We arrived at the hotel , Petrov Palace Hotel, late in the afternoon which quickly became evening after we had dumped our stuff at the hotel and took a walk around the area but the temperature had plummeted with a bitterly cold wind so we didn’t stay out long, although I grabbed a few long exposure shots including an accidental one when I was carrying the camera so just got a load of random light trails.  After the walk we decided it was too cold to venture far so we ate at the restaurant adjoining the hotel, and were treated to a gypsy and dancing bear show, which was very bizarre but often funny to watch, I should mention the bear was someone dressed up in a huge bear costume.

The next day we were off out with other friends who had travelled to St Petersburg that weekend to Pushkin, which is also known by its historical name of Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar’s Village) to see the Catherine Palace and to neighbouring Pavlovsk  to see The Grand Palace of Pavlovsk, the tour was booked via ADM with a driver and english speaking guide who was excellent.  The Catherine Palace is huge and was originally built on land gifted to Catherine I by her husband Peter the Great and was a more modest building than is in place now. The building in place now was commissioned by Empress Elizabeth, however building work was started many times but each time Elizabeth was not happy with the palace but finally settled on the design by Rastrelli.  The palace was decorated on the outside with lots of guilding around the windows, these days most of this has not survived but is instead painted gold.

Inside, the Palace is huge and has distinct parts, part decorated in lavish Russian Baroque style with lots of ceiling paintings and gold guilding, the other parts are decorated in the classical style as you can see in the photos below. We couldn’t walk too much around the grounds as it was so cold but I imagine in the summer it would look amazing and well worth spending a lot of time wondering around the estate.  Note that you can take photographs inside, but there are certain rooms that either do not allow flash photography or in the case of the Amber room no photography at all.

From here we went to Pavlovsk and its Grand Palace, it was lovely and mostly decorated in the classical style, inside here you have to purchase an additional ticket if you want to take photographs but you cannot use a flash, if you have a fast enough lens it is well worth paying the small fee.  Pavlovsk was originally commissioned by Catherine the Great, but a redesign and extension was commissioned by Tsar Pavel to make it a more grand imposing building.  This was a long day so what else could we do later but go out for a few drinks, although the Kiwi contingent suggested an English pub for the night out, so this where we went, great Russian beer and vodka, with some great food.

The next day we went over to Peter the Great’s Peter and Paul Fortress with the beautiful Peter and Paul Cathedral, another cold day meant we didnt spend too much time here and skirted around too The Church of Christ our Saviour on Spilled blood. This is similar to the much older St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, but the detailing on the outside is amazing. It was built between 1883 and 1907 on the site where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated in March 1881 by revolutionaries.

After this we were lucky enough to be driven around by a colleague of Lou’s who is from St Petersburg and was in town for the long weekend, so we saw other parts of St Petersburg such as the Grand Mosque, and more ‘modern’ architecture than much of St Petersburg being from 19th to early 20th Century and finally to Smolny Cathedral where i got some stunning long exposure photographs during the night time.

The next day we only had a couple of hours to spare, but we wanted to see the Hermitage, so we went around ot for 2 hours from its opening time at 10.30am, but the hermitage is huge and you need a day or so to wonder around especially if you are really into art from both European masters and Russian artists.

All in all a great trip, especially for photographers but I want to go again in the Spring, and in the summer to experience the city in full swing.

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Well, my Dad is ill, badly ill, he was until a couple of days ago in intensive care with a new problem on top of the ongoing lung problems.  So I decided to come back from Moscow earlier than I aimed to, as soon as I could after getting my new visa so I could return, so after getting a new visa I rescheduled my flight back to the uk with BMI, then booked the best flight in terms of convenience that turned out to be with Ryanair. I have had my issues with them in the past so I have refused to fly with them for around 10 years until a few months ago when I had to fly with them due to a similar situation and was pleasantly surprised, so I booked with them again, and got my wife to do the same when she decided to come with me.

So, we arrived and checked into what is laughingly called Bournemouth International airport, went through security to told a few minutes before we were due to board that the flight was delayed by 2hrs and 1o minutes, this was fine as we were comfortable, and I had internet access on my laptop via my mobile phone.  It was a little later than that and we were informed of this, again fine.  When we finally got on the plane to take our seats, as it is a free-for-all system we sat down to be shouted at my a rather tired looking air stewardess that she was holding the seats for a group.  This is agianst the rules of the airline, and the group failed to materialise, so my wife and I were far from each other for no good reason.

After the plane stood there for a while I asked if I could go to the toilet, the stewardess said we were not moving for a while, so of course it would be fine.  I went to a toilet that I was assured had remained closed for this flight until then to find pee all over the floor and in the toilet bowl, and used tissues spread around so I took these photos on my mobile phone:-

After about 20 mins of discovering the hygiene issues of a newly ‘cleaned’ Ryanair plane we were told the flight was cancelled due to a strike by air traffic controllers, this obviously unforseen, or was it? Well the same flight two nights earlier was cancelled as the strikes had been happening all week, so not so unforseen.  When we got off the plane there were no Ryanair representatives as we were told on the plane, instead we dealt with servisair groundstaff who told us to go home, and we ‘may’ get a refund if we chose not to travel the next day.  Well, we live in Moscow, they basically accused us of lying about that at first, and the same again about my Dad being in hospital, then eventually said we could travel on the re-scheduled flight, or ‘try’ to reclaim the lost money for that flight, and not the cost of the newly re-booked flight which of course would be much more.  They then said at this point to book into a ‘cheap hotel’ giving no indication of what was considered ‘cheap’ by Ryanair, or else  Ryanair probably would not reimburse us the hotel cost or the taxi cost.  So when we got out to get a taxi there was a huge queue, again Ryanair did not provide transport, it had to come out of our pocket, and here we are in the ‘nearest’ hotel.

So the moral of the story so far, NEVER travel with Ryanair…….I will continue this tomorrow after the replacement flight, with more adevntures seeing if someone finally cleaned the toilets, and the rude staff got any nicer.

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A few days later on Saturday 6th February we got up early and caught the metro to Kropotkinskaya to see the mising sun light up the Cathedral of Christ our Saviour from the footbridge over the river Moskva, from here over the river and a short walk down Bersenevskaya Naberezhnaya to the Bolshoy Kamenny Most and walked back across the river down by the river in front of the Kremlin walls then back up to Kitai Gorod to home.  The sun had just risen and was low in sky, there were som e amazing colours which you can see from the photos.

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The park itself is on an island on the River Moscow to the west of the city, has a number of private residences, and a large number of small paths crossing through the forest.  It seems like a popular location with cross-country skiers, we even saw an older lady being pulled along on her skis by a huge Mastiff dog, which had our friends’ rideback puppy cowering when it pulled its master over to greet the pup.

Another interesting site on the park was that all the waterways were frozen over with thick ice, but a ’swimming pool’ had been cut out of the ice, and as we were finishing looking around the area a guy was stripping off to go for a dip in the pool, madness!!

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My brother and his wife already have one great house in Fortuna, Murcia, Spain, but they have been on the look out for new possibilities for a while, and in the summer they bought a new place.  It is an old wrecked Finca (Spanish Farm) with one other wrecked building on the grounds, and 9 acres of land, mostly with Olive and Almond trees.

The two times I was in Spain in December/January I visited the property, it has beautiful views as you can see below, in does have lots and lots of trees on the land at the moment, and has some great features in the old farmhouse.  It has beautiful traditional Spanish beams, old vats used for olive and/or wine pressing, and some of the rooms make up a ‘cave-house’ that is typical of the area of Spain.

So I intend on recording the stages of renovation in pictures, even though it might take several years.

Click the pictures to see them in full.

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When I returned to the UK it had been hit with snow, a lot of it but luckily at that stage not near Bristol Airport, and not near to Lou’s mum’s place hardly.  The next day I met Lou when she arrived back from Moscow, and we then spent just over a week at her Mum’s place for Christmas during which time I had many dramas with trying to get a new laptop that only eventually got resolved well into the New Year.  Christmas was nice although we had a problem getting my new Russian visa, that again only got resolved after the Russian Christmas break (runs from 31st December until 10th January).

Lou and I headed off to Spain on 27th December and once again my Dad looked much better still, although he was still having breathing difficulties.  We stayed with my parents until 2nd Jan, then we headed over to Alicante for a couple of days which was fantastic as we hadn’t had any time alone for 3 or 4 weeks at that point, and we love the city.  the day after we got back from Alicante and the day before we were due to return to the UK my Dad lost his footing on some gravel and fell over, when he put his arm out to break his fall his dislocated his shoulder. He was then in Hospital for 4 days, so we rebooked our flights back to the UK until the Saturday, this also meant further delays with his biopsy, this is now booked in for sometime in the next few days.  When we got back to the UK, the snow had fallen again, this time much heavier and more serious, and as I already said we had more visa issues, so we ended up being back in Portsmouth for another 10 days until my Birthday on 19th January when my passport and visa arrived back in the morning, so we booked the overnight flight and off we went that day.

I was going to do a longer series of posts about things that happened over the Christmas period to go with the photos I took, but I decided to keep it brief and stick witht he two posts.

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So, when I came back from Spain in Novemeber I was only coming back  for a couple of weeks or so before heading off again to see my parents again in Spain.  After a week or so of being back in Moscow the miserable grey, rainy weather was getting me down – there was only 10hrs of sun in the whole of November 2009 in Moscow, and I am pretty sure that all came on a day I was out of the country.

For my last weekend in Moscow Lou had decided to take the Monday off work, and for a couple of days we did the touristy things we had been saving to show to visitors, the main one’s being the inside of St Basil’s Cathederal on Red Square, and the Kremlin, such a cliché  I know but we simply hadn’t visited the insides of them in our time here.

So on the Saturday we wondered around Red Square and into St Basil’s Cathederal, as you may have guessed Lou loves to walk around Red Square and likes to do so at every opportunity, so this weekend was no different except the Christmas tree had gone up, and the winter ice-skating rink was there.

We purchased tickets including the ticket so I could use my camera inside, I wasn’t quite ready for the chapels inside St Basil’s, they were simply beautiful, lots to photograph, there were not too many people in there and so typically this is the time my camera battery runs out, after only a few photos inside, amd I hadn’t brought a spare out with me for some unknown reason! I ended up snapping some using the ‘toy’ holga camera that I have yet to get processed, so they might well turn out ok too!

Sunday, as usual was a day of rest, and spent time with friends…..But Monday mornign started by meeting up with a new friend, Justin and baby son on the Old Arbat, we took our usual route down a few backstreets, but it was a long walk when it was getting colder and threatening to snow a little.  It was great to meet Justin, who unlike ALL expats I know in Moscow that are married/attached (apart from myself of course) is the ‘trailing spouse’ meaning his wife works, and he mostly stays home, although he does have his son to keep him out of mischief!  So meeting someone else who, whilst not in exactly the same situation, it is at least very a very similar one.

We made loose arrangements for when I returned to Moscow to get out and about the city and parks, which would be great as it has been a while since there was anyone else around I could do that with. Lou and I then walked back to Red Square, and over to the Kremlin via a cafe for a late Brunch, lots more hot coffee and an omelette if my memory serves me right (fascinating I know!).

All this time temperature seemed to be dropping, and it started to snow lightly, but we figured (rightly as it turned out) that the Kremlin would be relatively quiet, especially with the snow starting to fall.  I had decided to only take my little 50mm f/1.4 lens on my camera, as it made the camera small enough for my pocket or Lou’s handbag. The cathederal’s inside the Kremlin Walls are stunning inside as you might expect, and this time no photography allowed inside, but outside was another matter, but the changing light and conditions lent themselves more to HDR shots so I took bracketed sets of three different exposures for most of my shots so I could process them later.

A brief stop in Okhotny Ryad (Hunter’s Row) underground shopping mall and the Albion ‘English Pub’ for a ‘quick drink’ turned into three or four as the snow came down hard blizzard-like. You will see that a few inches of snow fell in about an hour and that continued to get thicker overnight making it the start of the real winter snow in Moscow, and I was glad to catch the beginning of it before I left early the next morning.

The early morning flight from Moscow to Heathrow is usually accompanied by a hangover and a rush to gather last minute things from around the appartment, this time I was ready well before the taxi arrived.  I had an interesting walk to the taxi trying not to fall in the snow that had fallen overnight, and the drive to the airport was interesting, dodging the fleets of snow ploughs, and over sometimes thick snow that had not yet been cleared.

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I arrived into Heathrow, got a coach over to Gatwick and left my suitcase with left luggage and spent a few hours in London, including lunch with a friend. Having got back to Gatwick, checked in, cleared customs and done a little shopping my flight was delayed. I was travelling with Easyjet, and had purchased their speedy boarding (mainly to jump the huge check-in queue for all easyjet flights at Gatwick), this meant I was meant to be amongst the first to board.  This would have been good if I could get through to the boarding desk at the gate, but the passengers had formed some kind of protective barrier around the boarding gate so that none of us could get through.  The staff did nothing about this but turn people around who got through to them without speedy boarding, thus making the ‘barrier’ of people deeper.  And still no semblance of organisation existed. Have finally fought my way through and making sure an older couple that were stuck with me behind this barrier also got through.  Anyway when on board I sat with this couple and had a nice long chat which was actually great, especially as I usually prefer to sleep, or sit listening to music and reading.

I was collected at the airport by friends of my parents, but upon arrival at my parents’ house it was unusually quiet and deserted (parents in hospital, the dogs in the Dog’s kennels). I went to see my dad the next day, he seemed to have picked up from when I had been speaking to him on the phone which was great. So the pattern began, I would usually go to the hospital with one of their friends, they would go and have some drinks and food with my Mum whilst I chatted with my Dad.

So, he did finally come out of hospital for a while at least a few days after I left, but whilst there and in London I did get to take a few photos, and the excitement of extended driving on the right hand side of the road for the first time surrounded by the Spanish drivers.

So now I am back in Moscow, and I have gone from getting used to 35-40C temperatures down to around 2-6C at best, and that along with the constant rain means that I haven’t yet been able to get out to take any more photos of the city, but soon I will.

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When we went out to the park he actually wanted some photos taken as my niece was enjoying the attention from my brother and I along with the camera, so managed to get one or two good shots.  Outdoors in the Kuwait afternoon it was very bright yet varied, and children tend to move a lot, using the fast aperture for speed to try and freeze the shot usually resulted in blown out shots, so I had to to use some exposure compensation (I was shooting in aperture priority mode).

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