St. Petersburg- Day 1

August 4

Because it was Russia, they were very strict about how and when we could get off the ship. Russian immigration would only allow 50 people off at a time.  We also had to be part of an organized tour, either through Princess or one of the local companies.  No exploring on our own for these two days.  We had to have our whole party together and then could get a ticket to get off the ship.  After an early breakfast at Horizon Court, we all gathered together to get our "ticket" to get off the ship. We didn't have to wait at all to get off the ship, but we did have to wait a little to get through Russian immigration. And they don't smile at all. We were supposed to meet our tour guide at 9:00 and since we had left plenty early, we had some time to look around the souvenir shops in the cruise terminal.  I found my souvenir spoon and also got some Russian rubles at the money exchange machine.  We were told that most everywhere took credit cards, but I had misjudged at so many of the other cities, that I wanted to have some local cash. Turns out it was a good thing I did that this time. We all had time to use the bathroom, too. Good thing because we started off with a long drive and no bathroom for quite awhile at our first stop.

Norma and our guide, Anna. 

Our driver, Igor, helps us out of our micro-van.

We finally found our tour guide, Anna, a cute little petite thing.  She was a Russian art/history major and worked as a guide 7 days a week for as much of the tourist season as she could.  She said she would be our "mom" for the two days and she was always counting to make sure we were all there.  (We didn't always make it easy for her, either.) She was very knowledgeable about everything in St. Petersburg.  The first few hours we were all struggling to understand her through her accent.  If you didn't actively listen, it just went over your head.  No day dreaming here if we wanted to learn anything.

Our first stop was Peter the Great's Summer Palace called Peterhof.  It was about a 45 minute drive away and we appreciated the air-conditioned "micro-van".  From the ship we drove through some pretty ugly apartment building areas.  Very utilitarian buildings, and so many of them all in one area.  Eventually we got onto the highway with a very interesting lighting system.  It seemed to be a toll road, we had to stop and get a ticket to get on, and there wasn't much traffic on it.

Our first view of Peterhof was this beautiful gold cupolad church.  Anna told us that most churches in St. Petersburg are not churches anymore.  Most of them have been turned into museums. We walked around the upper gardens for awhile. This part was free for everyone to enjoy, but if you stepped on the grass a guard would blow his whistle at you. (None of our group got whistled at, luckily).

Then Anna turned in her voucher for tickets to get us into the lower gardens.  We thought the upper gardens were beautiful, but the lower gardens put them to shame.  There were gold-leafed statues and fountains everywhere.  We walked for a long time past many different garden areas.  Peter the Great had a sense of humor and had some "trick" fountains in places that would turn on at unexpected times, drenching his guests. All the fountains worked by the power of gravity, no pumps needed anywhere.  It was quite a genius design. They don't have the fountains going all the time. When we first got there the "grand cascade" was not on, but we did see it later on with all the water flowing.  Gorgeous.

Gold leafed statue depicting victory over Sweden.

Grand Cascade with no water flowing.

Peter the Great

The "sun" fountain"

We went on a tour of a smaller building which was right on the Bay of Finland.  It was Peter's favorite spot so the building was called "My Pleasure House". We had to put on special booties to protect the parquet floors. We walked even further and got a good view of the Grand Cascade with water flowing.

Grand Cascade at Peterhof

We walked even more; we had probably walked about 3 miles by now. We walked down a long pier to get on a hydrofoil which would take us back across the Bay of Finland to St. Petersburg.  Interesting water craft. It lifts up out of the water once it gets going and goes lots faster than a boat through the water.

Hydrofoils (we got on the blue one). 

Igor, our driver, met us at the end of our ride and took us to a Russian "pie shop" for lunch. We got a kick out of the "no" signs outside - the usual no pets, no smoking, but then they had one that we interpreted as no drunks.  This place sold meat pies, fish pies, as well as fruit pies.  Unfortunately, they did not take credit cards.  Since I was the only one who had any rubles, we had to get back in the micro-van and find an ATM machine.  Igor (pronounced Eager), started earning our nickname for him, "U-turn" because he had to make a couple quick u-turns to get us to the bank and back to the restaurant.  We had beef pie and I had a cowberry pie. I think it was sort of a cranberry/blueberry type flavor, but I liked it.  Bob had a beer of course and I had a bottled water.  I kept the bottle for a souvenir because the label was mostly Russian.

"Pie Shop" restaurant we lunched at.

Fancy pies (all were rectangular shaped - not round)

After lunch (and bathroom), our next stop was the Hermitage Museum.  This was started in what is called the Winter Palace but has expanded into 4 other buildings.  One of the buildings is a theater and we didn't go into that one, but we went through a lot of the other 4 buildings.  We wore headphones connected to a microphone that Anna wore so that we could hear her explanations (and so we wouldn't get lost). There were a lot of people there, but Anna said it was actually not too busy compared to what it usually is.We saw lots and lots of fancy rooms, paintings by Michelangelo, Rembrandt, statues, porcelain, and more.

Winter Palace portion of the Hermitage Museum. 

Throne room in the Winter Palace.

Peacock clock that was a gift to Peter.  

My camera battery died in the throne room and the back-up battery wasn't working for some reason so I didn't get many pictures from that afternoon.  I took a few with Bob's Nexus tablet, but without a back facing camera, it's kind of hard to take pictures with it.  After a three hours, we were overloaded with art and had to ask Anna to cut it short.  We had walked so much that day that we were all exhausted.  Being the art lover that she was, I think she was a little disgusted with us for wanting to cut short our visit to the Hermitage, but we were so hot and tired we weren't enjoying it.

When we got back to the ship, we didn't feel like dressing for dinner (no shorts allowed in the dining rooms) so we just ate at the Horizon Court.  We sat outside by the pool, though.  Had ice cream for dessert.  Some of us went to the Russian folk dance show after supper.  Very beautiful costumes and many different costume changes.  There were authentic Russian musicians and instruments.  Several balalaikas, mandolins, and accordions.  We had trouble staying awake during the show, even with the one singer who kept screaming (probably the Russian equivalent of our woo-hoo!) Back to bed for me. Poker for Bob and the boys. Pedometer reading for the day: 12,000+ steps (over 6 miles).