An absolutely spectacular day which got going after being in lineups to leave the ship and clearing Russian immigration that took 1.5 hours (not an exaggeration).
Our tour company (Guide Guru) and 4 guests off the Royal Princess had waited for almost 2 hours for us. Thank goodness they waited because today was another unbelievable day that started with a drive around the city then a short 2 hour visit to the Hermitage. This museum is everything and more that people say it is. It is worth a trip back to SPB just to have a couple of days in it.
Our guide is Ada and she is very good. Other people on Trip Advisor have said the same thing. She is full of history and stories and talks about the Soviet system (good and bad). She also knows how to get us past lineups into sites. Super good guide.
After the museum we went to the Church of the Spilled Blood (if anyone is interested ask me the stories about it when we are home) then on to a Russian restaurant for traditional pastry meals.Very tasty.
After a 45 minute drive out of the city we were at Peterhof Park. Here there are wonderful fountains but truthfully I would have skipped that for time in the Hermitage..The trip back to SPB was on a hydrofoil boat which took us across the Baltic back to the city,and then went up the river to near the Hermitage before docking. Now that was neat.
Because we had been so late getting started in the morning Ada took us a site she had wanted to take us to in the morning. We went to the Fortress and inside the church there is the burial of many of the Russian czars including the re internment of the last czar and family all killed in 1918.
We got back to the ship about 1930 hours and have just finished supper in the Versailles restaurant.
This day has so MUCH more to it than I have written. There is so much amazing history here. WOW!!!!!!
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