St Petersburg and The Winter Palace
It has been a while since I crossed a border with all the officialdom of Customs and Immigration and that is my only excuse for making a minor mistake on entering Russia. With stories of long delays and Bridget’s possibly embarrassing registration number uppermost in my mind, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the process was both straightforward and efficient at the border and I was 40 miles inside Russia before realising that I had completely forgotten to purchase insurance. In Russia, like most countries, car insurance is compulsory and the police are reportedly enthusiastic in stopping cars with foreign plates and checking their papers.
I had plenty of fuel for the journey, but the road conditions for the first forty miles were poor and the standard of driving a little erratic. Just when I thought I would have to get used to the road surface it improved considerably even though the driving didn’t. A condition of my visa was...