Leave planes for business trips, and trains for autumn days, when you want to watch the rain outside the window with the sound of wheels. In summer, you need to travel exclusively by car so as not to miss a single moment of your vacation, meet the sunrises in the most picturesque places and be sure that even more beautiful landscapes will be beyond the horizon.
Traveling by car has its advantages:
- you can go where your eyes are looking, turn into oncoming villages where ancient churches have been preserved, take a detour to explore a noble estate, stop for a picnic on charming meadows, choose cozy suburban complexes for overnight stays;
- you can take your pet with you on a trip;
- a person traveling by car is not limited in weight and dimensions of luggage;
- you do not have to waste time waiting for public transport and quests with baggage checks at airports.
We recommend that you sketch out an approximate route of your trip at home. Pay attention to our developments, dilute them with your preferences and hit the road!
Karelia
It is better to start traveling by car in Karelia from St. Petersburg. It will take 3 to 5 days to see the significant beauties of the Russian North.
The road from St. Petersburg to Sortavala, the main city of the Ladoga region, which is 600 km, can be covered in 3-4 hours, but such a rush is not needed at all, because a lot of interesting things await you on this section of the way.
The first stop will be Priozersk at the eastern end of Lake Ladoga. It is only 145 km from St. Petersburg. In Priozersk, you need to visit the Old and New Fortress Korela (and in the middle of summer to see a costume show), photograph several churches, find monuments to Mowgli and Toad from Thumbelina, and go fishing on the Vuoksa River.
It is worth stopping by the recently organized park "Valley of Waterfalls" near the village of Lumivaara. There is a 1.5 km long hiking trail to the river with 4 waterfalls in the park, where you can meet reindeer. Don't forget to grab a treat for them.
Stop at Lahdenpohja for a couple of interesting sights - an old church turned into a museum of wooden sculpture, and a 1943 bunker built by the Finns and open to the public.
It is pleasant to walk in Sortavala, looking for squares of a triangular shape and occasionally wandering into a cafe in Finnish in the ear. Tourists stop in this town for 2-3 days to go to the Ladoga skerries and the island of Valaam.
Another interesting one-day tour from Sortavala is Ruskeala Canyon Park, a former marble canyon, now turned into one of the most significant sights of the region. You can go boating along the canyon.
If there is a desire to travel further, then you can go to Petrozavodsk, from where motor ships go to the island of Kizhi.
Volga region
You can start your journey across the Volga region to Kazan from Vladimir or from Nizhny Novgorod.
The road from Vladimir to the Volga with a length of more than 240 kilometers is overcome in 4 hours. True, on the way you can stop at Gorokhovets to see stone mansions of the 16th-17th centuries, wooden houses in the Art Nouveau style, more reminiscent of fabulous palaces with spiers, turrets and carved platbands, 3 monasteries and a city park on a hill with stunning views.
If you decide to start in Kazan from Nizhny Novgorod, then spend at least a day visiting the local Kremlin, walking along the embankment and riding a cable car to the neighboring town of Bor.
The road from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan takes 6-7 hours and passes through the city of Cheboksary, where you can make a stop to relax, and at the same time to explore the city.
In summer Cheboksary is especially beautiful. We can say that the city is one blooming park. In addition to visiting squares, groves and alleys, which will be a great backdrop for bright sunny photos, plan a jog in the local museums, which are quite entertaining. There is the Museum of Beer, the Museum of Vasily Chapaev, the Museum of the History of the Tractor.
And on Red Square, Cheboksary, there is a musical fountain that has an original illumination in the evening, so you should think about spending the night in the city, and in the morning, with renewed vigor, go to Kazan.
Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, can captivate and charm even the most sophisticated traveler. Take at least 2 days for walks in Kazan. First of all, all tourists go to the Kremlin, on the territory of which there are the famous Kul-Sharif mosque, the presidential and governor's palaces, the falling Syuyumbike tower and the Annunciation Cathedral.
What to do outside the Kremlin? Dine on Bauman Street, find yourself in the past in the Old Tatar Sloboda, go to museums, visit Kazan University and choose gifts - ichigi boots, silver amulets, skullcaps and robes with rich embroidery.
Altai
It is worth allocating about a week for a trip from Novosibirsk to Altai. The road passes through the capital of Altai - Gorno-Altaysk. You can get here by car from Novosibirsk in 6 hours. Add to this time 2-3 hours that you will spend on exploring Barnaul, famous for its luxurious merchant mansions.
In Gorno-Altaysk, you should climb 2 mountains - Tugaya and Komsomolskaya in order to see the city from a bird's eye view. Another entertainment in the capital of Altai is the search for the site of ancient people. It was located near the local rivulet Ulalushki.
The next stop of the trip is 7 Karakol lakes of glacial origin near the village of Elekmonar near Chemal. There is a recreation center where boats are rented.
Near Ongudai, at an altitude of 1295 m, there is the picturesque Chike-Taman pass, where you can stop for a spectacular photo shoot.
Further along the Chuisky tract is the Kalbak-Tash tract. People come here to look at the drawings made by the aborigines in the 6th century BC. NS. - X century A. D. NS.
