Winter Offers
On this tour, you will get to know the winter in all it’s facets. The mighty Lake Baikal, captured in ice and snow, the silence and yet rearing, when the lake moves and splits the ice. A landscape, that could not be more different to its looks in summer. Fascinating and unbelievable beauty.
1. Day
In the morning, you’ll arrive at the airport in Irkutsk. At the airport, an employee of our partner agency will await you. Afterwards, you will receive a three-hour long tour through the city in English. Lunch is not part of the sightseeing. After the tour through the city, you will be driven to Listvjanka. The former fisherman village and todays tourist hotspot lies in the heart of the outflow of Lake Baikal, the River Angara. You will be accommodated at a guest family in a house with two separate double bedrooms. Dinner is inclusive.
2. Day
After breakfast, the first adventure begins! With dog sleighs you will take a wild ride over the frozen Lake Baikal from Listvjanka to Tankhoy. I will await you in Tankhoy and bring you to your hotel. Depending on the time, we can visit the absolutely worth viewing museum of Baikal.
3. Day
With our car, we’ll drive along Lake Baikal and make a little in between stop at Ilynka to visit the thermal baths. A bath at 38°C warm water is particularly convenient in this cold surrounding temperature. We’ll continue our drive along the frozen Selenga heading north, back to Lake Baikal until we’re in Ust-Barguzin. There we will be staying as guests at Aleksandr and Galina’s homestay for the next days.
4. Day
Today we will go to the village of Katun on the peninsula “Holy Nose” and from there, we’ll walk on ice to the “Snake Bay”. A hot spring is awaiting us there with the possibility to bath in it. Pack your swimwear! After Katun we will return by foot and car to Ust-Barguzin into our warm lounge.
5. Day
On today’s program is a two- to three-hour tour on snowmobiles. We will stay the night in a heated Jurta on ice. Together with a Banja (Russian sauna) and cooling in Baikal water in a ice hole, particularly for this occasion.
6. Day
On this day, we will drive with one of the Bukhanka (Russian minibus) to the Ushkani Islands on ice. The islands are home to the largest Baikal-Seal population. We will stay the night in Ust-Barguzin at Aleksandr and Galina’s.
7. Day
Drive back to Ulan-Ude and visit of the most important and largest Buddhist monastery in Russia, Ivolginsk. In the last years, the complex has grown immensely. Not least because it houses a mystery of the special kind: the corpse of the Lama Etigelow, deceased in 1917, which doesn’t show any signs of decay. The Lama seems to have reached an ultimate form of meditation. See also in Geo 360° > http://www.geo.de/GEO/geo-tv/das- mysterium-der-sibirischen-mumie-2663.html (in German) or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashi-Dorzho_Itigilov (in English). You will have a tour through the complex of the monastery and ask the Lama Dashi-Dorsho Etigelow for health and wellbeing.
After visiting the monastery we’ll comfortably drive in the direction of Ulan-Ude to your hotel.
8. Day
Ride with the Trans-Siberian railroad form Ulan-Ude to Irkutsk. There you will be expected at the train station and driven to your accommodation in the historic centre. For food in the train and in Irkutsk you will have to organize it yourself.
9. Day
Early in the morning, you will be transferred from your accommodation to the airport in Irkutsk, where your flight back is awaiting you…
If not mentioned otherwise, breakfast, lunch and dinner are inclusive!
Video on YouTube
