spain: canary islands: gran canaria: las palmas

My original plan for my New Years holidays was to go to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. As it has for the last five years, that plan fell apart. When I looked for flights, I found reasonably priced flights to the Canary Islands. They hadn't been on my radar at all, but I hadn't been there previously, so hey, why not?

The flights I booked were the cheapest option, which meant two connections, neither one of them very convenient. I left Moscow on a Thursday night and arrived at my destination Saturday morning.

I slept overnight in the airports of Bratislava and Las Palmas. I didn't need to sleep in the last airport, but my flight arrived in the night, after public transport had stopped. I didn't want to pay for a taxi that would get me to accomodation only in time to sleep half the night. Call me cheap.

Saturday morning I took a bus from the airport on Gran Canaria to Las Palmas, then walked to my hostel. I was able to check in early, after which I laid around for a bit, just because I could. I didn't have a guidebook, and I didn't have a plan for my three week holiday. Oh well.

A few hours later I walked to the beach, and found a place to lay out for a few hours. The beach was mostly black (the Canary Islands are volcanic islands, so black sand is pretty normal, if it is a sandy beach.) It was also windy, so it wasn't as relaxing as I wanted. Still, after being in Moscow, which had almost no direct sun during the month of December, any sun felt good.

After enjoying the sun, I started walking down the beach, to see how far I could go. Nearly everything along the way was a cafe or store geared toward tourists.

A bit down the way I found an exhibition of sand sculptures, which was fun to see. It was free, which surprised me.

Sunset that evening took place while I was out walking. It wasn't stunning, but seeing a sunset at all was nice. Of course I tried to take photos.

The next day I walked into the city center, to try and find a guidebook. The route shown on my phone took me along a street higher up so I could see out quite a bit. At this point, I wasn't really sold on the views of Las Palmas, and really hoped that whereva I went next would be better looking.

My walk also took me through a park with a statue of a giraffe and boy looking at the giraffe. I have no idea why it was there, but I still took the photo. The walk also took me past a fountain made by a frog spitting water.

I didn't end up finding the guidebook I wanted, much to my annoyance. I found a Spanish version of what I wanted, but not an English version. Argh. I bought ice cream to splurge, and to get over not finding the guidebook. (I can always justify ice cream, whether I should be doing so or not.)

After the shopping attempt, I found the Catedral de Santa Ana. Since the Canaries are part of Spain, of course there are a few churches to be seen. This particular church is said to be the most religious place of the Canary Islands, I suppose that is rather subjective. Wikipedia tells me the church was originally built during the 16^th century.

There was an entrance fee of 2 euro, the entrance is around the side of the church. The initial entry is actually just into a cloister area, where a museum has been set up. It was interesting to see paintings and photos of previous bishops, as the style of their vestments has changed quite a bit over the centuries.

The church itself was nothing spectacular, but not awful either. My favourite parts were the stained glass windows, which weren't very big or very intricate. I liked them because the light was streaming in and visible on the floor. Beautiful to see the light that way. Im a sucker for stained glass windows.

From there I walked back to my hostel, put on my bikini, and went back to the beach for a couple more hours of sun. This time around I found an area where it wasn't so windy.

The next morning I walked to the bus station where the airport bus had originally dropped me off. I got lucky with my timing and caught the bus I wanted just as it was leaving. Around 30 minutes later I hopped off, near a place called Caldera de Bandama.

As the entire set of Canary Islands are made up of volcanic islands, there are great opportunities for hiking. Visiting this no longer active volcano was one of those opportunities. I found a path and followed it, it took me through a residential area, to the lip of the caldera.

From there I decided to go right, and see where I could go. I didn't make it all the way around, I have no idea if that is even possible. When I got to the furthest point I chose to go, I could see a path down in the bottom of the crater, but I don't know where that particular path started.

I loved the views of the caldera as I followed along the lip, but I didn't love the scree that made up the path. It kept getting stuck in my shoes, which wasn't fun. Take 5 steps, stop and shake out the shoes, take 5 steps, stop and shake out the shoes. Rather annoying.

Eventually I headed back to the bus stop, I only had to wait about 10 minutes. Unfortunately, I got confused with the direction the bus would be going. I let a bus go by, thinking it would loop around and come back. It didn't, argh. I had to wait another hour for the next bus to come, and I spent the whole time thinking I was an idiot. Oh well.

When I got back to Las Palmas I walked along the east side of the city, more or less along the water. I saw a couple beaches of people playing volleyball, though they were mostly in the shade and wind by that point. The west side beaches have many more people in the afternoon.

I found an office for a ferry company, and bought a ticket (speaking only in Spanish, yay!!) for a ferry the next morning. Easy enough, then I walked over to the western side of town, and took in another sunset. This one was a whole lot better.

After dinner I walked back to my hostel and packed up. Since I knew I would be up early the next morning I didn't want to wake anyone else, and I wanted to sleep as long as I could. I warned my roommates that I would be up early, but would try to be as quiet as possible.

I don't think I woke anyone the next morning when I woke up and was out the door at 0600. I walked to the bus stop next to the ferry company office, then boarded their bus. 30 minutes later it departed and took everyone to the boat. Security and boarding were easy. I found a chair, then dozed a bit while the boat moved me from one island to another.

Las Palmas isn't a tourist destination. There are definitely hotels and restaurants geared toward tourists, but the beach isn't beautiful. It's the capital city of the island, and felt more like a place where people live a 'normal' life.

russia: sergiev posad

My first day trip in Russia, yahoo!! I looked at my guidebook, Sergiev Posad seemed like it was close enough to Moscow, with something worth seeing.

I met up with two women, one of whom works at another branch of my school, and one who works in my school. We met at Komsomolskaya metro station, (one of my favourites, one that never fails to amaze me every time I see it,) then went to find the suburban train station. It didn't take long, and the cashier even asked in English whether we wanted one way or round trip tickets.

We answered round trip, and were surprised at the ticket price, in that it was super cheap.

The train we wanted left in just fifteen minutes, which was awesome. It was an electric train, called an electrichka in Russian. It seemed as though we stopped every few minutes along the way, but the ride was smooth so I can't complain. Less than two hours later we arrived in Sergiev Posad.

The train station in Sergiev Posad was not big, it was basically just a platform. After getting ourselves oriented, we started walking. Not too far away we saw the bus station, I asked Caroline and Claire to stop and take a selfie with me. 

I wanted to have us in the photo with the city name, which was on the front of the bus station.

We kept going, heading in the direction of the main sight in town. On the way there, we stopped at a mostly frozen pond, it looked as if it would be perfect to play hockey when totally frozen. The area that wasn't frozen was full of ducks going every which way.

From the small bridge going over the water we could see a 'tree' with lots of padlocks. It was an interesting take on the idea of a bridge of locks. Every time I see one of these things, I wonder how many of the couples who closed a lock together are still together.

Near this 'tree' was a pair of statues, of Peter and Fevronia. (I had to look up the names, as Fevronia isn't exactly a name that rolls off your tongue or sticks in your memory.)

Then we arrived at the main sight of Sergiev Posad, the Trinity Lavra of St Sergius. It was founded in 1337, when St Sergius built a wooden hut. Obviously, over the years other buildings were built. The way in which this monastery was built was copied many times over the years, to create other monasteries around the country.

We approached the monastery from the side, so we had to walk along the walls for a bit. 

While walking we passed a WW2 memorial, complete with eternal flame.

Outside the grounds of the monastery we found two small churches, we entered both. Neither one of them was noteworthy. Perhaps the most noteworthy part was a stroller parked outside one of them, as it had skis instead of wheels. It also had hand warmers attached to the hand rail. Genius!

We got to the entrance of the monastery and walked right in. As far as we could tell, there was no entry ticket to buy. Entry is through a gate in the bottom of a bell tower, the gate was painted with frescoes.

As soon as we walked in, I realized each building in the complex was painted differently. One of them was actually painted with a geometric pattern of sorts, definitely not what I would ever expect to see on the outside of a church. Very photogenic, to say the least.

The geometric church was the first building we entered, the inside was painted as well. The ceiling was covered in frescoes, though they weren't very brightly coloured.

The next church we entered was more of a memorial chapel. We learned that there is a 24 hour a day memorial taking place in one corner.

The memorial is for the man for whom the monastery is named, St Sergius. There was a queue of people waiting to kiss the coffin. We did not join the queue, we watched for a few minutes then walked out.

All these churches are gathered around a small central platz. In the middle of the platz was a small fountain, I presume it runs on holy water. Since we were visiting in December, it was not running.

On another side of the platz was a big blue church, I presume it was the main church of the monastery. We walked in and loved the interior.

The whole thing was painted with brightly coloured frescoes. Love love love.

At this point we felt as if we'd seen everything there was to see. We walked out of the same bell tower through which we'd entered, and went looking for a cafe. There weren't many options, we ended up settling for one nearby. I ended up having the best tasting fruit tea I've ever had.

From the cafe we walked around the block, just to see another part of the town. We ended up seeing another church, the interior of which smelled like wet dog, probably from the wet wool clothing worn by various parishioners. 

We also saw a few government looking buildings, one of which had a big mosaic as decoration on the front facade.

Yet another section of town had newer looking buildings, including a couple souvenir shops. We found magnets in one of these :)

From there we walked up the main street, hoping to visit the toy museum. Unfortunately, we picked the wrong day, as it ended up being closed when we arrived. What kind of toy museum is closed on a Sunday? We hoped it was just a one off, and we were just unlucky. I always thought the typical day for museums to be closed is Monday. 

That was the end of our day, so we walked back to the train station. We boarded the train, thinking we were all good. Unfortunately, we weren't. Even though we were sure we'd bought round trip tickets when leaving Moscow, we hadn't. (We never figured out how the mix up happened, since the lady in Moscow had asked in English, not Russian.) We each had to buy another ticket, plus pay a 'penalty' for buying tickets on the train. Sigh, lesson learned. Fortunately, that was the worst thing that happened during the day. Yay for day trips!

russia: moscow in november

November turned out to be a month of rain and gray skies. Not so fun. That being said, it didn't stop me from getting out and trying to see a bit of the city from time to time.

Throughout the month timing for the mornings worked out that I got to see a number of beautiful sunrises. They got later and later though, rather quickly, much to my dismay.

One Saturday I met up with Claire, in the Arbat area. We started our day with visits to a coffee shop and an American chain donut shop. I'm not going to publicly admit the names of either store, but suffice it to say, this is a very international city.

We took the metro to another area of the city, trying to find a spot called the Alley of Leaders. It was originally opened in 2016, with the busts of 33 historic figures who have ruled Russia since the 9^th century. A couple months ago 7 more busts were added.

Not everyone in this 'alley' is fully supported by the world. Stalin, for example is not universally loved, nor is Lenin. Other famous names include Gorbachev, Brezhnev, and Khrushchev.

We wandered through the small garden, the busts are lined up in two rows. Not surprisingly, we only recognized a few of them by sight. 

For an unknown (to me) reason, one of the busts was just a head, the body part had no clothing. Very strange.

We left the alley and found public transport to get us to our next stop: a museum. We'd made plans to meet up with Shawn and Tania and a couple others to see a temporary exhibit at Garage Museum. The exhibit was of works by Hurakami Takashi. If you don't recognize the name, this is the guy who puts smiley faces everywhere, many many times in a single piece. He is probably most famous for smiling flowers.

Takashi was born in 1962, and is still living. His work has been displayed all over the world, and even though I didn't know his name ahead of time, it sounded like a fun exhibit to see. It was fun, I'm glad we went. We arrived early enough in the day that we didn't have to wait in a queue. By the time our group left, there was quite a queue, both for the ticket booth and then to enter the exhibit.

After leaving the museum, all of us agreed to go together to a Korean restaurant for dinner. Yum. I ordered too much, as I usually do when I get the chance to have good food.

Another day in the middle of the month I decided to go see a house in which Gorky lived for a few years. I was disappointed when I walked in, as I discovered there was a special entry fee for foreigners. There was also a fee for permission to take photos. How annoying. I'm not a human ATM, I live here and earn local money. Argh.

Maxim Gorky was a Russian/Soviet writer and a political activist. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times, not too shabby. His political activism originally had him supporting Lenin, but then he became a Lenin critic. 

Not surprisingly, he was exiled due to these views. He was only allowed and encouraged to return when Lenin died and Stalin came to power. Gorky was born in 1868 and died in 1936.

Throughout the house, the rooms were set up as they might've been when he lived there. I don't think all the furniture was original from when he lived there, but it was all in the same style he would've known.

I liked seeing all the books, and the tables like he might've used. The part I liked best was the staircase, it was just really nice.

On another Saturday I met up with Claire again. She and I had realized we got along quite well, and were both keen to explore Moscow, and much of Russia. Yay for exploring friends!

We met in the Arbat area of the city, then started walking. We walked across the Moscow River, and kept going for quite a while. I think we walked for two or three hours, paying attention to traffic, the architecture of the buildings we could see, and people on the street. Moscow is such a big city, with different atmospheres in different areas. You never know what you might see.

We walked all the way to Park Pobedy, which I think would translate to Victory Park in English.

By the time we arrived we were already losing daylight, so the photo we'd wanted to take with the victory arch wasn't possible. Well, I guess it would've been possible, but the light was terrible at that point.

We crossed the street and gazed up at the Victory Museum and the obelisk standing to honour those who died in wars. They were all lit up, we both liked the way it looked. Eventually we want to go into the museum, but it was cold enough at that point that we just weren't in the mood. 

Does that make sense, even though going inside would've gotten us out of the cold?

The following weekend Claire and I met up again to go back to Izmailovo. Both of us had specific gifts we were looking to buy, and that's a great place to get better prices for souvenirs. I was happy to find a matrioshka frog, perfect for my sister.

Toward the end of the month I fell down stairs at work, majorly spraining my ankle. It wasn't pretty, and hurt a LOT. I barely moved the rest of the day, sitting on a chair with wheels as much as possible. 

I went to a doctor a week later, the doctor yelled at me for having been on my foot at all, ooops. Sigh, just call me Grace.

It was not a great end to the month health wise, but overall still a good month! What will December bring?

russia: saint petersburg

When I have a long weekend due to a national holiday, I rarely spend the weekend in the city in which I live. National Unity Day (a relatively new national holiday, it has only been around since 2005,) is celebrated every 4 November. This year the date fell on a Saturday, so the holiday was officially celebrated on the following Monday. Since I'm always aware of holidays and opportunities for travel, I'd booked train tickets more than a month in advance.

I'd been to St. Petersburg once before, but I have very few memories. That trip was in 2003, when I was living in Germany. 

That trip involved a tour group, where the guide spoke in German. Though I lived in Germany, I didn't understand or speak German, and the trip was in a country where I didn't speak or read the language. In other words, I had no idea what I was seeing or hearing for most of the trip. This time I had a slightly better understanding of the Russian language, I could read signs, and speak in very broken Russian with staff of hotels and restaurants.

My first challenge was in figuring out where my train departed in Moscow. My train ticket said the departure station was Oktyabrskaya, but I couldn't find a proper train station with that name. 

There is a metro station with that name, but not a train station. There is a Leningradsky train station, which is what came up when I tried google maps. Thankfully I was able to ask a colleague for help. It turns out that Oktyabrskaya is the name of the railway line, while Leningrad used to be the name of the main destination trains went to from this station. Confusing yes, but once you know the names, you don't think about it again.

I showed up Friday evening for my train in Moscow, and deboarded the next morning at 0630 in St Petersburg. (At another station with two names, for much the same reasons.) The train was a double decker train, a first for me. For each bed there was a little box with a small bottle of water, and a gingerbread snack. It was nice, the toilets were clean and had toilet paper!

It was still pitch black, and very very quiet. Since St Petersburg is 715 kilometers north of Moscow, that means the days are shorter in the fall and early winter. Since it was early Saturday morning, there weren't many people awake or outside at that hour.

Right in front of the train station is a platz with a memorial in the middle. On top of a hotel across the platz are letters that spell out Leningrad, city of heroes. Since this felt like my first trip to the city (even though it wasn't,) pretty much everything caught my attention.

I walked to my accomodation, and was able to check in straightaway, yahoo!! Since it was only 0830 or so, (I dawdled and took photos during the walk,) I was able to take a nap, which felt amazing. I woke up a couple hours later, it still wasn't very light outside, eeek. Living this far north would be a terrible idea for me.

Eventually I left the hostel and started walking. Some people would call St Petersburg the Venice of the north, as the city is built on a whole lot of canals. Walking through the city means constantly crossing canals. It wasn't pretty weather, but the canals were still photogenic. That being said, I tried to avoid having rubbish in my photos.

I came to a large traffic circle with a statue in the middle. A guy on a horse, which is practically a standard statue for a big city. On the other side of the statue was a big church. A very big church.

St Isaacs, it is one of the best known churches of the city. The photographer part of me hated the way tour buses were parked, as they blocked the angle I wanted for a photo.

Since St Isaacs is so big, there are massive doors on all four sides. Entry is on one side, and exit is on the other, but you can take a good photo of one set of doors on a third side of the church.

On the other side of the church was a small park, at the edge of which was another statue of a guy on a horse. On the other side of that was a big canal. At least I think it was another canal. There were a number of little docks along the sides, presumably the water is packed with boats in warmer weather.

I walked along the water for a little bit, until I came to the next bridge. From the bridge I could see the backside of the admiralty building, painted yellow. I could also see the Hermitage, one of the most famous museums in the world.

I circled around the Hermitage, which sits on one side of a big platz. Since this was a holiday weekend, the platz wasn't empty, argh. I like big empty platzes for photography reasons. There is a column in the middle, it's always there. At the time a stage was being set up, presumably for an upcoming concert.

I crossed the bridge, and wandered a bit around the area right on the other side; then I wandered back across the bridge.

My next destination was another super famous church: the Church on Spilled Blood, also called the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ. (If you use the second name, I'm not sure many people will have any idea which church you mean.) This is the church with the multi coloured onion domes, one that is often confused with a church in Moscow that also has multi coloured onion domes. I know the difference now, after seeing both of them a few times. 

I bought an entry ticket from one of the machines, but didn't hear it drop into the shelf under the screen. I went to the ticket window to ask what happened, and the lady told me. Thankfully when I got back to the machine my ticket was still in there.

I went into the church and my jaw dropped. I'm pretty sure that's a normal reaction for anyone visiting this church. Every square centimeter is covered in brightly painted frescoes. EVERY SQUARE CENTIMETER. Look up, look around, look up, look around, repeat for a while. I took heaps and heaps and heaps of pictures (encouraged, just don't use a flash,) and loved it.

At the back side of the 'sanctuary' was a tomb, that of Alexander II. He is the one for whom the church is named, as it was built on the spot where he was fatally wounded in 1881.

The church officially closes at 1800, but that's just the time for visitors to leave. I discovered by accident that a few minutes later, a service starts. I stayed for the first few minutes, then left.

I walked to yet another church, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan. I didn't realize it was a church straightaway, at least not an Orthodox church. The appearance made me think of St Paul's, in Rome, in the way the columns spread out off each side.

The interior of the cathedral wasn't all that interesting. There was a queue of people waiting to kiss the main icon, but that was it. No bright frescoes, and the lighting wasn't very good. Argh.

From there I went to a grocery store, then back to my hostel for the night.

The next morning I didn't do any better in terms of getting going in the morning. The darkness did not work well for me.

I walked to St Nicholas Naval Cathedral. Not surprisingly, this particular church is blue on the outside. (Water = blue, at least in my head.) 

The bell tower stands separately from the church, it's also blue. The interior of the church is mostly blocked off from visitors, I was allowed in just one small area. Oh well.

From there I walked a long way. My next sight was similar to one seen in a number of cities around the world. An arch of triumph, or arc de triomphe. Obviously, I took a photo with me in it, and the arch in the background. The big difference between this arch and others in the world is that this one was green. Interesting colour choice.

More walking eventually brought me to something called the column of glory. It is a memorial to the victory of the Russo Turkish war in the 19^th century. The column is surrounded by guns and cannons, which I thought made for an interesting juxtaposition with Trinity Cathedral, a few meters away.

Of course I stepped inside the church. It was wide open and airy, and I watched as a baptism took place. The family doing the baptism had hired a professional photographer, it was amusing to watch him scurry around, and try to capture every moment and every angle. 

The iconostasis up front was gold, but not as big as I expected. 

From there I walked again, eventually ending up at the Grand Choral Synagogue. As with other Jewish sights around the world, there was extra security for any visitors, I had to go through a metal detector, and a guard peeked into my purse.

The 'sanctuary' of the synagogue was gorgeous. I was able to watch for a while, standing at the back. I love the feeling inside buildings of faith. I found a staircase which allowed me up to a second level, with balconies around the sanctuary. Absolutely beautiful. I sat for a few minutes, soaking in the atmosphere. 

The synagogue wasn't too far from the Mariinsky theater, which is supposed to be really famous. Since I live in Moscow, I'm used to the Bolshoy Theater, which is far bigger, so I wasn't too impressed. It was green, like the arch, definitely not a colour I would've chosen for a grand theater.

I kept going, enjoying the sunset while it happened. St Petersburg is a city where walking is easy, and you can go all day with no particular destination in mind. Eventually I crossed another big bridge, after dark. I loved the way the buildings on the canal were all lit up, night lights are pretty.

This part of my walking took me through a park with a WW2 memorial. The eternal flame was mesmerizing, several people were standing around, just looking.

I walked all the way to a Korean restaurant for dinner, and had to wait a bit to be seated. The food ended up being okay, but not spectacular.

The next morning I woke up to yet another gray day. This was my last day, I had a list of places I hoped to get to during the day. Did having this list get me moving any faster in the morning? Not really.

My first sight was Alexander Nevsky monastery. Surrounded by a wall, there is also a cemetery if you want to pay that entrance fee. I wasn't in that kind of mood, I stuck with visiting the main church. The courtyard in the middle would probably be really photogenic in better weather, though the little graveyard in the middle of the courtyard was a little spooky because of the gray sky.

I wanted a photo of the whole front of the church, but that view doesn't exist because of trees. The church is painted yellow outside, but much of the inside isn't painted. 

I wish I'd been able to take a photo of the inside of the cupola, as it was painted, blue with gold stars.

From there it was a loooong walk, all the way to St Isaacs cathedral. (By the time I'd seen it my first day, it was already past closing time.) It took me a while to find the ticket office, on one side of the church, as entry is on a different side. The ticket looks the same as the ticket for the Church on Spilled Blood, I got them confused at the turnstyle, whoops. Obviously, I need to take tickets out of my purse each evening, to make sure that doesn't happen again. 

The interior of St Isaacs is also jaw dropping. Another set of rounds of look up, look around, look up, look around. Heaps more photos. At the front of the church, as part of the iconostasis there are green marble columns, I loved them. A bright green colour, not what I would've expected.

That was the perfect sight to finish this trip to the city, I already knew I had to come back, probably several more times. I found a grocery store, then went back to the hostel to pick up my bag and warm up. Eventually I walked back to the train station, and boarded my train.

I will definitley be back to St Petersburg.