Hi Steemers! Today, I'd like to tell you about Russian Beauty.
Google, or how we discover Russian beauty
I like to travel. No matter where and with whom. Just new places and people always inspire me.
One winter day my friends and me decided to go to Vologda through Rostov, Yaroslavl and Kostroma. No one of us had ever been there before that moment. So, we took just personal belongings and started.
Thanks God, some of my friends loaded Google maps in his telephone. Without them we failed to go anywhere.
I wondered that time how our ancestors traveled. Majority of road signs are old and not real. If not GPS and Google maps we could had come to Volgograd instead of Vologda.
Rostov, or winter fishing
But let start with beginning. Our first stop was Rostov. Rostov is famous for its Kremlin first of all. And when we put Rostov centre on our navigator it brought us directly to the walls of the Kremlin. Hurrrah! How smart the GPS is!
Rostov Kremlin
We visited the Kremlin and all corresponding museums but failed to walk along the Kremlin walls because they were closed for visitors. I liked it. So simple and powerful simultaneously.
Fortunately, it turned out that one of our friends has relatives in Rostov. So he called them and we happened to take part in real winter fishing. It was a thing, I’d rather say! I never even have dreamed about this. We caught nothing but impressions overwhelmed us. Spontaneous decisions made our life wonderful.
Yaroslavl, or town of churches
Strange to say but Yaroslavl is famous for its policemen. Every driver in Yaroslavl knows road rules by heart. But we didn’t know about this and were stopped twice by local policemen. A first acquaintance with one of the oldest Russian towns was not a pleasant one. But everything is good that ends well. From second glance we liked this town more. In Yaroslavl there are so many churches that it is impossible to enumerate them but they make the town a specific one. Yaroslavl is laid on two banks of Volga River. The symbol of the town is a bear. There is even a monument to bear in the centre of the town and it roars at 5 pm. We didn’t know about this and our friends there played a joke with us. It was a real fun. I liked the local people there. They are open-minded and very friendly; they are very handy and can make fun. They said that in summer the fishing is just marvelous there. So, we must return to try it.
One of the Yaroslavl churches
Kostroma cheese
After Yaroslavl we moved to Kostroma to taste Kostroma cheese and see the famous monastery from where the Mikhail Romanov was taken for being a tsar of Russia. I don’t like it because there were too many tourists and it was really cold. The monastery was just like any other in Russia. But cheese is a must to taste. When we came to the shop and asked for cheese we imagined variety of breeds but there was only one: Kostroma cheese.
Speaking of our friend Google – I should say that it knows not much of Kostroma and we were lost for some time there.
Vologda
Vologda was the point of our destination. And the road from Kostroma to Vologda was a good one.
Road to Vologda
Here it is high time to tell about Russian roads. The point is that winters in Russia are very severe and during winter roads are damaged and every summer or autumn they are restored. And this process is continuous. That’s why every time I see good roads I try to mark it.
Vologda. It was 30 degrees below zero when we reached it. We stayed in apartments not far from the centre of the town, as Google advices us. And that’s time we were very pleased with it. The Kremlin, all the best cafes were nearby. And I wanted to mention that in Vologda there was the biggest child’s ice-run. It was a real fun. We ran through it like children and enjoyed out time in Vologda in spite of the frost.
Go home, or how we searched for bed with Google
At first we decided to go to Moscow from Vologda for one day. But we overestimated our forces. So we started to search for bed with Google. It brought us to one place and it turned out that it was a monastery. We had no choice. It was a deep night. But we were surprised that we were given rooms and even breakfast. It was somewhere near Rostov. Landscapes there were very picturesque. One of my friends was a photographer and he couldn’t stop making photos.
Bed and breakfast at the monastery
So, our 7-days trip ended in Moscow, it was spontaneous but very interesting and now I am sure that you can get to any place with Google.