Wednesday, July 23, 2014
We left Moscow and immediately faced a traffic jam due to a small crash. Ten kms further we slowed down again due to excessive traffic. After 90 minutes we had travelled less than 10 miles. Then things got a little better as we got onto the M10 proper.
We had read on the Internet that it typically takes 12 hours to make the journey from Moscow to Saint Petersberg. Which is a very long time. So we were emotionally prepared for a long day. However at Yvshny Volochyok we got more than we bargained for with a massive traffic jam. We spent probably an hour moving very slowly in a long line of trucks before we found a clever way around the problem. As best as we could tell, there was no actual problem except too much traffic. The road was not great and the truck drivers were a little crazy. We spent over 10 hours on the road and were glad when the day’s driving was over. The scenery along the way was ok, but was pretty flat and featureless. We were seeing more pine trees which was nice.
We arrived late at Velikiy Novgorod (Великий Новгород) and quickly found a hotel, The Volkhov. After 527kms (327miles) it was good to have a nice dinner and a few drinks in the MyCroft Bar, which is an English style pub. The sun stayed up late this far north which meant after dinner we still had plenty of time to visit the nice local Kremlin.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
The drive north to the Finland border continued with another 328kms (204miles). We expected to find a bypass around St Petersberg but failed and ended up going straight through the center of town. Good to see St Petersberg again, but this did add an hour or so to the trip. The truck drivers were just as numerous and as bad as the previous day. We arrived at Vyborg (Выборг) at a reasonable time and soon found a hotel for the night, The Bat Hotel.
Stephen had to replace a wiper blade on Sterlin which had failed the day before. As expected, this small task ended up taking more time than expected. After the wiper blade was fixed, we had a few hours to wander around the old town. Vyborg architecture is much more Scandinavian than Soviet Russian. There was an old castle which made for a nice visit. Dinner and drinks was in the hotel.
Friday, July 25, 2014
More road works but less trucks on the road to the Finnish border.
