This was my first trip to Russia. I had been on a Viking River cruise before and was impressed with their service. We spent a number of days in Moscow to start and ended with a number of days in St. Petersburg at the end. We saw all of the typical tourist sites - Kremlin, Red Square, St. Basil’s, Hermitage, Catherine Palace, etc. The city tours were great, but be warned there were miles and miles of walking on some of them. The river cruising was beautiful and we stopped in a number of unique ports and interesting cities. We always had a local guide with us who was very informative. Some were delightful.

There was lots of “wodka” available on the ship - at tastings, lunches, and events. The three Viking guides were very knowledgeable and we had classes on history and language. The cabins were very nice. A pleasant surprise was the very large veranda on our cabin. The ship used to be an ocean going vessel - the verandas were large and square, not like the small, narrow veranda I had in France. The food was excellent. The service was wonderful in the dining room. The reception staff were very helpful in recovering a tablet computer that had been left on a bus.

The Viking flights were uneventful, but due to limited flights to/from Russia, we had to leave at 3:00 am on out disembarkation day. That made for a very long day.