Back in the Spring BA were bombarding me with offers for city mini breaks including business class flights, so I had the bright idea that we should visit St Petersburg as we could then scratch off the vast country of Russia which seems to take up half the World map - see huge red mass below.
St Petersburg is practically as far west in Russia as you can get and some might say crossing off the whole of a country when you only visit a tiny, tiny corner is cheating but hey, we're being realistic, there is no way we're likely to ever visit Siberia or indeed go east of the Urals.
Having made the booking it then dawned on me that we'd need visas and to get those you need a Letter of Invitation from wherever you're staying. Had I booked directly with the hotel they would have given us it free, but I'd booked with BA so it cost us £50. Armed with the invitation we then went on line to fill in the Visa Application (£115 each) which had an unbelievable number of questions, including
Having completed the Application Forms we then had to visit VFS Global near the Barbican (the same place that does the Indian visas) so that meant a whole day up to London and another £30. Luckily though they weren't remotely interested in the full list of visited countries although we did take the list with us.
So my bargain trip wasn't quite such a bargain after all, especially as I subsequently discovered that had we visited as part of a cruise (NO!) we could have had a 72 hour visa free.
Having made the booking it then dawned on me that we'd need visas and to get those you need a Letter of Invitation from wherever you're staying. Had I booked directly with the hotel they would have given us it free, but I'd booked with BA so it cost us £50. Armed with the invitation we then went on line to fill in the Visa Application (£115 each) which had an unbelievable number of questions, including
- where did your parents die
- have you ever been a spy
- income
- list all the countries you've visited within the last 20 years (with dates) - yikes!
Having completed the Application Forms we then had to visit VFS Global near the Barbican (the same place that does the Indian visas) so that meant a whole day up to London and another £30. Luckily though they weren't remotely interested in the full list of visited countries although we did take the list with us.
So my bargain trip wasn't quite such a bargain after all, especially as I subsequently discovered that had we visited as part of a cruise (NO!) we could have had a 72 hour visa free.