St. Petersburg, Russia - Day 1

We're in Russia! What an interesting day!



    
Some apartment buildings and the new stadium they're building to host the world cup semi-finals in 2018.

We had to be up early this morning and checked in for our tour at 7:00 am. Russian Passport Control is thorough. They actually look at your passport and give you a stamp in it. How cool is that...we have a stamp from Russia in our passports. However they really scrutinized mine.... she kept looking at my passport and then at me, she did this a couple of times.
Then I got in trouble for taking this picture. Well not in too much trouble because I still have it.

After they decided I was okay to pass through we got on our bus and off we went.



We drove by different buildings and all I could think of was how depressing this part of town looked. Just tall, bland, dirty buildings with no people around. I couldn't even imagine how depressing it looks in winter when it's dark out most of the day. Anyway it got better.

  
St. Isaac's Cathedral from across the river. We visited the cathedral later in the day.


The buildings just go on and on and pretty much look the same.

  
St. Peter and Paul Cathedral on Hare Island.  Jim in front of the bridge.


Rostral Column at the same location as above.


You can see the column across the river.

  
The State Hermitage Museum was our stop for the morning. It's a huge place and we walked and walked and walked.

  
It's very beautiful with lots of gold.

    
The flooring was almost as magnificent as the walls and ceilings.


  
Huge rooms everywhere.



  
All the gold in here was amazing.


A beautiful lamp. I would have loved to see it lit.


Another long room.

  
The throne room.

  
This picture shows that the design on the floor was the same and directly above on the ceiling.


One again the floor patterns were beautiful.

  
Lots and lots of artwork. This particular piece had been split into two pieces hundreds of years ago and had been restored to its original shape. The picture on the right show what it looked like before restoration.

   
This was a beautiful hall. It reminded me of the Vatican.



After a long couple of hours, our backs, legs and feet were killing everyone from walking so slow and standing so much. We were glad for a break and some lunch.

 
It was a lovely Russian lunch in a huge building about 10 minutes away from the museum. First we had this salad of peas, egg, potato and chicken, then a cream of mushroom soup, beef stroganoff with polenta and some apple cake. It was great.

Then back on the bus and off to St. Isaac's Cathedral.

   


The man on the horse is a monument to Nicholas I. The monument is in the square and the picture on the right is of the cathedral which is across the street. It's difficult to get a good picture of buildings here because of the street car cables strung everywhere.


It took forever to get this selfie. We kept getting Jim's head right in front of the church.

We got someone to take our picture.








   
This shows how they lifted and placed the 114 ft., 95-ton columns when they built the cathedral.

  
It was beautiful inside. Looking down one side of the cathedral and the right picture a view of the ceiling.

  
This is looking up inside the dome. At the very center there is a white dot and that's the dove I zoomed in to capture in the picture on the right.

     
More shots inside and I really loved the stained glass of Jesus.


Another view from inside.

  
Jim is outside the cathedral and a picture of the a set of doors.

  
A couple of pictures as we left the cathedral.


A view down the river from the bus.

Now for some familiar things in St. Petersburg... what do you think?

   
Starbucks Coffee.

   
Burger King

   
Subway.... looks so different in Russian.


Our last stop was at the Church on the Spilled Blood (Church of the Resurrection)

It's both a historical monument and a work of art. The men who built it were given the difficult task of incorporating the spot on which the tragic assassination of Emperor Alexander II was committed into the interior of the church.

 

  

We weren't able to go inside this cathedral.

We drove back to the ship and had to go through passport control again. Once again they looked at me and looked at my picture several times. I know I look a little different but seriously. She asked me if I had my Seapass card with me. Of course I did and I showed it to her. I guess they didn't want me trying to defect.  Hahaha

We were so tired..... but we dropped our things off in our room and went to get some dinner. Then I started the blog while we waited for the evening show to start. It was a group of singers and dancers from St. Petersburg called the Stars of St. Petersburg. They were wonderful. Of course we couldn't understand what they were singing but there was some humor in what they did and the band was great too.

We were glad we stayed up for that but now back in our room we're really exhausted. Another day of getting up early tomorrow and this time were traveling out of the city to Peterhof which is a Palace outside of the city.

One other note, We have a Norovirus traveling around the ship. I don't know how many but it's gotten to the point that in the buffet they've gone from letting people serve themselves to the staff serving everyone.

At first there was only some subtle changes like more staff around giving everyone a squirt of hand sanitizer. Then they went to a stronger sanitizer when cleaning the tables and other surfaces. We were in the jewelry store and the glass cases were all cloudy and we were told that was the sanitizer. Now, like I said they've gone to not letting the passengers touch the serving tools.

I've mentioned before that we have become friendly with many of the officers and staff so Jim and I went up and talked to a few of them tonight and told them we supported them in all their efforts, which they appreciated. I know they get push back from some passengers.

Hand washing has always been something that Jim and I have always been aware of because of cooking Wednesday dinners at Parkwood in Virginia. We are thankful for all the work the staff on the ship are doing to keep us all safe. Please keep us all in your prayers. Jim and I are fine and we will remain diligent in our hand washing.

Off to bed now.... Goodnight!