I cast my mind back to 2007 — I’d just finished a temporary job and had saved some money away, which was already burning a hole in my bank account. Itching to see more of the world, I took my American friend up on an invite to come for a long visit. Having lived all of my life in an old seaside town in England, there was quite the culture shock once I landed in Washington! So here are my top ten things I missed from home, based on my experiences in Washington and Houston.

Fish and Chips please

High Streets

One of my first thoughts was — what happened to the handy high street? Parking in the town centre and wandering around on a glorious sunny day was something I always enjoyed in England. In Washington, I found myself driving from parking lot to the neighbouring strip mall, so I was very dependent being driven around, and I certainly missed the small family-run shops, as most of those in Washington are franchises and chain stores.

Public Transport

Yes, it’s something so many of us complain about in the UK. The bus is running late or the train has been cancelled. However, when there’s no regular services, someone who can’t drive soon starts to feel rather isolated. I often wondered how the elderly did their shopping or visited their friends. I missed being able to hop on a coach to anywhere or take a theatre break in London by rail, if the mood took me. Although I have to say I do like how there are buses that pick the kids up for school, it must really help out the working American parents!

Pubs

Pubs are substituted for bars in America, and with the drinking age being 21, they’re really not the sort of place you can take the entire family. I’m a big fan of the old-fashioned pub, where you can take your Gran and little brother for a good meal with a family-friendly atmosphere and beer garden, and this sort of thing could only be found in a restaurant.

Butchers and Bakers

Maybe my home town was spoilt: with four butchers and two bakers, I’d always assumed they would be a common feature. Bakers with their aromatic fresh bread and tasty pastries — I found myself missing the traditional sausage roll or Cornish pasty. In America, I found these made-to-order snacks and cuts of meat harder to come by. What some Americans say about British food being tasteless is nothing more than a myth. With freshly-butchered meat, British meals can be very tasty indeed!

British cuisine

So leading on from my previous point, the great and famous — roast beef dinner, made perfect with the accompaniment of Yorkshire puddings. Rather than the traditional joint of beef that brings back nostalgic memories of my mum and dad cooking on a Sunday, Americans tend to go for steaks and burgers instead. Considering America is home to so many expats from all over the world, I found the full English breakfast surprisingly difficult to come by. These were not the only British dishes that were sadly absent, but they were two that I missed the most.

NHS

This one was bound to pop up. The weather, public transport and NHS are probably one of the top gripes British people complain about. We can’t fix the weather but the NHS is practically a free service and saves so many lives for low-income families. I know recently it has been compared to the ‘Obama care’ and verbally abused by American politicians, but I hold firm that the NHS is one of the country’s defining elements, and therefore is just as integral as the London Underground and as much a part of Britain’s identity as the Queen.

Beverages

I actually found non-alcoholic or non-soda beverages to be quite lacking. I missed the wide array of thirst-quenching squash flavors, and I don’t feel as guilty giving this to a young child compared to cola. Tea was something else I missed. Yes, Americans do have iced tea, but sometimes all I want is a nice cup of builder’s tea with milk and sugar.

Licensing Laws

This can be quite a big cultural shock to young Britons. Currently the UK law says you must be 18 to drink, so you could be drinking for a couple of years and then find you have to go a very long time being sober, since US drinking laws state you need to be 21. Chocolate I’m just going to say this — I love British chocolate. The smell of a Hersey bar just turns me away. Please Kraft, don’t destroy my love!

Roundabouts

I can’t say how much I now appreciate these wonderful marvels. The frequency of traffic lights at every junction really frustrated me. The traffic backs up and you’re waiting for what feels like forever to move, just to travel a few blocks and then meet that devil red light again. Roundabouts keep the traffic flowing and there should be more of them in America!

So, there’s my list of what I missed from my homeland and have taken for granted. I’m sure you have your own list of things that you long for. It’s worth bearing in mind, though, that I could easily make a list just as long for things I miss from America… Mmmm Corndogs…

Things You Might Miss From Your British Home is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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Alas, all is not lost when it comes to cash though, check out my tips on how to travel in Finland for cheap!

COMPANY:

Don’t come here alone folks. If you come alone, it’s gonna cost you a bomb, there’s no way around it. So if you don’t have at least one other person to travel to Finland with you, put it on the backburner – come back when you have a friend or two to join you.

Traveling with friends in Finland

ACCOMMODATION:

A dorm bed in a hostel costs around $30 per night, and there aren’t too many available. A budget hotel costs around $70 per room per night. So if there are 3 or 4 of you, you can crash in one room, easy.

Better yet, use couchsurfing. Finnish people are great, they’re really sociable and outgoing and not only will you save $30 a night by couchsurfing, you’ll get some real local experiences too.

FOOD:

There are two ways to eat for cheap in Finland. Eat kebab and pizza lunch time specials for $6 (Finland has a lot of immigrants, and it’s standard practice to have discounted lunch menus like that) or buy your groceries in a S Market branch, of which there are loads. Bread, ham and cheese will only cost you $3 or so.

TRANSPORT:

In Helsinki, I asked for a return ticket to Lapand on the train.  It’s around 13 hours away, the lady behind the counter quoted me…. Wait for it…. 257 Euro ($340) each way, $680 return!! WTF?! For a return bus ticket, the fee is $300 return.

However, if you’re with 1, 2 or 3 friends renting a car is a much better option. For 5 days, a car will cost about $300 ($60 each) + petrol. Roadtripping is awesome, it gives you a lot of freedom and is much, much cheaper than the crazy public transport here.

BOOZE:

Lay off the beers, and try not to buy alcohol in bars, and certainly not in clubs! Bring hard liquor from whatever country you happen to be in before (Russia, Estonia etc), it’ll be 30% of the price that you’ll have to pay in Finland.

Ok guys, Finland is always gonna hit ur wallet hard but if you’re smart, you don’t have to break the bank entirely. You can squeeze buy on around $70 a day, if you’re really careful. Happy travels!

5 Tips on How to Travel in Finland For Cheap is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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I actually left Russia one day early in order to reach Finland for the 30^th April, because I had heard about Vappu, a national holiday in Finland on May Day Eve and May Day.

Partying in the park

Vappu is a festival where anyone who has ever graduated from high school in Finland (which, considering Scandinavia is brilliant at everything, that means pretty much everyone attends the party), dons a white cap, hits the park, eats delicious food at a picnic and proceeds to get blind drunk. Naturally I couldn’t miss out on that!

I arrived in Helsinki and hooked up with a couchsurfing buddy who let me and my two friends crash at his place, complete with private sauna, for 2 nights. He met us at the subway stop armed with 2 cases of beers and a hearty Finnish handshake, and so the mayhem commenced.

We had (illegally) imported 6 litres of cheap Russian vodka to Finland, we gave a big bottle to our new couchsurfing friend, threw two in our backpacks and headed to the park around 2pm.

The sun was shining, people were chilling all over the park, music was blasting and it was another one of those moments of realization when you just think “life is bloody awesome”. So I sat down and soaked it up,

Being pretty much the only foreigners in the whole park, before long we had met some cool friends, people were plying us with their local booze. Everyone in Iceland can speak almost perfect English, and as the afternoon turned to evening we were having a great time, in a group that was growing by the minute.

Spiderman was running around the park like a (drunk) lunatic, doing forward rolls, nailing a beer, then sprinting off somewhere else. Little Bo Beep was looking very cute until she fell down the hill after a little too much sparkling wine. A giant panda was making out with a giant reindeer, it was a perfect storm of happy madness.

My 2 friends and I, along with our awesome couchsurfing pal, our new found park friends were merrily drinking together, shooting the sh*t, with big grins on our face for the rest of the evening all relishing our new friendships and appreciating life. Before we knew it was 1am and time to head back. What a day, what a festival, what a country. And we repeated it all again the next day! Happy travels.

Partying for Vappu in Helsinki is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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Partying is part and parcel of the travel scene, and long may it continue but we pay theprice for that cheap booze with the inevitable hangover. It’s the ying to the partying yang. And bloody hell there’s no worse ying than one in a hostel dorm room.

When I’m hangin all I want is some chilled air-con, some dirty fast food and a movie with my gf/friends, what I certainly don’t want is this:

1)   A room full of other people who clearly don’t feel nearly as bad as me. Piss off youngsters, I’m dying here.

2)   An ipod blaring Lady Gagy at 1000 decibels, plugged into some shitty speakers making it sound even worse than it already is.

3)   Listening to two travelers trying to ‘out cheap’ each other “oh you paid $10 for that bus journey, lol, I only paid $9, but then I’ve traveled so much before, I know where to find the deals”. Shut your face mate, if I hadn’t lost my flipflops last night, I’d be hurling one at your face right now.

Suffering is bad enough, suffering in public is hell. That’s it, I’m literally never drinking again. Or at least until the next promotion night. Oh no, here we go again.

Tuesday’s Travel Rant: Hangovers in Dorms is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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It’s almost a spoiled thing to say but, sometimes, choosing a destination to go on holiday can be a bit of a drama. Today, with all the low-cost airlines at your disposal, almost all destinations around the world are within reach and affordable. Right now I’m sitting in my Rome apartment thinking about how going to Rome for the first time came about. I was told to watch the film Roma (1972) by Federico Fellini and the whole culture, scenery and charm shown in the film made me want to go to the Eternal City at once. However this is not the first time that I’ve been inspired to travel to some place.

The novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith gives a beautiful view of southern Italy, being set in a small town on the southern Italian coast, portraying the great life of beach, sailing, beautiful white narrow streets and excellent food. The novel is also set in places like Sanremo, Naples and Rome during the 1950s, an irresistible inspiration for wanting to go to Italy. The Amalfi Coast, Naples and the southern coast of Italy is an incredible destination so if you’ve never been there, read this novel and make sure your bags are packed by the time you’ve finished it because you’ll be on the first flight there.

Films are a great source of inspiration for travellers. For instance, there is no bigger or better advert to travel to South America than by watching the film Motorcycle Diaries (2004), the film starring Gael García Bernal as a young Che Guevara, travelling around South America on a motorbike with his friend. The film goes from Argentina to Chile, from Bolivia to Peru and finishes in Ecuador. All the landscapes that you can see in the film, from the Argentinian planes, to the Chilean desert and the Bolivian and Peruvian jungle and towns, make it irresistible for travellers to watch the film and not want to get a plane straight there.

In terms of European and North American travel, the ‘Good Thief’s Guide’ series by Chris Ewan are an excellent source of travelling inspiration. Ewan has published four books so far, The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam, Paris, Las Vegas and Venice, with the Berlin one due to be released in 2013. The books tell the story of the writer-come-thief Charlie Howard and his adventures in these cities. Leaving the plot aside, the books always give a great description of the cities where the story is taking place and also mention a lot of local landmarks, so if you visit the city in question, you’ll immediately remember the names of places from the books.

Another film which may have inspired many people to travel to South East Asia and their beaches is Danny Boyle’s The Beach (2000). Once again, leaving the plot aside, the film shows the urban landscape of Bangkok and what some beaches on the coast are like, many times likened to paradise on Earth. Nowadays, many tourists from Anglo-Saxon countries travel to Thailand to party on these beaches, parties such as the Full Moon Party but there are still many where you can still relax and get away from annoying drunken tourists. Also, the famous British BBC programme Top Gear did a special programme on travelling in Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh City to Halong Bay, south to north along the coast, and the views are simply stunning, possibly Vietnam’s greatest ever tourist advert. If you’re interested in knowing more about southeast Asia, watch Saibadee Luang Prabang (2008), Laos’ first film released after it was taken over by its communist government.

Impulsive choices can be bad but can also give you a rush of adrenaline, and none bigger than booking a trip somewhere thanks to recently-received inspiration from a book, a film or a TV programme. However, you can start by watching some Federico Fellini films, which will definitely make you want to rent apartments in Rome and get on the first plane to the Eternal City.

Inspiration to travel is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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It’s tempting to buy every cool little trinket I come across, every awesome indigenous painting I see, something with every foreign script but if I was do that that before long my backpack would weigh a ton, I’d be lumbering around like a lunatic and the stuff would be owning me.

I like to be free when I’m young, free to move, free to make open ended decisions, free to live how I wanna live, and maintaining this lifestyle allows me to do that. I get my compulsions to buy all that cool stuff by sticking to my long established 3 habits for each country I visit:

1) Sewing flags on my bag: I have a flag for every country I’ve visited on my daybag, it’s running out of space to be honest but it’s pretty cool. Although after this trip I’ll need to have squeezed almost 100 on there, that’s gonna be quite a task.

It’s a great talking point for when I’m in a new hostel, people are intrigued about all the places I’ve been and it brings back great memories from times on the road. I know it’s a bit crass but whatever, I love it!

My day pack

2) Collecting travel bills: I started doing this years ago, before I even traveled. Trying to get my hands on any foreign currency I could but now I’m country hopping all the time I’ve always got no end of foreign cash so I keep the lowest denomination each time.

I was in Zimbabwe a year or two ago just after hyperinflation and I got my hands on a 100 trillion note – it’s probably my favourite out of all my travel money. I don’t care what condition they’re in, it’s just nice to look at back at them.

Note in Zimbabwe

3) Eating Subway in every country! This might not go down well with the travel purists, but I’m a subway addict and after you’ve been roughing it in Western China for 3 weeks or busing it through Ethiopia, the sight of some western food, and the promise of a foot long meatball makes me wanna weap tears of joy!

Eating subway in Tanzania!

I reckon I’ve probably eaten it in 15 countries or so by now. I know I know, I should hang my head in shame! Considering how bad I could be with collecting tourist memorabilia I come across literally every day, I’m not doing to bad! Do you guys collect anything? Fridge magnets from countries? Posters?

Quirky Travel Habits I Have is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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We don’t know anything else so we stop playing, join the crowds, and forget the carefree joy of youth. Never to regain it again, until maybe when we have kids, then we get to relive it a little bit, sigh and utter ‘youth is wasted on the young’, reminisce about the days when fun outweighed the stress, when we played more than we worked.

But those days are over, now you have to plod on down the path that’s apparently been chosen for you. The path of dubious pension schemes (will they ever pay out?), the path of snazzy new technology on lines of credit (they’ll be outdated in 18 months), the path of grinding it out for your next promotion (are you really enjoying your job? the industry? the ratrace?). The days of playing are over only because you’ve chosen them to be over.

That’s not the way it has to be, in fact that’s not the way is should be. Years of course will always pass by, we’ll all finish school, finish university but we don’t have to listen to the little man shouting “real-world time”, we can continue to play, continue to smile more than we frown, continue to treat the world like the playground it is. We can still be careless and love it, make mistakes and laugh at them, meet new people and connect.

“Don’t take life too seriously, you might not make it out alive”

Don’t be weighed down by the importance of life. Life is there to enjoy, not to stress and worry about. Don’t let the kids horde all the fun, there’s enough for all of us to enjoy. Next time you have the opportunity to kick off your shoes and play a little, do it. Then do it some more, before you know it you’ll be having fun again. Once we realize that the world is a playground, we seem to have to a lot more time to play.

Motivational Monday: The World Is A Playground is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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Breakfast with the Russian Spetsnaz:

On the Irkutsk to Omsk train, I knew my 2 friends and I were stuck onboard for 2 whole days. We woke up on the second day, a bit groggy after a night on the slim train bed, one of my friends was missing, I assumed he was in the dining cart. I made my way there, and there he was sitting down with 2 of the biggest dudes I’ve ever seen, heads the size of watermelons and fists twice the size of that.

After them greeting me with non-optional vodka shots and beers (for breakfast, naturally) we tried to talk, although with my non-existent Russian and their nonexistent Russian communication was proving difficult. It transpired that these 2 dudes were part of the Spetsnaz, Russia’s most violent, dangerous and trained special forces with quite a dark history.

A quick show of tattoos to prove themselves and some bullet wounds on their arms were enough to convince me. A couple more (equally enforced) breakfast vodkas and beers later, these boys were knocking entire glasses over the dining cart, shouting in Russian to the waitresses in what sounded like less than polite terms. It was getting a tad uncomfortable, and all our requests to not drink anymore were falling on

After the 5^th beer hug I was victim to (friendly guys apparently), and countless enforced drink, these guys were ready to collapse thanks to their two empty vodka bottles in the front of them so when they disappeared to the toilet, we scarpered back to our carriage hoping to never see them again. I think i probably dodged a bullet with that one, perhaps literally.

Lunch with the Mafiosas:

In Irkutsk, my first Russian stop, I went scouring the streets for a cheap eatery for lunch. After finding one I sat down, ordered some dumplings and potatoes, and sat in the corner. After about 30 seconds a Russian guy came and spoke to me (by ‘spoke’ I mean he shouted the 10 words he knew in English, repeatedly), I smiled at him but before he could finish his friendly tirade he had bought 4 beers and pulled up a chair.

Before too long his 2 friends had joined, one young guy who spoke a bit of English and one 40 year Russian version of Tony Soprano. They sat down, 4 more beers, we chatted a bit, 4 more beers, cheers to Russia, 4 more beers, cheers to Ireland, 4 more beers. You get the picture. I asked them what they did for a living, they gave me the sketchiest answers imaginable, something about the Israeli army, owning telecommunications in Siberia and gambling with his ‘Russian friends’ in Atlantic city. Hmmmm, dodgy.

Then they invited me out for more beers “Let’s go and shout at the f*cking police, they won’t touch us”. Thanks but I’m washing my hair tonight. “Ok, lets go and f*Ck some girls, if you have money, we can give you everything” What a kind offer, but really, I’m ok.

Suddenly the police burst into this small, quiet coffee shop, batons drawn, demanding the Russians (who at this stage we had confirmed were in fact part of the local mafia) go with them. They laughed, shook my hand, shouted “f*cking police”,told me to wait a second and went outside. I saw out the window, the English speaking guy, the alpha-male, was giving the police a piece of his mind, shouting at them, gesturing etc at which point the police disappeared, the gangsters went the following way. We waited until the coast was clear, finished our beers hastily, and shot back to the hostel in double quick time!

Getting locked in by the Kazaks:

Day 1 in Kazakhstan, I was wondering around the city centre admiring the amazing new architecture found across Astana, the new capital. 2 Kazak guys approached me, speaking excellent English, saying “hey guys, it’s 5pm, drinking time! Wanna join us?”. I always try to say yes to all opportunities so off I went to his swanky, huge apartment 100m away from the iconic city centre.

Within 5 minutes two bottles of vodka were cracked open. The Kazakhstanis drink their vodka in shots, no mixing here, so before too long the music was cranking and more people were at the gathering.

I was with my two friends and we wanted to check out a bar in the city, to see what the vibe was in Kazakhstan. “Sure guys, that’s the plan, just some more shots”. This continued for another couple of hours, more people turned up, more booze and other dubious substances.

By this point I knew it was time to go, I whacked on my sneakers and made my way to the door. Bham. Door shut. Half friendly, half sternly the new guy ‘suggested’ we do more shots, we obliged.

We heard all about the politics within the Government, what the Kazaks really thought about their new found oil money, about the 20 year rule of the ‘democratic’ President. Sporadically we tried to leave, shut down every time until finally we made one last combined effort. After much protestation we managed to squeeze out the door, down the lift and onto the main road, taxi straight to our place.

Why they wouldn’t let us leave, I’ll never know but let’s just say I’m happy we left when we did!

Bus station accommodation:

In the last 6 years I’ve stayed in some skanky accommodation, bed bugs, no running water, hookers drifting in and out of rooms – none of it phases me too much, but this little beauty is right up there with my worst accommodation!

Located in the bus station (yep, actually in it), we rented a twin room, with no running water, no bathroom, no sheets and 2 very battered mattresses and some strange stains on the floor.

I only stayed one night, but it was long enough to work out that the stains were in fact puke on the floor and that the holes in the walls were rat dens. The rat den discovery was due to the fact that in the shared bathroom was a sticky tab to catch creatures, I went for a pee and was greeted by a squealing, gyrating rat stuck to the tab, fighting for his life, 30cm from the toilet. Wonderful way to start the morning.

The worst thing about this place was that it cost $27 a night! Damn that new oil money dragging the prices up everywhere.

Shaman possession:

I wrote an article about this here. In a nutshell, I stayed with a nomadic Mongolian family who’s son recently became a shaman, he then became possessed by two spirits. I stayed in their tent on a night of a full moon when the Shaman became repossessed so he had to excorcise the spirits from his body immediately, while I sat there for 2 hours watching the ritual. Amazing.

Traveling cattle class:

In a bid to maintain my budget travel policies I choose to book 3^rd class tickets where available on the Trans Siberian journey. This consists of 6 beds to each section , with 10 sections per carriage. Each section is about the size of a king-size bed, so it’s cramped beyond belief.

After sharing booze with a Uzbek family, drinking with Russian soldiers, sharing salami and hard liquor with Kazaks, getting my photo taken endless times and having entire conversations with people despite the fact that my Russian is constricted to about 3 words, I discovered that if you really wanna ‘feel’ the Trans Siberian, cattle class is the only way to go.

Renting out a gay Russian bath house:

I’ve written an article about this little mishap, which ultimately turned out pretty cool (read about it here), but suffice to say a naked Russian bath house with a mirrored bedroom as the centre piece and naked dudes all over the walls is probably not the standard Russian bath house the people in the Lonely Planet were suggesting we visit. Ooops.

Crazy Things On the Trans Siberian Route: My Highlights is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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Our russian bath house plunge pool!

I enquired from the hostel chick (who certainly wasn’t the brightest pea in the pod) about a cool bath house in the city, she gave me some directions and to be honest they were sketchy at best, anyways it had been a long journey to Moscow (81 hours on the train) so I went looking for the address with new found levels of motivation, eagerly awaiting a hot tub, steam room and some serious downtime.

The genius hostel girl had chosen not to write either the correct phone number OR the actual address OR even the actual name of the place so when my mates and I couldn’t find it, we’re were in a spot of bother. I asked person after person and no one knew where it was, the closest we came to someone recognizing it was an old man who didn’t know exactly but he heard there was a “gay people’s bath place” around here. Hmmmm, alarm bells should have rang then for me and my 3 (male) friends, but nope, it didn’t’ even register.

It took us over 2 hours to find the bloody place, but when I descended down the dingiest stairs into the basement of some shady building I began to wonder if this could really be the right place. I banged on the door, some creaky lock was unlatched and on we went.

The 2 staff members spoke no English so when I walked in they were shocked to say the least. They were giving us some very strange looks, casting a few giggles too, but I just put that down to us being foreigners. We tried to tell them we wanted to enter the bath house, we asked for bathing suits (unnecessary apparently) but after much laughter we finally paid our $30 and entered.

The area was pretty small, cosy would maybe be a better word however the alarm bells turned into sirens when we realised the entire place was kitted out with naked dudes and chicks on the wall, teaching the kama sutra a few new moves, I didn’t know 2 dudes could bend like that.  There were not-so-personal shower rooms at the end of the corridor, and then the centre piece.. a huge (orgy?) sized circular bed, with silk streets, and a massive oval shaped mirror on the ceiling and on the wall were sitting proudly in the centre of the complex. Interesting. Suddenly the sly glances, giggles, confusion and ridicule were making a lot more sense!

Luckily enough the boys and I had clearly not made our innocent intentions clear to the Russian staff outside, but amidst the confusion it turned out we had booked the whole place out for the 4 of us, so we were safe, almost.

Not to be outdone, we stayed for our one hour session as the only dudes there, sinking our cheap booze and playing some horrible Russian hiphop. 1 litre of vodka later, ample nudity between friends, saunas and plunge pools and we made a discreet, if a little sheepish, exit from the place.

I know it’s normal to be stared at when you’re a foreigner in a new country, but the looks we got upon leaving that place should never be cast on anyone, that was  a true walk of shame! I wanted to scream ‘we just had a few drinks and chilled in the sauna, it’s not what you think”, but it would be a waste of time. So I slapped my mate on the ass, and we walked back to the hostel. Happy travels!

Getting Naked and Renting out a Gay Russian Bath House is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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Thanks to the difficult visa situations in Russia (30 days to get across the biggest, bloody country in the world, thanks a lot Russian Government, great idea) I only had 2 days left so I had to get moving. This is what I did with my 2 days in St Petes:

Nevsky Prospect:

The main road in all of Russia, Nevsky prospect dissects the entire city, and runs all the way down to the city’s most treasured site, the Hermitage.

You can spend an hour or two meandering down the street on the way to the Hermitage, fighting the urge to order a chocolate sundae or big mac in one of the endless fast food outlets (I failed). The architecture along the walk is beautiful, and on the way you’ll walk past the next site, below.

Church on Spilled Blood:

Built on the spot where Alexander III bit the dust, this church is St Pete’s answer to St Basil’s in Moscow. To be honest, it’s every bit as cool as St Basils, but not as famous.

The Hermitage:

Free for people with student cards (or any other ID that a Russian ticket vendor may not be able to decipher in English, hint hint) or $15 for non-students.

This is one of the world’s most famous art galleries and has endless pieces by Da Vinci including Madonna, Van Gogh, Picasso, Monnet, Rembrandt (that’s about the end of my art knowledge). I’m no fan of art galleries, or museums for that matter but this is pretty cool; however, I’d dispute anyone insisting you need “at least 2 days” to do the Hermitage justice, one morning was enough for me. z

Palace Square and Winter Palace are both connected to the Hermitage and are worth a bit of extra effort to check out too.

Vodka Museum:

Short and sweet, this museum is the sort of museum I can spend a bit of time in! $5 entrance, $10 if you want tasting and entrance (easy choice). The actual museum is all in Russian so that’s not great, but the posters and old shots are great. Then you get fed some canapés and Russian vodka, and that my friends, can only be a good thing. There’s an awesome gift shop too.

Peter and Paul Fortress:

Both a former political prison and military fortress for the city, the fortress is steeped in history. You can walk here from The Hermitage. You don’t have to buy a ticket for the entire place, with individual tickets available for each section of the fortress but make sure you get tickets to the Cathedral, it’s certainly worth it.

That still leaves you with enough time for a night on the town, or to watch a Zenit St Petersburg footy game! Happy travels!

2 Days in St Petersburg is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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