Russia Trip
03 June 2019
• Amsterdam
by Liz MacInally
First flight complete, now sitting in the lounge on the top floor of Schiphol Airport terminal, enjoying the gap between flights. Many thanks to Cathy and Duncan for a great meal at the Paradise Iranian restaurant in Glasgow last night. Great food, good company, and a lift back to the airport! Didn't sleep much last night but then you don't when you have to get up at three thirty! Our flight was full, and left only slightly delayed at 6.25. Lots of business types, all small black roll-on cases and suits, and no children that I could see, or hear! I can't help wondering how many people like us taking international journeys choose an airline that avoids needing to use Heathrow? We have chosen KLM for our last three international flights, and love the fact that we only need to clear customs and immigration at our local airport, Glasgow! And we find Schiphol one of the least confusing and most user-friendly airports we know. Apart that is from Kirkwall Airport, a model of small perfection. Is this part of our pro-independence mindset, perhaps? I hadn't thought of that before, but it is possibly evidence of it. Landing at Schiphol on its newest runway, number six, is fun because the aircraft then has to taxi at fairly high speed for about a quarter of an hour, including crossing a motorway, until the Terminal heaves into sight!
Relieved to discover our bags are checked through to our final destination, Vladivostok. No mad panic to find them en route! So we can just concentrate on finding the right gate at Moscow Airport, when we get there, later. Our longish layover here is until 13.15 local time. Then off with Aeroflot this time to Moscow. Meantime, time to chill and play solitaire!
Our trip involves flying to Vladivostok on the Russian Pacific coast, then after a bit of sightseeing there, climbing on the Imperial Russian Train for a journey that will take us west towards Moscow, then St Petersburg. Cities visited will include Khabarovsk, Ulan Ude, then Lake Baikal, Novosibirsk, and Ekaterinburg. The down side is that there is no wifi on the train, so blog entries might be few and fr between, or not. I don't know yet. But watch this space!
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