Just downstream from Samara, the Volga makes a dramatic loop around the Zhiguli Mountains — one of the oldest mountain systems in European Russia, worn down to rounded forested hills by hundreds of millions of years of erosion. The Samara Bend, as the loop is known, is a national park and one of the most scenic stretches of the Volga. The contrast between the broad flat river and the forested hills rising 350 metres from the water is striking.
Boat trips from Samara's embankment run regularly in summer, ranging from a couple of hours to full-day cruises that take in the national park. The village of Shiryaevo on the far bank of the bend was a favourite of the painter Ilya Repin, who came here in 1870 to sketch the Volga boatmen who became one of his most famous canvases. You can see why: the setting is unchanged.