Russia's Golden Ring

We had a chance to escape the big Russian cities a couple of times and headed out to the Golden Ring towns outside of Moscow that were once-upon-a-time the sites of old capitals. Once again, the architecture is overwhelmingly grand, especially the domed monasteries and churches.

The blue and gold domes of the massive monastery of Sergiev Posad

A dove caught in Trent's frame

An less touristed church in Yaroslavl with amazing tiled green domes

And some more modern local artwork on an adjacent wall

Finally some of the best food we had to date in Russia, the food kit on our overnight train from Moscow to St Petersburg- pate, bread, wafers, chocolate, yoghurt (generally the food had been pretty expensive and not that varied given our inability to understand Russian)