For most people in our group, Russia was expected to be the highlight. I mean, it’s Russia! We had a full day in St. Petersburg after our fun time at Customs just off the ship. We began with a tour of Peterhof Palace, the Versailles of Russia. After a boat ride and a lunch of beef stroganoff, we went to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. We continued on to the Hermitage, one of the largest museums of art and culture, built in the mid-1700s. In the evening after returning to the ship for dinner, we took a canal cruise to witness the white nights.

St. Petersburg, Russia

5/28/15—6/8/15

Dusty gives us a history lesson

Peterhof Palace is a series of palaces and gardens laid out on the orders of Peter the Great in the early 1700’s. At first it didn’t seem like a very big place, as we could only see the small building over our heads to the left. It was beautiful, but not too impressive.

 

Inside, we weren’t allowed to photograph, so we bought postcards instead. These were three of our favorite rooms.

The Divan Room

The Ball Room

The Picture Room

Outside of the building, we started to understand why it was called Russia’s Versailles. The grounds were gorgeous, and the fountains on the Grand Cascade were impressive.

We took a hydrofoil from Peterhof across the Gulf to St. Petersburg. Our lunch of beef stroganoff and shots of vodka was excellent!

After lunch, we went to the Hermitage. One of the largest and oldest museums in the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great. The Winter Palace is the main part of the museum. Photos were allowed here, and there was plenty to photograph.

The Throne Room (l) and Ball Room (b)

Stained glass and the amazing Peacock Clock

Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss and The Three Graces by Antonio Canova. The original version of Psyche is in the Louvre, and we have a statue at home of that, as well as another version of the Graces.

Madonna Benois (a) and The Litta Madonna (r) by Leonardo da Vinci

The paintings from Rembrandt, including Flora (l), The Return of the Prodigal Son (b), and Portrait of an Old Man in Red (br)

A mummy

The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood was built in the late 1800’s. It has over 80,000 square feet of mosaics… pretty much everything that can be seen in these pictures to the right.

After dinner we took a boat through the canals of St. Petersburg. We encountered low bridges, had a lovely view of the Winter Palace, and after the lights finally came on in buildings at 10:30 at night, we still could see things very well, due to the white nights caused by the sun barely setting on the horizon.

Our Russian documents