Catherine Palace, St. Petersburg

November 2, 2009

Day 4 in St. Petersburg found us back in the mini-van with Guide Katya headed out of town to Catherine Palace in Pushkin. The drive can take as long as an hour, but thankfully our trip took just 35 minutes. The hitch on our arrival was that our youngest son, then five, needed the WC [...]

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A Little Synagogue, A Little Shopping: St. Petersburg

October 31, 2009

On our third day in St. Petersburg our local cousin served as our mini-bus guide. Mini-buses were everywhere in St. Petersburg, filled with all sorts of tourists, none of them Americans. Rather, they were filled with small town Russians, in to see the Big City, and a smattering of Europeans, and Middle Easterners, but nary [...]

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Bribe, Pay-up or be Russian

October 29, 2009

The evening of our second day in St. Petersburg found those of us not in the hospital (my father and his wife) at the symphony with my local cousin and her parents (actually my father’s first cousin, his wife and their daughter, which I think makes their daughter my second cousin, or something like that [...]

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St. Petersburg: Day 1

October 26, 2009

The Ceiling of the Peter and Paul Fortress

Despite the trials and tribulations of travel planning, the long flights, and the temporarily lost luggage, St. Petersburg on Day One was absolutely worth the effort. The city has broad boulevards with commanding buildings, palaces and churches at every turn. We hired a guide, an absolute necessity. [...]

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Russian Holiday

October 26, 2009

The whole process of getting to Russia makes the phrase “Russian Holiday” seem oxymoronic, or just plain moronic. It took weeks of effort on my part and on the part of our heroic travel agent to get us there. From the visas, to the agencies necessary to guarantee hotel rooms, to the emergency evacuation insurance [...]

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Club Med Gregolimano

October 25, 2009

Our end-of-summer summer vacation was meant to be a ten-day trip through Ireland and Wales. However, at summer’s end we had tired of Britain’s endless cloudy skies and cold weather and opted for a Club Med holiday in Greece instead. Both my sister and husband had worked hard all summer and all of us were [...]

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My Children are Wee

October 17, 2009

Photos from the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens

At the end of our British adventure we made a second trip to Scotland in the fine company of my sister. We made a repeat visit to the Royal Scottish Botanic Gardens just outside Edinburgh City Center. My children spent a good deal time during our summer travels [...]

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Bath and Stonehenge

October 3, 2009

My husband and I took two days away from the offspring and made our way to Bath for a weekend of R & R. I assert that anyone who would name his or her town Bath isn’t wildly creative about place names. Within Bath, it should be noted, I found Quiet Street, Cheap Street, and [...]

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Notes from London: Weather, Musicals and Food

October 3, 2009

People spend a lot of time talking about the weather in the UK. Do we do that at in the US? I don’t think so. Our chatty porter, (aka doorman) who was quite lovely, helpful, and seriously friendly – talked to me about the weather nearly every time I saw him. He seemed a bit [...]

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Notting Hill, London

October 3, 2009

I had actually resisted spending a day in Notting Hill. I’m not sure what my worry was, perhaps a nasty run-in with Hugh Grant, he can be quite the scoundrel, if memory serves. It just seemed touristy and required using one’s Mastercard. I was quite the non-shopper over the summer and I thought, why [...]

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