May 15 Back in St. Petersburg for me and really Michael's first opportunity to explore the city. We decided to do a walking tour. There were several choices available ranging from free (with or without pre-registration) to paid. We chose Peter's Walking Tour, the oldest in St. Petersburg which started one long block away from the hotel, was the longest, and was touted as going to places other tours did not go and appealing to backpackers. The tour started at 10:...

May 14 Time to pack up, off to the breakfast buffet, check out, and meet Ina, our guide from two days ago in the lobby. We had a new driver, forgot his name, who didn't speak any English and, as we learned later in the day, was a driver as a second job and really was an interior decorator. Our morning's destination before we returned to St. Petersburg were two nearby sites, Izborsk and Pechory, west of Pskov and near the Estonian border. We arrived at Izborsk f...

May 13 I did a quick "load" of laundry before we headed out for the day, wanted to take advantage of the towel warmer in the bathroom, hoping it would get my socks dry before we had to leave tomorrow. Breakfast buffet and then we met Ivan, our driver for the day. He seemed a nice enough man, didn't speak a word of English (I didn't want to pay extra to the travel agency for an English speaking driver so just so we could chat in the car.). So today was our trip ...

May 12 (I have returned to the U.S. and the trip is over, but I am going to try to go back and fill in the missing days. So here we go.) After waking, we needed to pack up as today was check out day. We went to breakfast, and I was easily able to get Michael into the dining room. My father was waiting for us there and we all ate breakfast together (no Mahine) which was quite pleasant. He and Mahine had worked out their return flight arrangements with their firs...

May 11 (This blog needs a lot of backfil so got this day done.) So the day started with the breakfast buffet. After "sneaking" Michael into my room in the hotel, I "snuck" him into the breakfast buffet as well. The first act was probably more heinous as foreign visitors must been registered when they stay at a hote and have a a copyof the guests' passports, neither of which we did. My father actually left Mahine and came and ate breakfast with us, the first b...