St. Petersburg Trip - Part 1

At Easter Elk's Street went for a quick trip to St. Petersburg, Russia. Although it is only a few hundred kilometers from Elk's Street HQ, it was the first trip there for many of us. The reason: Visa requirements make crossing the border a pain in the neck, not to mention quite pricey.

To avoid the visa hassles, and because Elk's Street was too disorganised, we went on a visa-free trip with St. Peter Line from Helsinki. This is very easy - one night on the boat, two nights in a hotel, and one night on the boat on the return trip.

The little boys waiting in Helsinki harbour with St Peter Line's vessel, Princess Maria in the background.

As the sharp-eyed will notice, MS Princess Maria is a former Silja Line vessel, MS Finlandia, which used to ply the Helsinki-Stockholm route. The ship has quite a colourful history, which is described here. Elk's Street noticed that the vessel had been part of the DFDS fleet because some of the fittings were labelled DFDS and some of the signs were in Norwegian.

H-M slightly flummoxed by modern technology.

The start of the sea journey did not go smoothly, with two hours of crowds, chaos and confusion at the check-in. When we finally got on board, the passengers were fed-up, the staff rude, and the evening buffet food expensive and poor-quality. Elk's Street were of the opinion that perhaps they should have gone by Allegro train after all.

Our rather cosy cabin.

Entering the Port of St Petersburg in the early morning .

Morskoy Vokzal Ferry Terminal in the morning mist.

On embarkation the lack of organisation continued, although in a friendly manner. As the photo below shows, for some people waiting on a bus going nowhere can be quite trying.

Aaaaaarrrggh!