We woke to different views from cabin as we entered St Petersburg with lots of expensive looking houses close to river. Ship docked at a river port some distance from the town centre (not next to Hermitage as we had naively hoped). The weather had now become damp and grey and cold.
We had a briefing on what to do and expect in next few days. At 10.30 we piled into buses and headed through heavy traffic to the Hermitage (Winter Palace). St Petersburg is Russia’s 2nd largest city with population of ~4.5 M. Its about as big as Sydney.
We eventually found ourselves in the Hermitage with thousands of others and were obliged to queue again to check in wet coats and umbrellas. We wore overshoes to protect the parquet flooring which was particularly special but as we were to find out quite similar to other palaces. The place is big with very ornate rooms and heaps of gold paint and gold leaf used. Chandeliers galore and we could only wonder how they were kept clean with the amount of candles burning. There were no kitchens in the palace as all food was cooked outside to keep the smells down. We didn’t see much in the way of bedrooms or royal privies. The tzars must have been very special people.
The Hermitage has a magnificent collection of artwork including paintings by the masters. There was one sculpture by Michelangelo and quite a few Titian paintings. Unfortunately the lighting was not great and flash was not allowed, that, together with such a huge crowd of people made photography very difficult.
Highlight of the day was discovering that there were many many people on the ship who ate more than me and some of them did not even show it. Decided to eat a bit more to celebrate.
The nights here are amazingly light considering we are only 59 deg north (Aberdeen Scotland is 57 deg, I think). At midnight it is almost light enough to read.
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