First day in St P

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Hello again,
I went for a quick walk around town last night and tried to get my bearings. I'm staying slap bang in the middle of town so everywhere seems easy to get to by walking. I wandered around for a while and then noticed it was almost midnight so thought it was time for bed. When I got back to my hostel there were two other girls there as well as the old wandering lady. The girls were from San Fransisco and London, we were then joined by Pete who is with Hazel from London (just friends). They said that they had already named the wandering lady as Mad Mary.

So it was half past midnight, and still daylight !!! but time for zzzzzzzzzzzz

Woke up late, had a shower that took me about 10 mins to get to work, with lots of aaahhhh's as every so often as I would loose the hot water and have freezing cold water on me !!!! anyway I've got it sorted now.

Hazel and Pete were all set to go on a sights of St Petersburg with Hazel as the tour guide armed with her trusty guide book, they asked if I'd like to go with them, so off I went. My god that girl SHOULD be a tour guide, she had us here there and everywhere !!!!

We saw lots of places starting with the Russian Museum, which is a HUGE building with has the largest collection of art in St Petersburg, infact its an art gallery rather than a museum. We were in there looking at hundreds of paintings from 11th to the 20th century, most of them beautiful, one particular one was amazing, It was a snow scene in woods that you really thought was a photo it was soooo realistic. But after about 2 hours I was all "painted out" so headed to the cafe where I had an open salmon caviar sandwich, which was bright orange and each egg is about 2mm in size. It tasted VERY fishy, I was glad I only had a tiny portion, costed me 85 rubles (£1.70). After 20 mins Hazel & Pete joined me and we all had herring, beetroot and mayo salad, known locally as "herring in a fur coat" which was nice but only a small amount needed !!!

Then we were off through gardens to the Church of Spilled blood which is next to the canal, it's a huge church completely decorated with mosaics from floor to ceiling so absolutely beautiful. Lots of photos taken there. It was constructed by Alexader III as a memorial to his father Alexander II who was assassinated and mortally wounded at that site, building started in 1873 finished in 1907.

A walk along the canal led us to the Field of Mars, (named after the god of war) as it's a huge park that was the setting for military parades with thousands of horses and military men strutting their stuff, many moons ago. Anyway we was feeling a tad tired by that time so it was relaxation laying down for us, for half and hour or so 😊

The it was up and march on with the lovely Hazel tour guide pointing out buildings and telling the tales about them. The main theme being Tzars that were paranoid about being killed, but to be fair they were often right as they were usually assassinated !! also lots of adultery, and mistress and lover taking, resulting in huge palaces being built for their aforementioned mistresses or lovers. We also walked along a row of mansions called Millionaire Parade, obviously Hazel and myself were chased down the street by many a millionaire, and we had to tell them thanks, but we were sight seeing and far too busy to stop and chat !!! They cried obviously but we had made our minds up.

We walked over one of the many bridges over the canals, passed a wedding party having their photos taken alongside the river, which was kinda sweet. Then we saw an old wooden tall ship that had been converted to a bar/restaurant so we stepped aboard and sat down with the beautiful people, all very swish and lovely. Then we saw the prices and had a little con-flab as to whether we going to pay £7.50 for a beer or a tea ??? well we were already there, the place was fab and we here on holiday ...... so we ordered a beer for £7.50 (Pete did go a whiter shade of pale) and I ordered a cappuccino which was a mere £4 Hazel ordered a mint tea for I don't know how much. So obviously we stayed there nursing our drinks for a long time. It was beautiful just people watching and relaxing all to the sound of a live saxophone player. The toilets were amazing by the way, extreeeeemly luxurious !!!

Another long walk around the other side of the river passing lots of beautiful old buildings housing lots of old stuff, we were getting a tad tired by this time and it was about 11pm by now, but as its so light you don't realise its late. We decided to go to the supermarket and buy some goodies for a picnic at the hostel. I found bagels : ) yum yum.

off to Peterhof tomorrow xxxxxxxx

p.s the wandering lady in our room has been moved to another hostel as she was wandering around in the middle of the night and the hostel administrators thought it best to find her a hostel more suited to the elderly confused !!!!!

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Comments

[The Ando's]

To Russia with love !!
Hi Kal glad to see you arrived safely. Trust you, you only been there a day and you found a "Wondering Jew" already !! Have fun and look forward to seeing some pics. Stay safe and have fun. Lots of love Phil, Lou & Tom xx ( going to mums Wednesday night so will log on for more stuff I hope xxxx

[Joanne]

hello mother!
Hello, glad to hear you are getting settled in..... and already meeting lots of adventurers like yourself!! Looking forward to you putting some pics on if you can. See if you can find any distant relatives of ours.... rich ones preferably please! haha. keep having fun! you'll be happy to know that the forcast here for the rest of the week is rain.... so you are not missing any sun now! love ya xxxx

[marilyn]

oh my god!
hi sweetie have just read your blog, where are the nice relaxing parks we talked about.!glad you have met up with people. you will need a holiday to get over this one.!take care and try to relax. love ya. x x