12.07.2013
Pictures of the first day are here:
Family trips require
careful preparations and planning. Last summer we had a great journey to Ural
Mountains, crossing a famous border between Europe and Asia .
So this year we decided to continue exploring our country and went to Pskov,
very nice, beautiful and incredibly cozy city on very north-west of Russia,
almost on the border with Estonia, Latvia and Belarus. We were arguing about
the transport to go there: my sister was for a car because you are more
independent but my mum didn’t accept anything but the train as it’s more
comfortable. On one hand, my parents were right: you can move, lie, sleep in a
train, on the other side, our train was horrible. To be more accurate, our
coach was really bad, because it was an old dirty car without any air conditioner,
with “side places” (means that there were 56 people in one stuffy and dusty
car). Also the conductors didn’t care about anything, even about being polite.
Add to this a lot of stops and a long stop in Novgorod where we opened a window
to breath and got tons of huge mosquitos that bit my sister and my mum so that
the whole week after they had huge red itching spots. We slept brokenly 3-4
hours at the utmost cause the train arrived at 7 am.
Fortunately, the bad
part of trip was over with that: my dad has a friend in Pskov and his driver
met us at the station and drove to our parent’s spa-hotel “Pozdnoev’s yard”. I
and my sister lived in the other hotel but actually spent only nights there.
“Pozdnoev’s yard” met all our expectations: besides delicious breakfast and
comfortable rooms and service, till 10 am guests of the hotel had free entrance
to spa complex (swimming pool with a lot of water massaging devices and Jacuzzi,
sauna and Turkish bath, Charcot's douche etc.). By the way, my favorite part
was a special shower where you can chose different options: “tropical rain”
(warm drizzling rain from the top and bird singing), “waterfall”(pretty cold
stream from the top and from sides and water sounds) or “storm” (lightning,
thunder and heavy rain from the top and from sides). My parents were too tired
to go anywhere so it was me and my sister with my nephew to experience this spa
our first day. After it we all had a wonderful buffet breakfast with a lot of
options and my dad went to pick up a car that his friend gave us. My sister
with her sun and me went to explore a road to Pskov Kremlin.
At first we wanted
to walk at the bank of the very beautiful river Velikaja ("Great") to enjoy the view, but
unfortunately the whole bank was under reconstruction so we chose a busy central
street Sovetskaya (called Great in the past) which led us directly to Kremlin.
Sun was shining, it has become warmer outside, it was a true summer and we
bought ice-cream, sat on the bench and realized that we didn’t want to go
anywhere. We were sitting near a sculptural circle of niches each of them was
inhabited with a small funny dwarf except one where Max (my nephew) was hiding.
After that we went
to an information center where a nice girl with hair shaved above the ears told
us everything about tours, boats and other touristic services of Pskov. At that
moment our parents arrived by the car and we all were trying to persuade Max
who was jumping and running among ruins of old churches and other buildings of
ancient Dovmontov Town near Kremlin to go to an exhibition. It was an old Departmental Chamber which
impressed with size and number of papers and records of management of 16-18th
centuries written by a copybook hand (with a feather and ink!). Feathers, old
stamps, scrolls and old chests, candlesticks and huge heavy copper keys –
everything created an immersion into a busy work of government clerks,
departments and governors of provinces. How did they manage to write with such
beautiful handwriting while having so much paper work? Definitely, an exhibition
was worth our efforts of climbing incredibly high steps to the Chamber. We also
checked an exhibition of cold steel arm of 16-18th centuries where
we found a lot of interesting details of good-looking tall Russian warriors and
German knights: chain armour of very delicate netting, swords too heavy to
lift, neat Turkish sabres and helmets. Max even tried to lift a mace but it was
too “adult”.
After exhibitions we
decided to have some fresh air and to go down the river by boat for a one-hour
trip. We had to wait for it and then to fight to get on the boat as there were
2 numerous teenage football teams (they came for some competition to Pskov from
different cities) who also wanted to have a boat trip. Though the trip was
great. First of all, views were even better if not equal to all European
landscapes. Secondly, the weather was sunny and joyous and kids were
surprisingly nice and polite. We waved to everyone swimming, diving and
marrying on the bank and fed gulls and always hungry football players with
bread. At the end of the trip Max fell asleep and we went back to our hotel for
a dinner.
In our hotel
“Pozdnoev’s yard” there are four “chambers”
(restaurants): “Coffee Chamber”, “Pie Chamber”, “Beer chamber” and “Refectory”
(plus a “Wine Cellar”). We decided to start from “Coffee Chamber” (where
actually you could have a full dinner) which made us happy with delicious food
and interesting interior in French style of aristocratic living-rooms of Peter
the Great times. However we didn’t like service there.
For an evening we
had tickets to an open-air theater just near the ruins of Dovmontov Town
(around Kremlin walls) – Pskov Drama Theater showed us “Pskov girl” (a famous
drama play). It was a great play that impressed us so much that Max even burst
into tears when a main character Olga, a girl from Pskov, is killing herself
after Ivan the Terrible killed her fiancée. We got a great pleasure not only
because of wonderful acting but also because of possibilities of open-air
theater: real horses, round dances, true old costumes made us “living” with
characters on the grass just in front of us. Full of emotions and impressions
we went to our hotel beds.
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