Our bus load of passengers was watching out for us as we hopped on this morning seeing if we survived our night of vodka... Although it was a late finish we were bright eyed and bushy tailed, for now anyway!!
First thing on the agenda this morning was a boat ride along the rivers and canals of St Petersburg. Here were got to see the beautiful buildings from a different perspective.
With a bit of time to spare before our appointment at The Hermitage we visited a famous Russian Warship whose name escapes me right now.
The Hermitage is the largest art museum in the world; it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been open to the public since 1852. It is made up of 6 buildings joined together by walkways filled with art from such artists as Monet, Van Gough, Picasso, Rembrandt and Cézanne.
Some rooms have been restored to show how they used to be, and others filled with lots of art and sculptures. They say if you were to walk and spend at least one minute at each exhibit it would take you over eight years to cover the whole museum. We spent nearly 3 hours and really only touched the surface. But it was hard to concentrate on the art when the building alone was spectacular to look at.
We then went to a little restaurant for another traditional Russian meal. The restaurant was in the same block as St Isaac’s Church, and as you would have read from yesterday, a major concert was on today and the streets were all blocked. Just to reach lunch we had to go through security. We lunched on a Village Salad, Beef Stroganoff (A meal developed specially for a very rich man called Stroganoff. He was getting old and toothless so his chef created a meal with thinly sliced meat so he wouldn’t have to chew). Dessert was yummy crepes with strawberry compote.
As we walked out the concert was just finishing, and as its finale, they let loose hundreds of helium balloons in the shape of white doves.
On our day we also visited St Peter and Paul fortress. Within this fortress there is a cathedral where you will find all the Tsar’s and their families buried.
One last visit was to Yusupov Palace. We were not allowed to take photos here, but its claim to fame was that the infamous Rasputin was murdered here. Rasputin’s relationship with the Tsar was deemed unhealthy by many during that time. A plot was put together to murder him and after what seemed like a comedy of errors he was finally shot dead in the gardens..... or was he... everyone has a different story. This palace was a good example of a home of the rich and famous of the time. It is also a good example of how money was saved during this time with sculptures and reliefs made from paper mache to give the look of richness at minimum cost.
Now that the two days of tours were coming to an end, all that was left was to pay for them.... we were taken to a souvenir shop where TJ had a table set up to collect payment... This is really where they were let down. All of the TJ buses turned up at the same time and as only one person was trusted enough to collect the money - it was probably the longest queue we had to contend with during our whole stay in St Petersburg.
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