We're off on our newest adventure

We're heading to Japan for a month-long bike trip, May 2-29, 2012. Check out the blog for that trip: http://pdoubilet3.blogspot.com

A Photo Album of Our Trip

Check out the link on the right for a photo album of our Cross-Europe bike trip

Ending Our Trip with Delightful Dubilets

We spent Sunday boxing our bikes for the flight home, visiting the Hermitage, and dining with recently found relatives Michael and Elena Dubilet. Michael was particularly interested in the newly created Doubilet-Dubilet Genealogy Group on Facebook, consisting of descendants of Ukrainian Doubilets (translated from the original Cyrillic spelling as Dubilet in non-English-speaking countries). Michael, a 30-year-old cinematographer, was born in the Ukraine, lived much of his life in Cyprus, and now lives and works with his wife Elena, an animator, in St. Petersburg. Over a spectacular Armenian dinner, we had a lively conversation in which we learned a lot about the corrupt, dysfunctional Russian political system (a "kleptocracy") that enriches government officials while stunting growth and innovation, about the Greek-Turkish divide in Cyprus, and about the Dubilets in the Ukraine.

We're now on our way home, putting together this last blog entry in flight. A major challenge that we're starting to think about is how we can come up with a trip next year that can match, or even approach, the incredible adventure we just finished.

At the Hermitage

Cutting cardboard to make boxes for our bikes

One bike box half done

Both bikes in boxes

Street scene in St. Petersburg

Peter, Carol, Michael Dubilet, Elena Dubilet

We Made it to St. Petersburg!!

Today (Saturday), our last day of cycling L , was a short ride from Peterhof to St. Petersburg. The outskirts of the city are full of massive apartment blocks: ugly, dilapidated, Soviet-era ones, as well as fairly nice modern ones. The Russians are clearly into these enormous buildings. We peddled through the streets of St. P to our hotel, and shortly afterwards bade farewell to our excellent Estonian guide, Toomas Lelov, who rode with us for the past 5 days to help us make it through the Russian segment of our trip.

We spent most of the rest of the day trying to solve an important problem: how to package our bikes so that we can take them with us on our Monday morning flight to Boston. Despite Toomas' help, we were unable to locate a bicycle box at either a bike store or the airline we'll be flying on (Air France). So we took the subway to a large home improvement store (very much like Home Depot) and bought 10 fairly large cardboard boxes (but each considerably smaller than a bicycle) and a variety of supplies (tape, box cutter, string, etc). Tomorrow, we'll assemble these boxes into containers for two bikes, take apart our bikes, and package them for the return trip.

Once our "business" is done tomorrow, we'll spend some time sightseeing and getting together with a Doubilet relative (Michael Dubilet, whom we "met" via Facebook). Then, sadly, our adventure will be over.

Taking off on our final day with Toomas

A beautiful church on route

A massive, modern apartment block on the outskirts of St. Petersburg

In the home improvement store, using the phone app Google Translate to display "big cardboard box" in Russian. By showing this to the salesperson, he knew what we wanted and took us to the appropriate place in the store.

Our shopping cart with 10 boxes

Taking the subway back to our hotel, with our cardboard boxes

A Memorable Day in Russia

Today (Friday), the second to last day of our cross-Europe bike trip, was the longest and wettest day that we've had. We rode 84 miles (10 of them resulting from getting lost when trying to locate our destination hotel), most of them in heavy rain, and many of them into the wind. But the most notable aspect of the day was the horrendous state of disrepair and neglect of almost everything on route. We rode through the countryside, which was largely empty, with relatively few houses and only rare villages. Most of the land we saw was covered with weeds, some as high as 8-10 feet tall. Only a tiny fraction of the land is used for agriculture. Most houses and stores were quite decrepit. Some of the roads were well paved, but many were full of cracks and potholes. Garbage at times littered the edges of the roads.

Our destination today was Peterhof, the site of a series of spectacular palaces and gardens laid out on the orders of Peter the Great in the early 1700's. Unfortunately, because of our very long ride today we were only able to get a brief glimpse of one of the palaces.

Cycling beside tall weeds

One of many houses we passed that has seen better times

Crumbling concrete stairs to this store

A bus stop that's in bad shape, with garbage on the road beside it

Our one view of a Peterhof palace

Peter's legs after taking off his socks at the end of a very rainy ride, often on roads in poor shape. The grime on his legs is evident in comparison to his feet and ankles that were protected by socks.

We Made it to Russia!

33 miles into our ride today, we crossed the border from Estonia into Russia, and then rode 18 miles into Russia. It was the first border crossing of our cross-Europe bike trip that involved stopping at border control, since the prior nine countries we've been in were all European Union members. Fortunately, the bureaucracy was not too inefficient, so the crossing took us less than an hour. Trucks crossing in the opposite direction, however, have no such luck, and instead must sit along the side of the road in a several mile lineup to cross the border, probably involving a wait of well over a day.

The change from Estonia to Russia was dramatic. One online tourist guidebook that we read a few days ago described Estonia (especially Tallin) as "Scandinavian sleek mixed with Soviet concrete", the latter from the period of 1944 to 1991 during which Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. As soon as we crossed the border into Russia, the sleek disappeared and ugly, dilapidated concrete abounded. The apartments are not only drab and formless, as well as in large conglomerations with no landscaping around them, but they are also built very shoddily. In the parts built with bricks, the bricks are unevenly placed, not sitting properly one on top of the other. In the parts built with concrete, the concrete is cracked and falling apart, likely due to use of poor quality material.

The cars and buses are also a major step down from what we've encountered in the previous parts of our trip, even in Poland. Many of the cars are ancient, heavily rusted, Soviet-era Ladas.

None of that, however, prepared us for what our hotel would look like. The outside and the staircase are a decrepit mess, though they do appear to be in the process of being repaired. Fortunately, once we climbed up to the third floor, where our room is located, the corridor and room were decent (except for the massively leaking shower that left puddles in and adjacent to the bathroom after we showered).

We did have a delicious dinner – a Caucasian barbeque consisting of various meats. In this part of the world, "Caucasian" refers to peoples of the Caucasus region, a cluster of Russian republics at the border of Europe and Asia that includes Chechnya, Dagestan, and several others.

Our guide Toomas leading the way, in Estonia about 1 mile from the Russian border

The bridge we crossed to get from Estonia into Russia (viewed from the Estonian side)

Carol & Toomas in "no man's land" between Estonia and Russia

Entering Russia (pictures were prohibited, but we couldn't resist)

A typical Soviet-era apartment building, with cracked concrete and disheveled bricks (easily seen at a closer distance than from where this picture was taken)

Our first hotel in Russia

Staircase from the lobby to our third floor hotel room 

Site of our Caucasian barbeque

A Beautiful Ride in Estonia, Bringing Us Close to Russia

Today's 71 mile ride, from Palmse to Toile, Estonia, brought us close to the Russian border, which we will cross tomorrow. Our ride through the countryside included fields, forests, restored estates, seaside views, and a waterfall. Our destination hotel is a spa, featuring pool, sauna, and massage (though we didn't partake of any of those amenities).

Riding with our guide Toomas

A restored manor; hotel is adjacent to it (not in this picture)

A restored manor, run as a British Inn

Biking along the Baltic Sea coast, on the Gulf of Finland

Passing by a German bike group

Our spa hotel

Video of a waterfall beside the Baltic Sea