Vladimir and the Golden Ring

While in Moscow, we took advantage of our proximity to the Golden Ring and headed out to Vladimir on a four-hour bus trip. While the city is super important to the birth of Russia and also a UNESCO site, it was not really a foreign tourist-friendly city.

A camera will never ever ever ever be able to capture how big this country is. Even in a small city (about 315,000 inhabitants), the land was vast.

Vladimir was a good way to give my visiting American friend a quick introductory course to Russian culture outside of Moscow. In my lessons, she was:

- Navigating a Russian bus station's bureaucracy (physically less scary than any bus station in the US)

- Riding a second-hand German bus without air conditioning in heavy Moscow traffic

- Riding trolleybuses

- Seeing Russian houses and country houses (dachas)

- Learning about how flashy Russians can get

To me, this hotel epitomizes modern Russia.

This is the outside to the hotel 'Gladiator' located 10 minutes outside the city center by public transportation. The bus stop was 10 minutes away by foot and we had to go through old Russian houses to get there.

Don't let the name 'Gladiator' fool you because the decorations were inspired by the Middle Ages, nautical life, combat arts, and the disco period.

In the hotel's restaurant is a two-story dining hall complete with a lit dancing floor, disco ball, stripper pole, piano, and medieval crests.

(Above two) Of course, this is what makes a hotel Russian: A traditional Russian banya and a Finnish sauna.

A wooden ship on the banister displaying the tasteful nautical theme also found in the hotel. The door behind me leads to a hookah and billiards room. This was down the hall from our room.