The Captain is leaving!

Sunday October 6th

Arrive 8am Cast Off 12.00 noon. Uglich

This is the final touchdown before we arrive in Moscow and the Captain leaves the ship, apparently he only needs to be on board whilst we sail!
So tonight, by pure co-incidence to our own celebrations we have the Captain's Dinner.
Firstly though, we have another whistle stop tour, this time to the town of Uglich.
This entails a walking tour of the Kremlin,and a Home hosted visit.
We found out that a Kremlin is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities that surrounds the interior city and....churches!

Our home visit to us into the quite large house of a retired couple.A former watchmaker from the now defunct Chaika Watches, like many Russian industries since Glasnost, it has closed down.

 I must say they made a very good flavoured( a hint of coffee) vodka(moonshine) made purely for home use, and as such overlooked by the authorities.We all had three toasts from  a large shot glass and were suitably warmed.

I've seen that cat before!

 The birdlife spotted in Russia is mainly of the crow family although great tit and chaffinch seemed to be abundant in the cities

Rook and Jackdaw

Egyptian / hooded crow

Anyway back to the boat for a 12 noon sailing to Moscow and "A taste of USSR" on the Sun deck, to start the drinking and eating.

A surprise for Pauline

For our celebration tonight we have decided to grab a table for six people. There is no booking of tables, so one of us needs to join in the usual rush of those who only want to sit with their mates.

Somebody had beaten us to a six seater and reserved the table with two glasses of wine, they were knowhere to be seen so must have sneaked in below the barricade!

The glasses are moved on by an obliging waiter, and we take our seats.

Our guests are two Scots, Alistair and Fiona from Invergordon, and two Canadian ladies Nadine and Karin from locations on Vancouver Island.

We ordered a couple of bottles of special wine. Whilst the house wine was ok in large doses, we wanted to start of with something a little better.

We had hoped to keep our celebrations secret, apart from the invited few, as Pauline didn't fancy the idea of a group of Filipino waiters banging and crashing happy birthday, as we had seen earlier on the trip. 

BUT, they have ways of finding out, the passport being the easy way!!

DINNER MENU 

First Course 

Trilogy of Russian Blini's 

salmon caviar, tuna tartar & smoked halibut 

Soup 

Beef Consomme 

aged sherry, Siberian pelmeni & vegetable julienne 

Second Course

Grilled Scampi 

saffron risotto & lobster sauce 

Main Course

Whole Roasted Beef Tenderloin 

truffled crust, potato roulette, seasonal vegetables with Barolo sauce 

Grilled Fillet of Kamchatka Salmon 

rissole potatoes, sautéed garden vegetables with Hollandaise sauce 

Eggplant Parmigiana 

tagliatelle, Napolitana sauce 

Desserts

Viking Dessert Platter 

Grand Marnier parfait, white coffee mousse & soufflé 

Fresh Fruit mixed fruit platter 

Cheese Plate

Edam 

Dutch cow's milk cheese, most popular cheese in the world between the 14th and 18th centuries, ages and travels well, does not spoil, pale yellow in color, coated in red wax 

Emmentaler 

Swiss cow's milk cheese, matured for 4-14 months in humid caves, characteristic walnut sized holes 

Schardinger Raucherkase 

Austrian cow's milk cheese, smoked over beech-wood, semi-hard and a spicy aroma 

I have to say the food on board is excellent and the waiting staff very, very pleasant.

I'm awaiting the film/photo's of the "happy birthday" celebration by the waiters, but it's still in Canada.


Tomorrow we enter Moscow!

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