No Crowds in Russia

Comrades, you will not find crowds in St Petersburg in February 

Prices at good hotels are low(er). Top restaurants have too many tables. There’s no wait at the Hermitage or the Russian Museum although you must fight off hoards of school children. There’s no wait at the Church of the Spilled Blood and no spilled blood either. You can kiss the icon of Our Lady of Kazan without a queue. All great reasons to pitch-up in winter, but here’s the best reason of all. The Russia of our imagination, the Russia of  Dr Zhivago and Anna Karinina and War and Peace, of tsars, of revolutions and of sieges, is always set in the depth of winter. So if you are looking for the Russia of your imagination, go in winter when it is never crowded.

Where to Stay?

For our short stay, we chose the Hotel Astoria on St Isaac’s Square as much for its history as its reputation for luxury and service. This is the hotel chosen by Hitler to celebrate the fall of Leningrad (the invitations were printed without a date) and where the American journalist John Reed stayed with Louise Bryant while writing “10 Days that Shook the World” about the Bolshevik Revolution. It’s a Rocco Forte property now and while not much of the original décor or atmosphere remains, it is a stylish, very comfortable hotel in a fantastic location. The staff went out of their way to accommodate us even if we did not always communicate perfectly with the concierges (there were many) who seemed young for the job and sometimes a bit out of their depth.

Being the low season, Astoria had a ‘3 nights for the price of 2’ offer that included a terrific breakfast that made this 5-star property just within our budget. Beware, however, wifi is not included and it is expensive. We do recommend the hotel’s car service to and from the airport. For the price of a black cab from Heathrow to central London, we were picked up in a lovely car by a charming driver who told us fascinating stories en route that we considered a real enhancement of our visit.

Where to Eat

Since we ate enormous breakfasts, we skipped lunch saving our stomachs and pocket books for dinner. The reputation of St Petersburg restaurants catering to tourist is not great but we found some places that we liked a lot and by drinking vodka instead of wine we found the prices OK too. Our favorites were:

Restoran ( 2 Tamozhenny per. Tel 812 327-8979)

Gently modern in both décor and cuisine, we had a very nice dinner for about $60 a head. Jeff enjoyed the elk medallions and we drank lots of excellent vodka.

The Russian Vodka Room ( 4 Konnogvardeysky Bulvar Tel 812 5706420)

We loved this place and not just because of the astonishing variety of vodka served. In addition to the restaurant, there is a wonderful small Vodka museum. Service was good as was the food. Frequented by tourist and locals alike.

Sadko (2 Ulitsa Glinki, 812 920-8228)

A few steps away from the famous Mariinsky theatre, this is a great pre or post dinner option. Serving all the traditional Russian menu items in an attractive setting with good service.

Café in the Singer Building

Great for tea in the afternoon with a superb view over the Kazan Cathedral. Expensive but worth it and the Singer Building is amazing. All I could think was “All this just for sewing machines.” In the old days they had girls actually sewing on machines in the large picture windows.

What to Do

The State Hermitage Museum

It’s a museum. It’s a marathon. It’s a palace. It’s crazy! Someone once said that if you looked at every single object in the collection, it would take you 7 years to tour the place. I believe it. My suggestion is to buy the 2 day ticket online to avoid waiting in line and spend most of the first day trying to get to grips with the place using the 2^nd day as a kind of mopping up operation after you have gone back to you hotel and digested what you managed to see and what you missed. The only disappointment for us was the fact that the rooms containing the 19^th and 20^th century French paintings including Monet, van Gogh and Cezanne that were ‘liberated’ by the Red Army from German collections were closed but there were tons of works by these artists and more on the third floor.

The Russian Museum

Also a palace, I really loved this museum. The scale is more human than the Hermitage and what is on offer is a terrific survey of Russian art and culture laid out chronologically. There’s a nice gift shop too.

The Mariinsky Theatre

This is such a exquisite theatre that you don’t really need to see a performance of anything to be blissfully happy. We saw Swan Lake that delighted me no end. The problem with the Mariinsky that it is full of tourists who aren’t necessarily fans of the art they are watching or hearing but never mind, it is a very special place and an evening I’ll never forget. Be sure to order tickets on-line before you go and be sure the performance is set in the old theatre not the new concert hall.

The Churches

Start with the Church of the Spilled Blood. 24 years to build and 27 years to restore, it’s iconic so go see it. For the wow factor, go see St Isaacs that was converted after the Revolution to a Museum of anti-Religion and is now a museum of itself. For a glimpse of that old time religion, head for the Kazan Cathedral and watch folks lining up to kiss icons.

And just walk around, through the parks, along the rivers and canals, over the bridges and down the Nevsky Prospekt. Like Paris, St Petersburg is a feast for the eyes and just about anything in the historic heart is easy to reach by foot. Just make sure you have warm and sturdy boots with excellent traction.

And so the next time you watch Nicholas and Alexandra, or Dr Zhivago or my favorite, Reds, and you regret having missed such a remarkable and fascinating, albeit difficult period in Russia’s history, you can still travel back in time and catch a glimpse by visiting St Petersburg in winter. And in case you were wondering, the contemporary city is pretty wonderful too.

Change

In this post, No Crowds reporter Penny asks if a person can change in just one day and describes how one Belizean family delivers a lesson in facing change with grace.

I asked Joe Martinez, poet, rancher and ecohotelier, how he felt about the dam.  The lake in which we were now floating, had been a Macal tributary rated whitewater grade 6 only a few years ago.  He had grown up here, listening to the rush of water over rock at night, fishing on its banks as a kid.  Now the reservoir was a still blue plate separating forested limestone canyons…different.  

“Everything changes,” he observed, a bit wistfully, but resolute. 

I guess there would be many ways to think about change here.  We had scrambled down to the pontoon boat over a crumbling incline on which the terraces of the Maya were still visible.  Mounds dot the property: they think some were shrines; some were remnants of a village.  So, yes, everything changes and sometimes perhaps changing to a purpose is better than cleaving to old patterns and letting one’s home slowly change itself and collapse. Read all about it in Jared Diamond’s book of that name. 

Our guide Lazaro, Joe’s brother, had also seen recent change.  His dreadlocks, now braided together into a meter or so of detached bushy hair, had been cut a few weeks before so that “people would take him more seriously in the business”.  That is, in the Central American offices to which he journeys to sort his clients’ paperwork before taking them deep into the jungles of Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua– birdwatching, rafting, hiking, riding, discovering.

We were spending the day with Lazaro,  Joe, three young blue heeler mixes that looked remarkably like the wild dogs of Africa and an indeterminate Lab mix, waterfall hopping from a pontoon boat where the Upper and West Macal spread into what is now called Vaca Lake.  Lazaro’s nephew (another Joseph) had promised a serene day seeing, hearing, and being in the water and this is what we got.      And lest you wonder whether our tour fit the no-crowds theme, we saw only five other human beings while we were there: Uncle Joe, in his 80s, ensconced on his porch; poet Joe’s wife Miriam; their daughter (and later their son), and a Swiss guest, a “professional birdwatcher,” who accompanied us down the trail to the water, but left with her binoculars as we set off.  I hope she didn’t get lost – there wasn’t going to be anyone around to ask for directions. 

Waterfall number one pooled at the bottom --  good place to wash your hair in the downpour – but it was a little cold.  Feeling a bit like Goldilocks, but unwilling to follow Lazaro in, we satisfied ourselves with a climb up the slope of the fall and looked about us.  The sap of this tree, he tells us, can be used as glue.    Tea made with the leaves of another is good for stomach upset.  Use the bark of another for dye. The seeds of that plant are good for anemics.   And there are thousands of trees, bushes, vines…he seems to know the names of them all, and each has a use. 

As we float downstream, he points out a pair of white eagles on tree limbs across the water, the kingfisher on a passing branch, the vultures circling one of the canyon ridges, the nose of a small crocodile which had made its way down the river as it had become more serene in its harness.   When we cut the motor, there is no sound at all.  No traffic noise or passing planes; no human voices, nor are there the sounds of any of their surrogates – radios,  machines.  Joe shares some of his poetry, including the one about a foreign flower that won him his German wife.  It is a good place for poetry, although somehow most human effort seems a bit beside the point in the face of the vast green, the hidden lives among the hundreds of trees – palms, mahogany, poisonwood, acacia, Caribbean pine.

The swimming hole sits atop waterfall number two. One would have to be careful not to relax too much and find oneself going over the 10 metre drop to the bottom.  This is where we eat lunch and listen to birdcalls and the soothing constant splash of water.

At waterfall number three, you can watch a leaf fossilise before your eyes.  Organic compounds from the jungle vegetation dissolve the limestone at the top, and as the water brings it down, it crystallises again over fallen leaves, turning them to sandstone.    The overhangs build up, and the course of the falls changes over time.  When Joe and Lazaro were children, the falls were over there – a meter or so to the south.  We pile in, but we are not, quite, still enough to turn to stone ourselves. 

Back at Martz Farm, there are tree-house rooms built of wood up over a jungle creek and a lodge with more accessible bathrooms and plenty of room for communal admiration of the scenery below.   As we say our goodbyes, a hen heads for the hutch with her brood.   Joe lopes away to bring in the mules he breeds from a mare he drove to Wisconsin to buy.  His young son sits comfortably on the saddle before him.  The wood stove is stoked for dinner.

Can a person change in just one day?  Maybe not.  But a memory can change the way you look at other days.  And this last day was a perfect one that I return to remotely, just before sleep (or more recently and less romantically  in a queue at the Post Office), to assure myself again that somewhere things are just that perfect, at least for one day. 

Our visit also furnished a lesson in change with grace.  The world is going to come to the Martinez’corner of Belize no matter what.  But they would like to choose how it comes, and to treat those who come as guests. Quite deliberately they play the role of hosts and custodians.  I think they are hoping that although we may bring some welcome changes, we’ll be willing to enter their world as it is, and not change it too much.  I share that hope. 

End note:  We were staying at Chaa Creek Lodge, which Kate has described here in her 2010/2011 postings.  Also a magical place: comfortable, welcoming and tasteful.

If  you would like to stay at Martz Farm, go to www.martzfarm.com, subject of much paise on TripAdvisor. 

Lazaro’s bespoke adventure tours can be reached through hideawaycampdv@yahoo.com and they are also on Facebook. 

There can be some delay in response because the farm is remote and they do not have internet access there.  They do check in St Ignacio at least every other day though. 

What about the waste?

A No Crowds traveller discovered lots of trash washing up on the beautiful beaches of Belize and wanted to know how it got there. In this post, Penny outlines the problem of cruise ship waste and proposes measures each of us can take to solve it. Please share this post with any one who loves to travel and cares about the environment. Thanks.

That’s a melodious blackbird, tuneful behind me in the mango tree.  I leave my front door and squeak down the sand to the waterline.  On the horizon, waves break on the barrier reef.  The frigates are circling a palapas on the dock, and will be disappointed that the disembarking entourage is composed of scuba enthusiasts rather than fishermen. Closer, a blue heron nudges the minnows in the sea grass.

This is paradise.  It’s an island where (if you do not want to travel by water, and depending on how fast you can ride a bike) your fastest mode of transportation is likely to be a golf cart, bobbing along the sandy single lane in back of the houses that line the shore.

Dislodged sea grass comes in every morning.  And bottle caps, pieces of plastic forks, carefully cut portions of opaque milk bottles, shreds of cellophane, a lonely ravaged flip flop.   The seagrass will melt back into the Caribbean, or it can be raked and spread on fields.  But what to do with the other items, the bottlecaps and brittle food containers?    They say it will take somewhere between 450 and 600 years for them to dissolve, though dissolve they shall, changing the chemical composition of the seas.

And to here, to paradise, the items find their way,  refuse from those floating first world metropolises, the cruise ships.

The UN and others have tried to stop the dumping.  There is a Marine Pollution protocol in place, the so-called “MARPOL”, under which the Caribbean in deemed a “Special Area” because of its fragile reefs and enclosed nature.  However, enforcement of MARPOL is through the countries under which the liner is flagged, and the flag countries tend to be far away and disinterested in enforcing UN protocols. Even flag states that sign the protocol do not have to sign up to all if its annexes, such as Annex V, the one that forbids discharge of plastics.

Efforts by poor Caribbean states force cruise lines to internalise the cost of their waste production have not met with success.  A single ship will arrive with more trash than the people of a developing country could afford to generate in months.  But when Grenada suggested a US$1.50 a head tax to defray the cost of waste disposal, Carnival Cruise Line simply stopped going there, depriving it of tourist and trinket revenue altogether.

As we get older, many of us may decide that if we want to see more of the world, it will have to be from the hassle-free deck of a cruise ship.  No packing and carting of luggage.  You know where your next meal will come from (although perhaps not where it goes).  We’re maybe not as interested in local nightlife as we once were.  Could happen – they say people don’t believe how much they will change in a decade ahead, even when they know how much they changed in the decade behind.



But if any of us no-crowdsers decide to take to the seas in this way, let’s ask what is happening to those orange juice bottles, that cellophane, the six pack ring tops, the brittle see-through food trays, not to mention all of our organic “products”.  I think it’s time that the patrons of the cruise ships insist that they are people who pick up after themselves.  That they will not toss their trash overboard where it chafes the coral and ends in the stomachs of sea turtles.  Time for those who pay that piper to start calling the tune.

If ever you book a cruise, if you have friends who travel this way, let’s all start asking, “What about the waste?  What are you doing with our trash?”  And let’s make sure we get honest answers.

Photo: Ambergris Caye, Belize
December 2112

Cavemen, Honey and Kim Kardashian

No Crowds reporter Gary pointed out to us recently that No Crowds had reached a commercial fork in the road and like Yogi Berra, a legend of baseball and malapropisms, we took it.

Yes, the post from and about onefinestay supported a commercial operation but no, we did not then nor have we ever received financial consideration for liking stuff. OK, that’s the disclaimer taken care of. Maybe we’re just jealous having recently seen that Kim Kardashian gets $10,000 per Tweet so someday we might want to reconsider – just kidding.

But on to the cavemen and the honey. Thanks to our son Leland who introduced us to the idea of eating like a Neanderthal, we are on the Paleo diet. Long story short, if a caveman didn’t eat it, you shouldn’t either. Everyone in our family has lost 20 unwanted pounds and feels great. If you want to find out more about it, put Paleo into Google. All I can tell you it that it works.

So when I bumped in to my friend Nina who told me about this great honey company, I listened because: 1) honey is one of the few sweet things on the Paleo diet and 2) because there was an interesting travel story attached to the honey and the story goes like this.

 Ogilvy’s Honey is on a mission to make us fall in love with fine honey from all kinds of cool and interesting places such as the Himalayan highlands and Zambezi plains. All of Ogilvy’s honeys are unblended - either monofloral (the bees feed off only one plant or tree) or polyfloral (the bees feed of a variety of plants and trees local to their flying range) which, according to Ogilvy’s, makes for better honey.  Having tried the stuff – and liked it – the unblended story makes good sense to us.  But what we really enjoyed about Ogilvy’s was the global terroir, the romantic notion that a tiny piece of the Balkans, or the Himalayas or the Zambia was in our morning cuppa and we think that folks who like great travel experiences with no crowds would enjoy it too. Take that Kim Kardashian!

At.mosphere - the World's Hautest Cuisine

Gary and Lorraine, wining and dining in the world's tallest building - with some great tips on how to get to the top with No Crowds.

After 4 years in the most international city in the Gulf, we may have discovered our favorite bar.
 

If you want to experience the Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest building, you have two choices. You can follow the signs in the Dubai Mall and the endless ads on news media and queue up with hundreds of tourists to get jammed in a sweaty elevator to "At the Top", the observation deck, tchatchke shop and snack bar on the 125th floor. Or, if you have a bit of inside knowledge and you're willing to settle for the 123rd floor, you can have a completely different experience.  

At.mosphere consists of a very expensive formal restaurant and a wonderful, and quite romantic lounge, with what are unarguably the best views in the time zone. To get into either you must book ahead, when you are told that the dress code is "smart elegant", whatever that is. When you arrive you go through two checkpoints where they check you against the list...before you even get out of your car! Of course you are greeted by the expected team - young ladies in long black cocktail dresses slit up to here, and guys who look they moonlight for a Chippendale act. 

The beautiful people escort you to the lift, where you enjoy the quiet, if ear-popping ascent to 123 in a minute or less. As you step off, the floor to ceiling windows allow you to look out at the magnificent Dubai dancing fountains from quite a unique viewpoint. The lounge is small and intimate, with a short bar and a scattering of tables - not a mob scene, even on a Friday night, thanks to the reservation requirement. More beautiful people escort you to your table (we started at one that was a few feet away from the windows, but thanks to another couple who was on their way out, moved to one directly on the window a few minutes later). 

Then you get your next happy surprise - the menu.

First the drinks. My strangely named "Agua de Islay" was a masterpiece - Ardbeg single malt with fig and apricot juices and a slice of fresh fig on top. the other drinks were equally creative, including an 80% chocolate martini and several takes on the classic G&T. The wine and champagne lists were breathtakingly complete (and the high end was breathtakingly expensive), and so we will forgive the sommelier for his lapse in including a California white zin on the rosé list along with our chosen Côtes du Rhone. 

Happily, the chef has not showered all of his attention on the fine dining restaurant across the hall, and has come up with a wonderful tapas menu that is the perfect accompaniment to the glorious setting. We selected the green pea falafel with three sauces (astounding), scallop ceviche with a tart white sauce that matched perfectly, but we still can't figure out (lemongrass and coconut milk? Yogurt? Creme fraiche?),and a softshell crab, slivered and served with fresh scallions and hot peppers, rolled in Chinese Peking duck-style pancakes. Truly a unique experience.

Out of the Ordinary in London and New York

Readers ask us all the time about accommodations in London and New York and we rarely have a good answer. Hotels are expensive, and, well ... hotels. We have all stayed in plenty of them and no matter how fabulous, a hotel room is never a home. Recently we were approached by the company onefinestay with an offering that got us really excited. That's why we have invited them to share their story with No Crowds. Caveat emptor - we haven't stayed in one of their properties yet, but we are sorely tempted and we think you will be too.

With London and New York ranking amongst the most crowded cities in the world, they don’t seem the obvious choice of holiday destination from someone looking for the quieter life, however London based accommodation company onefinestay is offering travellers the chance to escape the crowds and live like a local in upscale homes while the owners are out of town. The collection of homes is ever growing, with over 600 in London, and now 77 homes in New York since launching there in May 2012.

This idea of sharing resources, known as collaborative consumption, has gained a lot of momentum in recent years, and after all the greenest hotel is the one that you never build. Many of the homes that onefinestay offers accommodate larger groups or families so room-for-room are actually a cheaper option staying in a hotel, plus the added bonus of being able to eat breakfast in your pyjamas without having to worry about getting odd looks!

For families with children, staying somewhere like Lambton Place or Hilary Street, both in west London means that children get to explore whole rooms of new and exciting toys and games giving parents some well needed time to relax! If you are really looking for something out of the ordinary then Russell Gardens Mews, a very stylish home owned by a DJ turned architect and his family, comes complete with a dance floor and DJ booth, cinema room, Jacuzzi and sauna!

If that’s not your style then there are plenty of other interesting choices.  Hidden away in the clock tower of St Pancras station is a two bedroom apartment where you can climb the spiral staircase to the tower sitting room and watch the people below through the arched brick windows. Or if you are on a more historical trail then Albert Terrace, a home built for the doctor of Queen Victoria, can be your own private museum.  For those heading to New York, the selection is just as eclectic: warehouse chic in a converted rubber factory in Tribeca, or for those looking for a room with a view then 4^th Avenue certainly delivers.

Each of the homes comes with its own iPhone loaded with local recommendations from the home owner which means you can avoid the usual tourist haunts and head straight to the more hidden places off the tourist trail. With all the services of a 5 star hotel, but with the charm and personality of a home, it is a great accommodation option for someone looking for something a little different.

Photo of Albert Terrace - the home of Queen Victoria's doctor

Mark Twain's House in Hartford but Mr Clemens is Out

This is the final post in a series on Connecticut museums by Laura Sanderson Healy, a great No Crowds traveller.

   “I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad 

 Ain’t that the truth! I must confess a total devotion to Samuel Clemens here, and in the way that I had to see the IMAX film about Mark Twain’s life, so I had to take myself and family to visit the shrine that is his home and museum in Hartford, way off the beaten track in the most unsalubrious neighborhood I have ever seen (it, and the Harriet Beecher Stowe house next door, sit high on a hill smack in the middle of a bombed out ghetto). If you can make it through the neighborhood, you can park in the lot for the museum, and the adventure is worth it.

  The Mark Twain House and Museum is such a wonderful destination for his fans; there are some 16,000 artifacts assembled. The house, a National Historic Landmark, does not have its original furnishings as it served as a school after the Clemenses but it is well appointed with the period detail. It’s a hulking edifice of Victorian splendor, and the interpretive center adjacent to it is full of interesting items, including a giant LEGO of Mark Twain himself. I would love to know what the great man would have had to say about that, and I’m sure he would love the ghost tours they do. Happenings are always going on at the museum and house, and it’s quite a busy presence on social media. I’m sure he would have liked that.

The family has a great takeaway from the trip to the Twain house: My daughter, who has read Tom Sawyer, was fascinated by a trick Mr. Clemens played on stray callers. If the polite author was working and did not want to be disturbed – he could write thousands of words a day – he simply stepped out onto an upstairs porch and his servant would tell the visitor that “Mr. Clemens is out.”

http://www.marktwainhouse.org/house/history.php

The Mark Twain House & Museum

351 Farmington Avenue

Hartford, CT 06105

Phone: 860 247-0998