Re-ticket

From Russia with love! And that's not only a title of a famous James Bond movie. 

If you've ever been there, you will fall in love with the country. Even if you hate it. With Russia, you can only have a so called 'love-hate' relation. The same for the people, some of them you will hate, some of them you will love. There is no 'average' Russian. They are or rude and arrogant, or sweet, nice and lovely to you. The same with the country.

True, you can do a 'double date' with Moscow and St. Petersburg, but better is to cross the country with the Transsiberia Express (actually the Trans-Siberian Railway), but we call it the 'TE'. Don't mess up with the TransMongolian Express, that's the one which goes to Beijing. Also fun, but not 100% Russian.

The 9200 km trip will take you in 8 days and 7 time zones from the Russian capital Moscow to the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok. But the only thing you will see during this trip is the window of your cabin, as you are only allowed to get out of the train for less than an hour. Therefore tourists opt for the 2 or 3 week adventure with some 'stop-overs' in certain cities, like student city Omsk, or a nature-break at Lake Baikal.

Did you know that the TE is not even the longest railtrack in the world? Moscow-Pyonyang (in North-Korea) and Kiev-Vladivostok (Kiev in Ukraine) are longer. But hey, how asks anyway as you publish your stunning shots of this trip on Facebook!

Check here the different stages of the famous train journey via Google Maps AND video!

Photo: Flickr.com