the romantic route home

It's a week since we heard officially that K is a temporary spouse.
In this time we have started to plan a bit more for the big trip home (and done nothing much to plan packing up our lives here, ofcourse, although I might start that today with a clear out).

We know we want to do the Trans-Mongolian Rail from St-Petersburg to Beijing (probably 21 days) and have been to see a couple of travel agents about it. But how we get to Russia is another matter. We have a romantic notion of doing as much overland as we can, and this leaves us with a couple of options:

1. Eurostar train London-Brussels-Cologne-Warsaw-Villinius-St.Petersburg.
2. Fly (boo) or Ferry to Bergen, Norway, Hurdigruten ferry up the coast of Norway and around to Kirkenes. Bus to Murmansk in Russia, Train Murmansk-St Petersburg. Originally we thought there was a ferry from Newcastle in the UK to Bergen but apparently this doesn't run anymore so we are researching other Scandiavian options. Stay tuned...