Our long-distance trip for 2025 will be undertaken by public transport as the van is still in Stornoway after a collision with a deer. Its repair is due to begin on 1st June.
We are all prepared with dollars purchased from Tesco, the train booked to Stansted and the flights booked to Moscow via Istanbul.
The journey from Lewis to Stirling was uneventful, until we got to Stirling and got lost, eventually arriving at Kincardine on the wrong side of seemingly endless motorways. We managed to get back to Stirling and found the youth hostel which Jennifer had booked at 10.28 before the door was locked at 10.30. The hostel was a delight as were its staff. It is located in the old part of Stirling with narrow cobbled streets and a stone’s throw from the Holy Rude Church where James 6th was crowned by John Knox. We looked round the highly atmospheric church and were amazed to note that it had been divided with a wall during a religious dispute at the time of the Covenanters. The wall was only pulled down in the 1930’s. There is a huge graveyard nearby with monuments to Protestant martyrs, and another graveyard has the grave of a monk who fought at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1296 and would have known William Wallace.
Later in the day we drove down to Bearsden to see my sons and grandchildren with bags of sweets before continuing to Alrewas, arriving at 01.30 and both feeling utterly knackered.
The passports arrived on 29th May as promised by the Consulate, and Anastasiya phoned us in the morning to check that we would be at home when the postman delivered them.
Day 7 May 31st Alrewas to Istanbul
Jennifer’s son David kindly took us to Lichfield Trent Valley station where a bus was waiting to take us to Nuneaton, and we then got the train to Stansted Airport. We had to queue for nearly three hours to get through security for the Pegasus plane with its very cramped seats. A nice surprise was the unexpected free meals which we got (everyone else had to pay) but the transfer time for the Moscow plane was very short at Istanbul and we only just made it.
Day 8 (1st June) Istanbul to Moscow
We arrived at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow about 5 AM and I was pleased to see that the metro line (Purple, No.8A) had been extended to the airport. The train took us to Park Pobedy where we got the Blue line for two stops to Koltsovaya and then transferred to the Pale Green Line to Khoroshevskaya which is a 15-minute walk from the Moscow Holiday Hotel.
Park Pobedy metro station