Yet you would be hard-pressed to spot them around Saint Petersburg, save for the famous, whimsical Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. That’s because traditional Russian Orthodox cathedral architecture, so prevalent in Moscow and the Golden Ring of Russia developed during the…
Saint Pete’s is full of the fun and the funky, of the unusual and the unexpected. Here’s just a small sampling: Lions and Boobs Those are the predominant themes in architectural decoration in this city. One signifies might, another …I’ve got nothing. I guess breasts are just generally a good thing? Museum of Curiosities There’s…
Over the last two weeks you have heard all about how gorgeous Saint Petersburg is. You don’t have to take me at my word: Streets, Buildings, Details. Canals, Embankments, Bridges.
Moscow vs. Saint Petersburg. Which city is superior has been a subject of debate for Russians and foreigners alike pretty much since the latter was built on the marshlands of the Gulf of Finland in the early 1700s and subsequently inaugurated as the capital of the Russian Empire, borrowing that title from Moscow for some…
These were the exclamations that kept coming out of my mouth — to myself, out loud — as I walked from room to shining room of the Winter Palace, former residence of Russian emperors and now home to one of the greatest art museums ever. The Hermitage, according to multiple sources, is actually the largest…
Anyone who knows me knows that I love to plan, and the thing I love to plan above all is travel. Mapped out itineraries, color-coded Excel timetables, museum tickets purchased in advance – all this stuff gives me the special kind of tingles. So when an opportunity presented itself not just to go to Saint…
March is going to be the Saint Petersburg Month here at Home & Away. While I am sorting through some 600 photographs from my 5-day trip, here’s something by the way of an introduction: Saint Petersburg as depicted by Russian artists in the 19th and 20th centuries. f
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