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Published: September 5th 2012
Monday, September 5, 2011
The second day of our adventure in St. Petersburg began with an open air narrated cruise along the Neva River and other waterways bordering downtown St. Petersburg. It was a beautiful blue sky day. Champagne was served. After the cruise we were bused to the Hermitage, a grand museum founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great, and open to the public since 1852. We spent two hours walking through the galleries as part of a guided tour. We saw works by Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Picasso, and just about any other master you would want to see. Of course, you could never see it all. It's collection contains over 3 million works of art. Like most museums only a few works are on display. However, here that must mean hundreds of thousands! After our two hours we were both exhausted, overwhelmed, and impressed.
Lunch today was served at an actual restaurant: Ballika Brew. Like yesterday, vodka and caviar, along with champagne was served. Today the menu was a salad (again no dressing, not even Russian!!!), soup, and fish in a cream sauce, with you guessed it, ice cream for dessert. Obviously, they cater to the tourists with
these menus, rather than go out on a limb. Karen and I, along with many of the others in our group, would have preferred to be "set free" for an hour and half to explore the area, rather than set through another of these lunches.
After lunch we toured the Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood, built on the site where Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. It was built between 1883 and 1907, and is a Russian style church on the exterior, while the interior is decorated entirely with ceramic mosaic tiles. We're talking all the walls and the ceiling.
Our two days in St. Petersburg ended with a visit to St. Isaac's Cathedral, the largest Russian Orthodox Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Its central dome is one of the largest in the world, and is covered with 220 pounds of gold. The restoration of this church was nothing less than astounding.
As we passed through customs once again before boarding the ship, and even now, I can't help but reflex on the wonderful, exciting, ever-changing world in which we live. Being an American who born and raised during the Cold War, I never imagined that
one day I would tour a city in Russia. While all is not perfect, we can always hope and pray that someday common sense and peace will prevail in all countries.
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kentnguyen
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Discover Saint Petersburg
I love travel, but i have not had a chance to go there . I hope one nice day i can go to this lovely! ------------ http://goldhotelhue.com