Yes, we are alive!! We have been very busy and decided to combine both days we were in St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg is situated on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Finland, in the delta of River Neva, some 400 miles northwest of Moscow. It is considered the most European of all the cities of Russia, and a living monument to the opulent days of Imperialism. The city has a population of over 5 million and boasts the largest sea port in the country. A network of 60 rivers and canals criss-cross the city and are spanned by about 400 bridges, which is why they call themselves the "Venice of the North". I think this is the third stop that has called themselves that! The principal waterway is the River Neva which is cotained within impressive granite banks.
St. Petersburg was founded in 1703 by Tsar Peter the Great, whose ambition was to create a great metropolis and port city. He made St. Petersburg the capital of Russia in 1712 for a short time. Catherine the Great continued to build the city into a major European capital, She brought in art work from all over Europe and founded the famous Hermitage Museum. They certainly believed in palaces -- they have summer palaces and winter palaces -- a palace for every season it seems because they are every where!
An interesting tid bit about St. Petersburg is that it has had 3 different names in a relatively short period of time. In 1914 Russia entered WWI on the side of the Allies and St. Petersburg changed its name to Petrograd so that it would sound less German. In 1917 conditions grew worse, food shortages caused great unrest and Lenin's Communist Party seized power and the Soviet State was established. In 1918 the government was moved to Moscow and in 1924, when Lenin died, Petrogad was renamed Leningrad in his honor. During WWII, Leningrad withstood a 900 day siege by the Germans and it was estimated that one million citizens died from starvation and freezing weather. In 1991 the Soviet Union disintegrated, Boris Yeltsin became president in the first democratic election and the people of Leningrad voted to change the name of Leningrad back to St. Petersburg.
We docked in St. Petersburg at 8:30 Sunday morning. We were off the ship, through immigration and out to our waiting motor coach very quickly.
Our tour was to visit the Peterhof Palace and Fountains. The palace is located 22 miles west of St. Petersburg and on the Gulf of Finland. It was a beautiful palace, built in 1723 as the summer home for Peter the Great. The palace sits on top of a hill overlooking the Gulf. It is intended to rival the Versailles. Having seen the Versailles, we don't agree but it was impressive -- a lot of guilded carvings, art, decorative objects and furniture. The palace has been rebuilt from historical documents due to the destruction during WWII when the Nazis occupied the palace and vertually destroyed it. One of the few items that survived was Peter's oak study and table. We basically saw three major rooms - the throne, portrait and White dining rooms.
Following the tour of the Grand Palace, we went down to the Lower Gardens, a 300-acre fountain park with a number of pavilions and guest palaces overlooking the Gulf of Finland. Peter himself drafted the layout of the park, including the spectacular system of fountains that cascade throughout the grounds. The elaborate system includes 4 cascades as well as 173 fountains. Dee, being a fountain connoissuer, noted that none of them are run by pumps but by pure gravity! I guess pumps would have had to have had electricty which came along in 18??
We spent several hours walking through the palace and grounds. It was another beautiful sunny day. Our guide mentioned that it was supposed to be raining but somehow we managed to have sunny day and 68 degrees. It takes about an hour of traveling to and from the palace with the traffic. We had time for "power" nap before we left for the evening.
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| Aviary Houses |
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| Peter House of Pleasure |
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| Guest Palace |
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| Russian Singers |
Our next tour was an evening cruise on the River Neva and entertainment from a Russian Folk Group. We once again traveled by motor coach and had a really good guide, Alexi, who pointed out a lot of the attractons and history of St. Petersburg. We really enjoyed the cruise and the idea was for us to get a feel of traditional Russian Folk music. We were enteretained by a group of folk singers and musicians that performed typical Russian dances and songs. We didn't understand a word they sang but it was a lot of fun. We were served champagne and "interesting" canapes -- red cavier -- wiered stuff!! They made for a pretty picture! We sat with an older couple from England that were very entertaining.
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| Cruise Food |
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| More Palace now the Hermitage Museum |
We were on the excursion for 2 1/2 hours and return about 9:30 p.m. to the ship.
The sun was still high in the sky. Alexi told us that this time of year is what is called the White Nights -- there are only about 3 hours of darkness between midnight and 3 a. m. No wonder I can't tell the difference between night and day. We went to bed after midnight last night and it was still just like daylight. I took a picture of the sun setting a little after midnight. Good thing drapes were invented.
This morning we slept in, missed breakfast and felt much better. We left the ship again at 12:30 for a another walking tour along Nevsky Prospect with time on our own for shopping. It was a short drive to Nevsky Prospect, one of the most well known streets in St. Petersburg and is the main shopping area. The street is lined with cathedrals and churches. We took a picture of the Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood. We spent about and hour and one half on our own walking the streets, buying some matryoshka dolls and other souveniers. We walked underground to cross the street and took a strange picture of the steps. It took me a minute to figure out what the two slides were for, I think. Tenley, any ideas?
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| Steps to underground walkway |
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| High end book store |
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| Oldest Shopping Center |
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| Evonne spent a lot of money here |
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| "Nesting" Doll |
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| matryoshka dolls |
We made it back to the ship at 4:30 p.m. St. Petersburg was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. The guides we had on all three excursions were very good -- interesting and entertaining. The tours we picked out worked out great for us and we felt like we saw everything we wanted to see. We probably should have gone to the Hermitage Museum but we heard the crowds were unbelievable yesterday because it is not open on Mondays and I am not sure Dee could have survived another museum -- or maybe I should say I couldn't. Anyway, we probably deprived ourselves of some amazing culture, but we shall try take what little we gained from other areas back home with us!
By the way, Tenley thanks for checking out the garden at home and picking the tomatoes and onions. Hope they were good. I hear it is getting hot at home -- we will not know what to do with temperatures over 70 degrees.
We had another animal appear in our room tonight. I think it's a monkey hanging from our ceiling! We gain an hour tonight so that is a plus.
As we left the Gulf of Finland and headed out to the Baltic Sea, we took a couple of pictures. One is part of a fortress still left that was used to protect St. Petersburg and the other was a lock that could be closed to keep St. Petersburg from flooding.
We missed taking one picture that I would have loved to have taken -- we saw it every where when we were on the bus but had no opportunity to take the picture. You will have to visualize it in your mind -- we were diving along beautiful countryside and looked out the window and saw sunbathers just lying on the ground anywhere surrounded by dandelions and grass. And I don't mean nice cut grass, I mean grass that hasn't been mowed at all this year. I think they think the dandelion is a flower. They were blooming everywhere -- not a pretty site from my view. At first when we saw people on the ground, we thought something was wrong -- looked like a murder scene but we would see one after another -- some fully clothed and others in their bathing suit. I guess they missed out on a lot of sun through the winter and are taking advantage of it now that June has arrived. Just had to make that comment!!
Tomorrow we are in Tallinn, Estonia. We will be home before we know it.
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