Entries about yekaterinburg

The next leg of our trip consisted of a 75 hour train ride, luckily we had treated ourselves to a first class cabin for this rather lengthy section!

Time passed surprisingly quickly and was mostly spent looking out the window at incredible views, playing cards, eating and reading. We had a lot of bread, cream cheese and tomatoes, and far too much tea. Seeing the landscape in full summer was a really nice contrast from three and a bit months earlier.

We had decided to break the journey to St Petersburg with a night in Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth largest city. We had a slightly odd AirBnB, but the city turned out to be surprisingly fun and interesting, with some beautiful buildings, a great photography gallery, good Uzbek restaurants and some atmospheric cafes. The church above was built on the site of the deaths of Tsar Nicholas II and his family.

After a two-nighter back in third class 'platzkart', we arrived early into St Petersburg, woke up our AirBnB host and headed for breakfast and coffee. It felt strange being back somewhere European after a few months in Asia. We spent the day wondering round and sightseeing, heading for various churches and cathedrals, the beautiful parks and canals, and Palace Square - the Hermitage is shut on Mondays .

Next morning, we jumped on the early Allegro train to Helsinki.