Baltic Sea Cruise - Third stop: Russia

---

For the next two days we would stop in Saint Petersburg, Russia. We have splitted the our tours into two halves, so we would see as much as possible of it. On our first day we started out from the harbour to the famous Eremitage, where we had a couple of hours to see the huge and beautiful rooms. It was not nearly enough time to see it all, you really need at least 2 whole days to do so. But we saw some very great art and impressive architecture. We later left the building and walked along the Winterpalace and saw the square from where the crowd came when they stormed the palace in 1917. We enjoyed some very lovely russian food and in a bus we had a tour around the city, where we saw the most important areas. Our guide, a man named Dimitri, knew the history of his city and country very well and was also able to tell us a lot about everyday life. In the evening we drove back to our ship, had good lunch and enjoyed a show of russian dancers and musicians.

The next day started early again, we went out of the busy city to go and visit the small city Pushkin and its most famous sight: the Catherine Palace. We had a long and very interesting tour around the whole palace, which was very impressive. The highlight was the (reproduced) Amber Room. Fantastic! But sadly no photos allowed. After a walk around the huge parks and a bit of souvenirshopping, the bus drove us back to the busy city, and we got caught in the russian traffic as soon as we entered the city. We arrived at the ship in time, and left the country a bit later. What great days!

---