Novgorod Velikiy

OK, my advice to anyone planning to go to Novgorod by train from St. Petersburg is book accomodation way in advance (I think the hostels in St. Petersburg can do this, "All Seasons" certainly can). Then you can take the 3hr express train the night before, instead of the 5hr+ one in the morning like I did yesterday. It stops nearly everywhere, most places don't even look like stations, just a couple of wooden houses in a clearing in the woods (if that), although it did arrive exactly on time. You could take a bus, which takes about 4hrs I think.

Novgorod Velikiy itself is lovely, very calm after the big city. It was the first town of the Russian state, and so has lots of old buildings including the Kremlin (a fort), and a bazillion churches. The churches are nearly all small and simple, which I prefer to the more elaborate ones. I wanted to go inside one, but it was closed. Inside, there are apparently some very rare paintings, by some dude whose signature was putting war-like paint around the eyes and noses. So as I didn't see them, I imagine it looks like the gospel as if enacted by the Norwegian black metal scene in full corpse paint.

Anyway, Sunday was very relaxing, despite wandering when on earth the train would arrive. I ate at the best restaurant yet, call "Detinets". It was inside the Kremlin, in one of the towers and adjoining chapel, with a spiral staircase to reach it and gloomy lighting to make it extra medieval. The food was very tasty, fairly cheap, and I had "kvas" in a goblet. This is basically mead, as far as I could tell, some sort of honey based beverage anyway. It reminded me of some kind of yeasty medicine capsules I had as a child, can't remember what they were for though...

The train to Moscow was very comfortable, only second class but better than the sleeper I went on in France. Didn't sleep to well all the same, so today I was knackered. I managed to navigate the Moscow Metro at 5.30 in the morning, but I'm glad this hostel is only 10 minutes from the Kremlin because it was horrible. St. Petersburg only had about 5 lines, Moscow has about 10.

I'm not so keen on Moscow as St. Petersburg, it's much busier, and half of it seems to be a construction site. Also Red Square was closed off today, so I could only look in from the outside. But there was a good view of the Kremlin from across the river, St. Basil's was even madder in real life, and the hostel is really nice. I'm really, really tired though, I didn't walk around for too long, I'll see mroe tomorrow.

I'm going to try and upload some photos later, this computer is much better, but I'd better let others go on first.