We had taken the overnight train from Moscow but did not sleep much despite having a nice cozy train compartment. We were met at the station and taken to a cafe for breakfast. We had sort of a breakfast on the train so this one sounded pretty good. We relaxed and chatted with the only other gal that was on this particular tour today. We had an informative and good tour of the city of St. Petersburg. It really is a well organized city that Peter the Great had planned during his reign. There are wide streets (now with heavy traffic), lots of interesting museums and well designed buildings and cathedrals. Some of the best artisans and builders were either brought in or other Russians were educated and trained to help develop this wonderful city. It has a population of about 4 million which is easy to tell when trying to cross the streets.
Our cozy train compartment.
A column along the embankment. It has ship parts protruding.
St. Isaac's Cathedral. We did climb to the top area and had a lovely view of the city. There were 262 steps to the top but fairly easy steps if there is such a thing.
St. Nicholas church is actually still used completely as a church so a tourist may enter in the back when services are taking place. They are also free and no photos may be taken inside. If the church or cathedral is a museum, you pay to enter and you can take photos. Many of the churches can not afford to just remain a church which is the reason many are museums.
This is a neat sculpture of Peter the Great or Peter the I. He was about 7 feet tall and was actually a talented boat builder or a builder in general. That was very novel since most royalty didn't do anything to get their hands dirty.
WEDNESDAY JUNE 17, 2015
We had a tour of the Yursupov Palace which was visited very frequently by royalty. Nicholas II and his family that were murdered by the Bolsheviks was a regular. There is a special part of the museum depicting how they tried to murder Rasputin since he was trying to damage the image of the royalty and he was succeeding. This Rasputin character was a conniving person and tried to get into the family by supposedly using his healing powers. He was rather despicable and was given cyinide in his food and beverage, shot more than once, taken out to the river and thought buried only to climb out. He did eventually die by freezing to death. The royalty weren't looked at as people of interest since they were royalty. Some of folks involved fled to France and therefore avoided any further issues.
We spent a better part of the day seeking out some of the places we had seen on our city tour. We wanted to get up closer in order to take a few photos.
This is a game whereby a bat is used and thrown at whatever formation of sticks are on the ground. We had never see this before. It looked rather interesting.
Not sure of the rules.
This is the burial place of the Romanov family. You hear about Anastasia (a daughter of Nicholas II) since it was rumored that a woman in the U.S. claimed to be Anastasia. She has since died and the DNA proved she was not. This was in the St. Peter and Paul church on the fortress island.
This was the home of Peter the Great. It has since been covered with brick, since it was previously a wood structure. This seems to be a rather regular home for royalty. He built this himself since he was so handy.
There were numerous fountains and nice paths to walk.
We had a nice romantic walk along the shady paths.
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