Murmansk Winter Expedition: Day #16 – salt/sand spreader hostages
The 16th day of the journey was promising calmly. A 4.5 hour drive, it means 305 km to travel, maybe some lunch on the way, then we had to make it to the village of Pushkin to visit Tsarskoye Selo. We hoped that maybe we would even drive to St. Petersburg for a moment. The day should be finished in Pskov.
Happily, We managed to set off on time.
We headed south. On the road, we crossed the (unused) border between the republics.
A sneaky salt/sand spreader is attacking!
And soon a nightmare started. We became hostages of the salt/sand spreader. This machine caused a horrible traffic jam. No chance for a detour. At every favorable moment brave drivers in their wild and strong machines broke away, provoking not very safe situations. We had no chance with our Niva.
Every turn, every hill made us far from the plan. As long as we managed to reach the Tsarskoye Selo!
The last entrance was at 4 p.m. We reached Pushkin somehow 15 minutes earlier. Agnieszka runs through the park – buy tickets. Marcin – park and run together with the children to Catherine Palace.
Agnieszka managed to buy tickets. The guards closed the entrance at point 16…. and Marcin and the girls stayed on the other side. Agnieszka was inside with tickets. Emotions reached the zenith. Agnieszka, reaching the heights of diplomacy, using her poor language skills, finally negotiated with the manager of the object that the rest of the family could EXCEPTIONALLY cross the exit gate and get to the Palace
That’s how we managed to see the Amber Room, despite the conspiracy of the salt/sand spreader.
After the sightseeing, when the emotions had fallen, we decided that it was necessary to eat something good. We have chosen the Podvorye restaurant.
At the entrance we were greeted by a nice bear:
And in the souvenir shop we found Vladimir Caesar:
Then only 4 hours drive to Pskov and so after midnight we could go to sleep.
What is the lesson that we learn from it? You never know when you will be attacked by a Russian salt/sand spreader!
You have to take this into account when planning your day.