St Petersburg

What a difference...after several days of cloud and rain, I finally saw the sun and its makes the city look so different just as I was about to leave. The Kazan Cathedral.

 Another interesting building, this one is arte nouveau style form the tuen of the century and now a cafe.

 The Admiralty Building.

 The Alexander Column.

 The golden domes and roofs of the cathedrals in the Pter and Pul Fortree just across the Neva River from the Winter Palace and The Hermitage.

 The Eternal Flame.

 The colourful domes of the Cathedral of The Spilled Blood built to commemorate the assassination of Alexander.

 The outside of the ballet theatre next door to the Winter Palace.

 A Pumpkin Coach in front of the Winter Palace.

 And then it was off to the station to catch the train to Moscow, and here are a couple of locomotives...

 ...but I was going by express, the Sapsan, which covers the 700kms in three and three quarter hours with just two stops at Bologoe and Tver. There was a display of the speed of the train at each end of the carriage  and it was often registering over 190kms per hour.

 My meal of baked salmon on the train...although it was freshly microwaved and served with plastic knife and fork.

 The scenery was plain and even more dull than other journeys that I have taken by train. It is a fast and efficient service between Russia's largest two cities but it lacks anything of interest to see out of the windows.

 Some derelict industrial plant outside of St Petersburg.

 And then into the countryside.

 It was fairest and occasional open areas.

 At least my journey through Karelia and Kola Peninsular had a range of mountains and lakes and clearings to break up the journey. This was largely just forest though there was a causeway to cross part of the reservoir on the Volga created by a dam at Dubna where the Moscow canal reaches the Volga.

 And then it was the outskirts of Moscow and we pulled into the station and I was in Moscow.