We just spent two amazing days in St Petersburg.
I'll start by explaining we had booked a two day tour with a company based in St Petersburg, rather than Holland America, as it was significantly cheaper. We had a small group of twelve people, in a smaller bus/van rather than a large coach. Over the two days, this would allow us to jump queues of people at many museums, and allow us to load / offload the bus quicker allowing for more opportunities to stop and take photos. Our guide, Alana, was amazing. She was so friendly and knowledgeable, and yet could get bossy to push us through crowds. Also our driver, Constantine, didn't speak English but was so friendly and was a great driver, again able to push through traffic very efficiently and smoothly.
We started by having to queue for passport control, the only port on the entire trip where we had to do this. This took over 30 minutes and the person who stamped our passports didn't smile at all! Once we all boarded the bus, we headed into the city from the port.
Our immediate impression would only be reinforced over two days. Overall the city is shabby. Even "nice" buildings are dirty, paint peeling, in need of love, up close. There are stray dogs around, most look a bit like husky dogs.
All signs are in Russian language with no English. This includes well known trademarks:
McDonalds (see this walk-up window!)
Burger King
Subway
We were driven around the main part of the city and there are countless beautiful parks, monuments, museums to be seen. Most of these are well kept. The main river is very wide, and lined with huge buildings on either side. Most roads are huge, anywhere between 3 and 5 lanes in each direction. So this is a big city to get around, and doing it on foot would be difficult.
Also the city was having a birthday celebration this evening, so again the city was preparing for streets to be closed, a huge concert in the square, so the place had a heavy police and military presence. Here, the military drive around in really basic trucks that look like they were designed and built in the sixties.
We queued for opening time at The Hermitage. This place is massive. It is said that is you spent one minute looking at each article in the museum, it would take seven years to see it all. We followed a well-worn path through that took two hours. The place was packed with people already and this was the special "tour groups" only opening time. By the time we left, the general public were pouring in with even greater numbers. The place was incredible and very overwhelming, and was amazing to see.
Next we were whistled across the river to a combination toilet stop / souvenir shop where we got our first taste of a shop full of Russian Dolls (aka Nested Dolls). So many to choose from in, with a range of quality and price points from mass-produced to hand-painted.
Then we were driven to a restaurant for an included lunch. This was a very nice restaurant, we got a set menu of traditional Russian foods. The most interesting was the beetroot and cabbage soup with sour cream.
After lunch, we went to the river, where we were loaded onto a hydrofoil boat. This is the first time I've ever been on one. We went up the river, and out to sea (which is actually a big shallow bud flat with deeper channels dug for ships on set routes) and across to Petergof. Here we walked briskly through the gardens, seeing many highlights, and especially saw some of the many waterfalls. Again a hugely impressive place to see.
The hydrofoil had taken us to Petergof very quickly, and all the time it took us to get there, and walk around, our driver was driving out there to meet us for the return trip. This took an hour via motorways and main routes. Out here we saw some more modern housing developments, including individual houses like we have in New Zealand, which seemed to be quite a big deal there.
Our next stop in the city was the Faberge Museum. This is a private collection housed in a new museum that only opened four years ago. It contains many rooms of jewelry, silverware, and of course many of the original Faberge Eggs. Security into the building was very tight. Entries were plain wooden doors, no signage, we had to go through two sets of locked doors, and there were guards everywhere. I took a photo of this arrangement and got told off. We spent over an hour being shown the exhibits, having everything explained. It was incredible and I dread to think how many billions of dollars this was all worth. All the while, our feet were killing us, having been walking around all day!
Finally to end day one, we were returned to the ship. Many people had planned experience ashore (trips to Moscow, vodka tasting, etc) so the ship was quiet, which was great because it meant it was easy to get time in the spa pool to rest up ready for tomorrow.
Day two, passport control was easier, having already been checked the day before. Our trusty guide took us to a Metro station into the subway. We actually bought train tokens to get inside, even though we weren't going on a train. The Metro stations in St Petersburg were built in the 1950's and are adorned with beautiful mosaics, paintings etc. Also they are deep, 300m underground. The escalator took four minutes to get to the bottom, and from the top we could not see the bottom! Most impressive. Once at the platform, it was equally amazing, and kept very clean. No chewing gum, no litter, no dirt. We were told they clean it three times a day. The trains themselves looked very basic, but it seems they do the job well! We went back out the same way, up the long escalator, and back into the bus.
Next we drove out to the city of Peterkin to Catherine's Palace. This was another huge building surrounded to enormous gardens, and hoards of tourists lining to get in. At least here we had some entertainment by a brass band busking near the entrance. The palace was destroyed by fire, and then completely restored recently. The restoration is still in progress but the main palace is complete and open. Most impressive were the main hall, full of mirrors and gold, and the other is the amber room, where the walls are completely adorned with amber and mirrors (and no photos allowed in here). It took about 1.5 hours to walk through the palance and then back to our bus.
We drove back towards St Petersburg, this area is more modern looking, with large malls, movie theatres, petrol stations, and lots of modern housing blocks. Although all new, somehow everything just looks more plain than in western countries.
We stopped for lunch at nice place that serves pies. Today we had to pay our own way for lunch. The pies were in fact big slabs for each type of filling, and they slice a piece off for you, served at room temperature. We each had a savoury and a sweet variety, and a soft drink each The whole lot came to only NZD$9.50 on the credit card. Amazingly inexpensive for us. Only 15 minutes earlier, we had driving past a Coca-Cola factory, so I purchased a bottle of Coke to try. It did taste a little different but doesn't it everywhere?
Next, we were driven to the Church of the Spilled Blood. Now we've seen many a church in our travels, and this was the most beautiful and amazing we've ever seen. It has been lovingly restored, both inside and out. Inside, the ceiling is impossibly high, and everything is covered in mosaics. Just incredible to see.
Last stop on our tour, was the Peter and Paul Cathedral, inside the fortress. Another amazing church, but most important is that many important people are buried here, especially Peter the Great.
We then had to return to the ship in time for departure. We needn't have hurried. From our cabin balcony, we watched many, many coaches and buses returning people quite late, even after "all aboard" time. This pretty much proved to us, the ship will wait for latecomers! We were a little late departing, but were just ahead of two other cruise ships who followed us out.
The day wasn't over yet though. Cruising out, we passed an island which had a large port. We saw a number of small navy vessels berthed here, but we also saw many old Soviet-era navy ships just berthed here and left to rot. Some had sunk while still tied to the wharf, or to other boats! A most interesting sight to see as we departed Russia and headed back into the Baltic Sea.
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