Sunday – 24 June 2007

Up early to catch the 8 am bus to Novgorad. The lady of the kiosk makes sure we know its bus 717 we need to be on. The tour guide lady is amazing. She talks, talks, talks and talks. No way to understand her Russian. By the time one picks out one or two words, she’s three sentences ahead. We arrive at the Kremlin in Novgorad at 11 am. Found a woman wearing a San Francisco T Shirt and asked her when we had to be back at the bus. She spoke English and said that we had an hour. Found Earl who said we’d better hurry if we want to see the center as the rest of the stops are outside of the town. I couldn’t believe we had only had an hour to see the center of the old town. Rushing around, caught a little of the music liturgy in the church before having to run back to the bus.

The second stop was a monastery outside of town. Earl asked the bus driver how long we had – another one hour stop. After wandering around for twenty minutes, I said this can’t possibly be an hour stop. Walked back to the bus and sure enough – it was only a half hour stop.

Under repair

Our bus # 717

The third stop was at the Architecture Open Air Museum. Lots of buildings built in the old style. We had 1 hour 15 minutes – I checked with the woman wearing the San Francisco T Shirt. Looked at the buildings and the kids playing on the wooden squeeky see-saw. Watched a fellow weave birch bark. Sat down and had kebab lunch. Checked out the little folk life museum.

Nice cheap tickets for the Architecture Native Arts Museum $2 and $1.20

Birch Bark Weaver

Wooden buildings

The fourth stop was back at the City Center. Aha, now this makes more sense. We have 2-1/2 hours to wander around here. Walked around the walls of the citadel, took the bridge over the river to see the ancient churches. Earl picked up a couple of souveniers. He really wanted the birch bark horn but for $80 he couldn’t justify buying something that might not even play.

Click here for pictures of the Kremlin, etc.

The 3 hour ride back. Everyone’s passed out. A stop outside of the town to let some people off. Guess that’s why the bus had people on it when we first got on in the morning. Back at Nevsky Prospect at 7:30 pm.

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