This week’s travel dream: Russia’s Golden Ring

Russia’s Golden Ring, a network of picturesque medieval towns north of Moscow, is once again beginning to sparkle, said Celestine Bohlen in The New York Times. A gradual post-Soviet revival that’s spreading through these towns—“each with its own set of glittering onion-domed churches and medieval fortresses”—means that tourists rounding the circuit can now count on decent hotels, solid restaurants, and religious sites in at least reasonable repair. When a friend and I took on the adventure in a rental car, potholes and poor signage were our greatest challenges.

We concentrated on a handful of the smaller Golden Ring towns, “all of which have kept something of their pre-Soviet character.” The region is known for a “bewildering number of churches, convents, and monasteries,” remnants of a centuries-long missionary movement that was a crucial force in the unification of Russia. In Pereslavl-Zalessky, our first stop, the main road passes half a dozen monasteries, and a tree-lined river is rimmed with restored 19th-century town houses that appear plucked from a classic Russian novel. After visiting a couple of convents and churches, we hit the road for Rostov, a quiet town that “has it all when it comes to the sights and sounds of ancient Russia.” The Cathedral of the Dormition, one of the country’s oldest churches, features a bell tower whose 15 bells weigh from 50 to 70,000 pounds and are “famed for their deep sonorous peals.”

After pleasant stays in Yaroslavl and Plyos, we circled back to the town of Suzdal. Located three hours west of Moscow, Suzdal was a monastic center during Ivan the Terrible’s reign and has maintained “its old-world look and feel,” heightened by the presence of “bright pink buggies, shaped like pumpkins and pulled by ponies.” We spent the last night of our trip in a sauna. There we “indulged in the full Russian banya experience—the sweating in the dry heat, the beating of arms and back with birch branches, the dunking in a tub full of ice-cold water.” We finished with a swim in the river, followed by a repast of pickled vegetables, black bread, and vodka.

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At Goyrachiy Klyuchi, the hot springs complex in Suzdal (suzdalkluchi.ru), doubles start at $63.