Suzdal is about an hour by bus from Vladimir. Despite the lady in the hotel suggesting a taxi for a tenner, we decided to head down to the bus station to jump on the local bus. Matters were complicated a little because the 11am bus was cancelled, so a fair few people had to squeeze on the slightly dilapidated bus leaving at 11.30am. Luckily we'd waited by the gate, so were near the front of the queue - managed to grab a seat, which was no mean feat as the 25 seater must have pulled away with 50 people on board. We noticed on the way that this is the place where buses are recycled. A number of buses had adverts for local shops in Germany or the name of Dutch bus operating companies. The bus we were on was probably more suited to scrapping than recycling.
Suzdal itself is a town of a few thousand people and a profusion of churches and monasteries by a lovely river. The guide book with its usual flourish spoke of the town experiencing a tourism boom. I can only assume this is relative given that we must have seen about 100 tourists (including the seemingly ever present Chinese tour group) in total during our 6 hours there.
We had lunch in the Archbishop's dining hall with its fine collection of samovars (hot water dispensers). Most of the afternoon was spent at the monastery at the top of the town which appears to have doubled as a POW camp during WWII. We were treated to two renditions of discordant bell ringing. Some chap goes up the bell tower on the hour and manually operates the bells - one man band style with arms and legs flailing around.
Suzdal itself is a town of a few thousand people and a profusion of churches and monasteries by a lovely river. The guide book with its usual flourish spoke of the town experiencing a tourism boom. I can only assume this is relative given that we must have seen about 100 tourists (including the seemingly ever present Chinese tour group) in total during our 6 hours there.
We had lunch in the Archbishop's dining hall with its fine collection of samovars (hot water dispensers). Most of the afternoon was spent at the monastery at the top of the town which appears to have doubled as a POW camp during WWII. We were treated to two renditions of discordant bell ringing. Some chap goes up the bell tower on the hour and manually operates the bells - one man band style with arms and legs flailing around.
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