Russia – Golden Ring

Moscow has long since disappeared in the rear-view mirror. The endless country roads through forests that go on forever allow you all the time in the world to picture in your mind's eye once more Red Square and the hectic traffic of the capital. On the just over 600 miles of the Golden Ring, it is easy to lose track of where you are between the old, splendid cities of the Russian heartland. But exactly then, the next golden onion-domed spire of an Orthodox church appears as a signpost. On the northern part of the route, the impressions from different eras blend into one. Yaroslavl with the fifteen towers of its church is still full of life on the road to Kostroma. The smaller town and its mansions dating from the late tsar era are typical of the onward journey through the increasingly dense forests. The calm of Ples with its wooden houses on the banks of the Volga continues to accompany the route at all times heading south. The route leaves the Golden Ring on its way to the next stage. Instead of the church towers, it now follows the mile-wide Volga towards Nizhny Novgorod. The Kremlin fortress sits imposingly on a cliff overlooking a city of over a million inhabitants, which successfully transports the charm of the Russian centuries to the present day. Matching this, the wider, more modern road, which the route follows in a straight line to the West back to the Golden Ring. The last stage of the route practically invites the driver to take over control of time and distance once more with the steering wheel and right foot. But the route then reaches the Golden Ring once more with its very own pace when it arrives at the Golden Gates of Vladimir. The distance to the last stop on the route in Suzdal is much too short to absorb all the impressions. If the old seat of kings is overwhelming, then not just with its churches and monasteries, of which there are supposedly just as many as normal houses. Here, everything is concentrated that the Golden Ring had to offer. And when Suzdal finally disappears in the rear-view mirror once more, there is a memory in every direction, each one marked by a golden spire.