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Published: August 1st 2010
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Catherine's Palace
Entrance - after walking 200 metres from gate Hi everyone - here we are again - well the weather so far has been fantastic - so much so that I had to do a bit of retail therapy to stock up on some summer clothes.... how sad hey!
We arrived at St Petersburg and boy was it hot - it was the hottest day they had had there for over 300 years!! They only have 35 - 60 sunny days per year - depending on who is telling the story and of course it's not hot at the same time when sunny. Nor do they have air conditioning!!!! Anywhere!!!
We left at midday - had arrived and the port was covered in a low cloud.... but still very hot. We caught the tour bus, after getting our numbers punched onto our chests and jumped on the corresponding bus - with a little air coming through. While on our way in the bus we were told that to use the camera in Catherine's Palace in the Tsar's village and Pushkin Village to take photos would cost us 5 Euros!! a video would cost 9 Euros.... what a rip off!! WE didn't know at the time we were being
Catherine's Palace
Looking across parade ground to servants quarters ripped off but didn't pay it the next day that's for sure... and it had gone up....
Well Catherine's Palace - there was quite a queue to get in and it was about 36 degrees Celsius and people were very, very uncomfortable and there were thousands of people too - to make it worse but have to say the Palace was unbelievably opulent with gold everywhere and hundreds of stories to tell there... some naughty people live in palaces. It was hard to believe this place was almost destroyed during the siege of Leningrad as the building had been occupied by the Nazis for their headquarters.
The only place we couldn't take a photo in the Palace was the Amber room - the whole room was done in amber - amazing really - will attach an illegal photo for you.... John didn't read the read small print or wasn't listening... and hung well back from the group.... nothing new there....
The Pushkin village was the residence of the affluent and influential as it was the area surrounding Catherine's massive Palace. It was an enormous estate covering several square kilometres!!
We all had to rush back to the
Catherine's Palace
Stolen photo of a small part of the Amber room ceiling ship - through Russian immigration - to shower, change, meet and leave for the Russian Ballet to see them perform Swan Lake. (NO photos allowed in here - check it out - of course John mustn't have listened again... hmmmm nothing new there!!
It was stifling in the old un air conditioned theatre - really was bad - and felt for the poor dancers all night - it's a long ballet too but was lovely to see. I am sure that any building in the same state in Australia would have been condemned - not something you would expect of a world renowned ballet theatre. We hadn't had time to eat ... in fact didn't have time for lunch this day either and existed on 2 Mars Bars until about 11pm - yes still daylight too, when we got back to the ship and had a healthy BLT - that's Bacon, Lettuce and tomato toasted sandwich to those who didn't know.
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Noveen
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St Catherine's Palace
Hi to you all - love the photo of the Palace - hard to believe the scale of the place. To live in such a palace would take you so long to get from one end to the other in a day!! Keep you fit!! While you have been sweltering - Ken and I went to Adelaide - absolutely freezing cold!!! Rather have been you than us!! Love Noveen