The two elusive Russian lakes

Thursday morning we headed off along small roads in search of the biggest lake in Europe. To make a long story short, it is almost impossible to actually get to its banks. Either there are forests blocking the view or we drive down some small road and it ends at someone's weekend house. No access to the beach anywhere. After a long drive around the northern end of Lake Ladoga we finally got to see it near Sortavala where the road happens to go right past it. We had lunch there, and then left the lake behind us for good.

Heading east we met a lot of road construction on the otherwise very good road. A long but uneventful drive later we arrived at Lake Onega in the city of Petrozavodsk. Since it was our anniversary we had planned to splurge and stay in a hotel but none had any rooms left. So instead we went to a tiny camp site by the harbour (with access to the lake!) which was in walking distance to the city centre and the boat pier. The lady at Nord Camping was very helpful and organised us a boat trip to Kizhi island where we went on Friday by hydrofoil boat (the famous Meteor class with its 1950's spaceship design). Kizhi island is an open air museum and a UNESCO world heritage site. There is a real village on the island besides the museum village with several restored houses from the area and spanning the last couple centuries. The main attraction, however, are the two wooden churches from the 17th century and a bell tower. There are also old farm houses, barns, a smithy and a boat builder. All of the houses had local people demonstrating old crafting techniques which was fascinating to watch. We also had an audio guide which explained some of the sights. A lot of tourists come here, but we found that everybody tends to spread out and it wasn't a problem. We highly recommend Kizhi.

Next destination: the White Sea.