In Vladimir there's a marvellous church on a promontory in the center of the city. Nearby there's also a baptistery that they're restoring. In front of it there's a big park from which you can see all the plain, as they have told me. We go for a nice walk in the garden in front of it. There are wooden statues which seem Snow White and the seven dwarfs ....

Then we leave for Suzdal. On the way the ones on the BMC call us: they're arriving. So we wait for them parked at the entrance of the town, which is a dream. The sky has a particular colour, as it has just finished to rain. It seems to be mixed with the green of the lawns. There's also the raimbow. We begin looking for a hotel and the first we find tells us they can't host us: we are not registered at the police ...!?! So we stop in the big hotel, with 200 rooms, an enormous hall, the concert hall, the sauna.. really amazing. We wash, we change our clothes and then we go for a walk in the town..

Everything's a surprise, beginning from the dog, a big wolf, maybe a little bit aged. Later we'll know his name's Misha, and he begins following us from the hotel, among gooses which flutter on the lawn. We cross the hill, then we pass two wooden bridges which are on a little river where some children fish. Then we climb another hill (at every corner a castle, a church, a block house, and all around emerald lawns, blue black little rivers, pink sweet or light blue dome and white colonnades...) and Michal notices that the block house closes at 6 pm. It's 5.55 pm, the cash desk is already closed: we enter in a hurry, Michal, Alena, Francesco and I.. The others behind don't notice it. Inside it's wonderland. Forbidden to smoke.. There are well disposed flowers of all colours, well trimmed plants, lawns which seem of velvet and a continuous chirruping of little birds. We go on, totally enchanted. We do the whole tour, then we go out. We meet the others in front of a shop, they're courting two girls.

We go on with our walking, astonished, -it's too beatiful, it's really worth, nobody's blaming (and it happened for anything in the previous days). We enter another kiosk, this time is quite abandoned, the grass is high, uncultivated.. there are some huts.. Forward a group of workers (but they're all women!) is painting the front of the church.. The atmosphere is magic. We cross a square with a very long colonnade. On the right there are typical Russian houses. They are all coloured, well kept. In the meantime the dog scaries us: as soon as he looks a car in the distance, -luckily there are few of 'em,- he points it, goes towards it, and when he crosses it all of a sudden he turns and he tries to bite its wheels! Most times he takes just big hits on his nose. We get scared, we run behind him, but the passers-by probably know him and quiet us -he's always been like this, there's nothing to do with t, Mischa, -so we know his name. He's angry with cars, he'd like to send them away ... and he'd be right, in my opinion.. In a town like this one cars should never come.

We go on and we don't even know where to look at. Churches, buildings, cloisters, towers and wooden houses follow one another incessantly ... From a little church some people come out, they are orthodox priests dressed in their typical clothes, nuns, and little crooked old women ... We get closer and enter: the walls are entirely covered by pictures, icons, votive immages. There a strong smell of incense, infact there's some smoke in the little room on the side. We can hear a low but continuous whisper, when all of a suddent a mobile phone rings. What a poor figure! We go out as fast as we can.

There's a totem in the middle of the garden. In the meanwhile Mischa begins to bark as a fool, then he begins to follow us on the other side of the street, going on doing a mess: from this side a huge dog looks at him sleepy, not even disturbed by his barking (probably he knows him). There's a hill, Michal runs over it. Here and there on the lawns, lonesome painters try to take advantage of the last hour of light to immortalize that wonderful landscape. In the streets just few passers-by, but there are a lot of people who do jogging in the town.. In reality we can't consider it properly a town, but a big park. We are really tired, we've walked for km. In the evening we dine at the big restaurant of the hotel.. and we can't stop telling us that in a place like this it's worth living!!