St Petersburg

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After two days of a Russian guide talking in my ear (radio mike and headsets!), I feel that I may almost know something about the great historic city of St Petersburg. For a city that’s barely 300 years old its undergone more change than could be imagined.

Our travels have taken us into two opulent cathedrals. The Church on Spilled Blood whose entire interior (wall, ceiling, pillars) is mosaic - 7000 square metres of scenes from the old testament and plenty of gold. Outside the church has many turrets and orbs also of mosaic. If I understood correctly, the church was only ever used for funerals. We also visited St Isaac’s cathedral or rather the third St Isaac’s cathedral. The original was too small, so they built a much larger second one which turned out not to be distinct enough to win a competition so they dismantled it and had another go! Inside the cathedral has an amazing floor to ceiling icon wall that separates the alter from the rest of the church with four rows of mosaic panels. Four double doors, half a metre thick, provide access to the church and each half of each door weighs 10 tonnes!!

Catherine’s Palace, located in the nearby town of Pushkin (Russian Poet) was equally grand and opulent. A bright blue, white and gold exterior houses an array of rooms uniquely named by colour - the white dining room, the green dining room, the crimson room and the amazing amber room. The bottom two thirds of the amber room is entirely patterned by the jewel in mosaic fashion, however they ran out and had to paint in amber effect the top third. Stunning none the less - no cameras allowed in this particular room. The picture room was continuous panel upon panel of paintings separated by gold edging.

One of our trips took us on a boat tour on the canals. We sat on the rear deck, however this turned out to be not the best idea as we encountered the first bridge, which was ridiculously low, and we had to lean forward so as not t lose our heads…apparently the water is unusually high. Nevertheless the old women in the row in front of us, at every bridge (many and frequent) got down on their hands and knees! The city is undergoing major restoration so many original grand buildings are amazing, however many of the less important buildings are in a poor state of repair. Similarly the public transport is very tired and not enticing.

Sunday is the national day for celebrating the Russian fleet, so we over the two days a number of naval vessels arrived in the city on the river neva (ridiculously wide!), they get in overnight when all of the bridges that cross the river are opened in draw bridge fashion between 2 and 5 am.

PS Guided tours don’t allow much time for photos so these are all snaps!

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Comments

[Mike]

the snapshots are great
The snapshots are making you loosen up with your picture making. It is the lighting quality that amazes me, particularly the pic of the naval ships.

[louandalex]

Glad you like!! Its a great trip and so many many opportunities

[Annie]

wow you can deffo be on our quiz team next year!!