St. Petersburg, Russia - Day 2

What a day! Such beautiful places today!

We got up this morning and after breakfast we headed straight out to the bus.... after going through Passport Control. Less problems this morning though.

We were going out of town about an hour to The Catherine Palace. The palace is HUGE!



    
This is The Church Wing.                Jim and I in front of the entrance.

  

  

   

   
If you put these all together you get the entire building.


A look back down the entire building.

  
While we were waiting a small band was playing some tunes. Very nice!


The front gate.

We had to put on booties before entering the Palace....aren't they cute?

We look like little elves!

  
The main staircase.


A beautiful one too.

   
The Great Hall and Throne Room.

                                       
With so many mirrors we had to do a selfie.              A picture down the side of the room.

       

   
There were blue ceramic tile heaters in each of the rooms.


Here's a corner one.
  
A nice table setting.


Each wall's lighting was so beautiful.


There are lilacs everywhere here in St. Petersburg. You know how much I love lilacs!

   


The blue in this room was stunning.

  
Another beautifully set table.


And one more.


This is the picture hall. On each side of the blue and white fireplace is identical picture placement.

  
Intricate hand painted wallpaper. So beautiful. We learned that the only piece of original furniture from this room was one of the chairs you see, with its original silk fabric. The restorers used the pattern and colors of the chair to create the wallpaper which was applied when the room was restored!

   
The Green Dining Room. In this room, the intricate, cameo-like patterns on the walls were made with plaster.


This is a painted picture of how they found the palace after the Nazi Invasion, in ruins.


The restored palace shown in another painting.

We walked outside to see a small portion of the gardens.

  
Beautiful flowers and more lilacs.


This would have been the indoor garden during the cold winter months.

  
The upper bath pavilion and the gardens surrounding it. I love the reflection in the water.

     
A nice picture of the church wing from the back side and through the trees.

Keep in mind here that we were in Versailles, France, on May 4th. After viewing both Versailles and Catherine's Palace, we'd choose the latter - by far!  It's absolutely breathtaking and stunningly beautiful!


We only went through a small section of a much larger park area.


Jim wondered if the hat looked good on him?!?

After this spectacular palace we got back on the bus and headed to lunch.
  
Once again we had a great lunch. It seems that all these tours stop at a couple of places that have the space to hold several buses full of people. Both days we've had a great lunch.

Back on the bus after lunch and just a short trip to our next destination, Peterhof.

Peterhof is named after Peter the 1st, and is a grandiose 18th - 19th century architectural and park ensemble with an area of over a hundred thousand acres of land.

We did not go into the palace but toured the fabulous gardens.


The church pavilion at Peterhof is, as always, beautiful.

  
Our visit to Peterhof focused only on one section of the gardens between the castle and the Gulf of Finland. This garden is comprised of trails and beautiful fountains. This is the Great Cascade.

 


The Great Cascade is a grand monument to the Russian victories in the Northern War.

It is a great park to walk in, with so many trees and a beautiful breeze. We had 70 degree temperatures today and it was fabulous.

  


It has been hard to find signs in English to read about different locations, but I found this one.



Directional signs are in English and Russian.

  

    
The Hermitage Pavilion was so cute sitting with this moat around it. The pavilion was right on the water with some beach area.

  
This is a look back toward the Palace and the Grand Cascade.




This is called the Sun Fountain and it rotates from the power of the water.

  
The Pyramid Fountain


The Roman Fountains


   
The Chessboard Hill Cascade.

This place is unbelievable and we only saw about half of the lower gardens and there's an entire upper garden that we didn't see. Jim and I both agree that these gardens are far better than Versailles. These fountains are running all day, every day, during the summer. Also, keep in mind that there are no pumps which force the water through the fountains. Rather, the rain and melting snow are collected in a large reservoir uphill from the castle gardens, and the water piping system is completely gravity-fed!!


We were pooped after two 10-hour days of walking and seeing these palaces and gardens. This is some of our group.


We then exited the gardens and got on the bus. Have to get back to the ship because we leave tonight at 6:00 pm.



Now for some additional stuff. This is the wall in our cabin on the ship. Each magnet represents a place we've visited and it keeps growing. Jim read on a cruise blog that the cabin walls are made of steel and you should bring magnets to hold up papers and other things. So this has been our bulletin board.

About an hour and a half after we left the St. Petersburg port we passed the Island of Kotlin, which was founded by Peter the Great, who took the island from the Swedes in 1703.  It was fascinating passing through this area.

  
There were several lighthouses in the water and on the land.

  


On the island is St. Nicholas Navy Cathedral

  

  

  

   
I was so thrilled to see so many lighthouses. You know how I love lighthouses.

  

   



There is also a Flood Prevention Facility Complex which is constructed across the Gulf of Finland.

  
You see the big while arms that would swing out and block the water.


A view from the back of the ship.  Good bye..... that was fun!

Well enough for tonight. Tomorrow is Helsinki, Finland. We don't have a tour scheduled so we bought shuttle tickets to go into town and wander around by ourselves. I think after two days, 20 hours, with 40 people we're ready for some time without a tour guide.

St. Petersburg was great and we would recommend it to anyone. The palaces are wonderful and we didn't even see all of them, and the gardens are just as spectacular and we didn't see all of them either.
It was more than we even realized.

Until tomorrow.