The Hermitage

Sept 22,2011

YAY!! The Hermitage! The reason for deciding to make this trip. 3,000,000 art items in one place...a daunting task but we managed to see A LOT and certainly saw the things we most wanted to see. We had a guided tour for about 2 1/2 hours then were on our own for another couple hours. Enough to hit that museum tolerance wall but we felt really accomplished at the end. The building itself is a museum since it is the historic Winter Palace of Catherine the great who began the collection of art that became the Hermitage.

Had just enough time for a quick lunch before taking a boat tour of St. Petersburg on the city's rivers and canals. And what did we eat??? Indian food, of course. A couple of hours to see the architecture of St. Petersburg from a different vantage point that was cold but a nice perspective.

Pushkin feeds us

Sept 21, 2011

Drove out of town to the town of Pushkin (named for....) to see Catherine's palace and gardens. The 16 mi drive out was very picturesque with the fall colors beginning to be apparent. This lady knew how to live. Looked a bit like Versailles including the great formal garden. One of the rooms is completely walled in amber and with amber encrusted furniture everywhere. No photos are allowed in the amber room. The palace is the world's longest. We have only one photo because of a camera tragedy that occurred late in the day in which the camera disappeared, presumably pickpocketed. The camera happened to be the one of the primary photographer so we are left with one not very good photo of the Catherine palace.

We returned to town in time to walk to the "Literaturnoye Cafe", a place that Pushkin liked and literary types used as a hangout over the past 200 years. We had an excellent meal in very interesting, historic surroundings (photographic documentation GONE.) Afterwards we walked A LOT to see more of the city.

St. Petersburg

Sept20, 2011. Day 1 St. Petersburg

Spent the morning seeing the highlights of historic St. Petersburg in the rain which managed to not dampen the spirits of a new adventure in a really beautiful city. The architecture is really striking. The photo here is not the typical style but certainly the most architecturally dramatic. This is the Church of the Savior of the Spilled Blood, named this because it was the site of the assassination of Czar Alexander 2. The photo can't possibly do justice to the amazing details of this structure. The city was built on swampland and has MANY, MANY canals. It kind of put us in mind of Amsterdam. Also saw St. Isaac's Cathedral, the 4th largest cathedral in the world and the Peter and Paul fortress which houses a cathedral where many former czars and their families are buried. The afternoon was free time and we spent it walking on Nevsky Prospekt, one of the main streets of the city. Showed total lack of imagination and had pizza for luch. A bit jet lagged and will have an early bedtime.