We had originally planned to go to Baikal on Friday, but when we looked at the forecast we realized that it was going to rain. It was pouring when we woke up, but, by the time we left, the rain let up a little bit. It was really hard to walk around because I was not dressed at all for the weather. I was 80 degrees and sunny when we left Ufa, but, even looking at the weather predictions, I forgot what 50 degrees would feel like.
We took the tram to visitor center to get a map for the green line walking tour. I never realized how amazing Visitor Centers are. I'd definitely suggest going to one because we got some great books and maps of Irkutsk and Baikal for free. The visitor center was near Volkonsky Manor, the house one of the Decembrists, so we walked over. We bought tickets for both the Volkonsky Manor and Trubetskoy Manor. I would suggest only going to the Trubetskoy Manor, or going there first, because the Volkonsky Manor wasn't as interesting. Also, read about them before you go because most of the information is in Russian, and if you are like us, you'll ask yourselves a lot of questions.
The weather was terrible but I didn't want to waste the day. We walked about 15 minutes to Kazan Cathedral because it was the closest we'd probably be to it. The cathedral was beautiful, but we didn't go inside because we didn't have anything to cover our heads. We then took the tram back to Торговый Комплекс to get lunch.
After we ate we walked down the street and decided to go into Traveler's Cafe to charge our phones and drink some coffee. While we were there it started to rain, which was the start of a very weird evening of random rain intervals. When we were done we walked to 130 Kvartal again to look at a used book store. It randomly started to rain again while we were there so we waited inside for it to let up.
The rain finally stopped so we headed out to walk the green line. Some areas of the line were completely missing, so we had some trouble following it. We came to the end and decided to go back to Kirov Square. I wanted to take some pictures, but there were really dark clouds that were coming in. I didn't have an umbrella, and I really didn't want to be caught in the rain again so I suggested that we head back to our hostel.
Where do you find information for things to do in new cities?
Those buildings are so beautiful! The cathedral is absolutely breathtaking. I am so happy to have found your blog to get a regular dose of Russia!
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