Dave says... Our final couple of hours in St P. as we catch the overnight train to Moscow. A few observations from St P to help give you more of a flavour of the city. i) there are very many street vendors, from whom you procure water, chocolate etc. But they have a great aversion to giving change (eg try to pay for a 35R bottle with a 100 note and they generally refuse point blank.) This 'exact money only' approach has been a little confusing at times. ...

Dave says... Day 2 in St Petersburg. Yesterday, after entering our update, we headed off to the 'world famous' Hermitage, which rates itself as the number one art collection in the world. It was certainly pretty impressive. I have never seen so many Cezanne, Picasso, van Gogh etc under one roof. Nor so many Chinese tourists / tour groups etc. Locals pay about 2 pounds, but as foreigners we paid about 7 pounds each. This 2-tier system is fairly common apparen...

Dave says.... Greetings from St Petersburg. Our adventure as it has unfolded thus far. Saturday the 9th was more manic than we possibly could have imagined. With some much needed last minute assistance from Anne & Jason, we got everything packed away (sheds and plastic bags are very useful for such exercises), dropped in our keys with our friends at Foxtons, and headed for Clapham Junction. At Waterloo we thought (well I did) we had lots of time...but n...