Day 19 - Tour Day 8 – Sun 21 July 2019 - Tallinn to St Petersburg

Sunrise:         4:40am                                              Sunset:          9:54pm

I didn't take many photos today.

Breakfast from 6:30, bags out by 6:45 and departed for Saint Petersburg at 7:45.

We needed our passports with us today.

There was another glorious sunset last night and I was up this morning not too long after sunrise.

sunrise photo

Nothing happening until 10:15 this morning, when we arrived at the Estonian Border. 

No photos allowed.

Before we got to the border though, the bus had to go to an area to get some papers, saying that we could cross the border. For a fee. Then we drove to the border. 

Thankfully there wasn’t another bus in front of us and we got a green light almost straight away. A customs man came on board to collect our passports and we sat and waited until he came back with them at 10:40.

We then proceeded to the Russian border, which is just over the River Narva, although the river is the actual border between the 2 countries.

Local pedestrians can walk between the 2 countries. Apparently the Estonians often do that, to do their shopping, as things are cheaper in Russia than they are in Estonia.

We were at the Russian border crossing at 10:45 and can see 1 bus in front of us but they are almost loaded up again.

The border procedure for bus/coach passengers is.

1.Off load the main luggage from under the bus. 

2.Take that into the customs hall.

3. Wheel it to the counter and hand the passport over. They scan the photo page and then the visa page. Then a perforated form is printed. 

4.You sign both sides of the form. They divide the form and keep one side and put the other side in the passport on the visa page. 

You then walk through the “nothing to declare” exit and go outside, with your main luggage and wait for the bus to be inspected, before if drives about 20 metres and the main luggage is then loaded back onto the coach and we were on our way again at 11:20am. Just over an hour, so pretty fast for a coach load of people.

Our first view of shops in Russia

There were a lot of roadworks happening over the next 2 plus travel hours and we finally hit the outer suburbs of Saint Petersburg around 1:15pm and were at the hotel well before 2pm.

We had to hand our passports over to reception when we collected our room key, so the hotel can process them and I picked mine up from reception a couple of hours later and it’s now safely locked in my room safe.

I'm in room 813, with a view of the Galleria shopping mall across the road.. 

There is an exchange place about 2 doors to the left of the hotel entrance, so I went there to change €100 to Rubles. Received 7,086 Rubles in exchange. Will be interesting to see how long that last’s, as apart from tonight’s meal, no dinners are included while in Saint Petersburg.

My main luggage had been delivered to my room by the time I got back from the money exchange, so I then sorted out what to wear for the next few days, ironed & hung the clothes in the wardrobe and then went across the road to the shopping mall. 4 or 5 levels high and HUGE. I walked around the first 3 levels only, before returning back to the hotel, as I needed to do some laundry and shower & get ready for the Welcome Dinner tonight.

Anna had already had a get together with the new members of the group, though 2 of the expected 9 haven’t arrived yet.  I met 4 of the new group. All from Australia too.

Tomorrow looks to be pretty full on, so don’t be surprised if I don’t post anything, due to lack of time. 

Something about my step count.  I haven’t change the timing to European time, so my steps start and end around 4pm local European time.

Steps Walked                     3,540

Hotel: Crowne Plaza St. Petersburg, Ligovsky

Meals: Breakfast, Dinner with drinks