Baltic Cruise- Day 10: St. Petersburg, Russia #2- May 27, 2018

You know, waking up at 4:53, when your alarm is set for 5 and you got to bed around midnight is just darn irritating. It’s not like you can go back to sleep for 7 minutes. The only good thing was that the sun was already up, so it didn’t feel like it was the dead of night.

The Lido deck was not opening until 6 and that was just not going to work. We had grabbed what we could in the past couple of days and stashed it in our fridge. The sandwich I ate wasn’t terrific, but it wasn’t awful either.

My daughter J met me at 5:50 to go to 6 a.m. Mass. My Lutheran husband K bailed on that. I think, he went to get coffee and breakfast. It was actually great that Mass had been moved up to now for those of us who couldn’t go last night. There were actually a decent number of people in attendance. That was cheering.

When we went to the World Stage at 6:40, it was mostly sunny and the forecast was 76 for the high. No rain predicted.

J was fairly frustrated by a guy in a cowboy hat. So, we worked to make sure we would not be on the same tour as he and his group.  I am happy to say that we were successful. We got our number (3) and headed off the ship. We got in the passport line at 7:20 and the passport people were no more cheerful than yesterday. It’s like they try to be stereotypical Russians. I was very unhappy that we did not get a visa paper again, since I had not photographed mine yesterday to get my name in Cyrillic. We were through the line at 7:31 and at the bus 3 minutes later. Once again, my husband’s hat was noticed, this time by the guy in the seat behind us. He introduced himself as Bob and his wife as Toni from Winter Park, Florida. Over the course of the day, we’d find out that they not only lived in the same retirement community as a former colleague of K’s, but also had attended a performance by a group of K’s students at the community this spring. Small world!

Our guide today was Alexi. He was rather sardonic and did not mind making jokes about Putin. I was fascinated by this.

We were off at 7:40. I was more awake than yesterday, ironically, and paid more attention to the view. We passed vans and busses lined up or turning down the street to go to the port. I also looked more at the apartments.  I found the small air conditioners attached to the sides of some of them to be quite interesting. How much of the place did they cool?

At 8:05, we piled out at the statue of Nicholas I and took photos of him and St. Isaacs. Amazingly, the square we were on is actually a bridge. 

We did cross a real bridge, passing a couple posing for what looked like wedding photos, and walked down the street to board river/canal boats to take a cruise of the Neva River and canals of St. Petersburg.  We were cruising by 8:15. It was a little chilly and they pulled out blankets to let us cover up. I was leery of them, but they looked clean and it turned out they were made in Russia, but sold by IKEA! 

 Alexi seemed to know about every single building we passed. There was no way to take enough notes. These colorful buildings were ones I liked. The huge corner building is a department store. Pizza Hut is here! Oh, and bridges are really low, so we were told to not stand up. Alexi was standing in the stairwell to the interior, so he was safe.

 

This fancy pink building is actually the Stroganov family palace. Must have been nice to be that rich. The long yellow and white building is the General Staff building. We thought that we’d been in the part of the Hermitage that we were passing under in this photo. When we entered the Neva River, we found it to be very broad and calmer than what we had seen from the road yesterday. The Rostral Columns had not been lit yet, when we passed.

From the river, we had a different perspective on the birthplace of St. Petersburg at the Peter and Paul Fortress. The cathedral spire was still easy to see.

 As we’d noticed on other river/canal cruises, you get a better view of bridges from the water. This beautiful design featuring the shield of St. Petersburg is on the 115-year old Trinity or Troitsky Bridge designed by Eiffel that was a gift from France to the city on its 200^th birthday. Today was its 315^th.  That’s what we were told. Since then, I’ve found out that Eiffel initially won, but his design was ignored. So, not Eiffel. Not long after the bridge, we could see the mosque of St. Petersburg. What a beautiful blue dome! 

 This beautiful bridge is the Panteleimonovskiy Bridge next to St. Michael’s (Mikhailovsky) Castle, the only castle in the city. The castle is either pink or peach. I can’t decide.

 We’d wondered if Coca Cola was around here and these awnings confirmed that it was. I couldn’t find out what the name of this lovely church was. But, dogged research revealed that this is the Mariinsky Theater with a bridge connecting its two sections. 

I never could find out what building this is with its Lenin and Soviet medallions. We were most amused by the English translations of signs on the boat.

 We were back at the bus at 9:40 and I realized that it had the St. Petersburg coat of arms up on a window. What I didn’t realize until I googled it for this blog was that on the side of the bus was the coat of arms of Russia.  Evidently, the double-headed eagle and St. George slaying the dragon are symbols that predate Peter the Great. 

These flowers are the only ones I noticed in the city outside of gardens or parks. They are really quite pretty.

 When we reached the shop for the day at 9:47, it was warm and we shed our sweaters. We were given more time today, about a half hour, for shopping and a pit stop. We wisely did the latter first. This store had a lot more to offer than yesterday’s. Near the end of our time, I remembered that our younger daughter had wanted us to send her a postcard that simply said, “From Russia, with love”. Luckily, they did sell postcards with stamps. We hurriedly filled it out and my husband went to mail it in the box in the store. As of this writing, almost one month later, she still hasn’t received it.

 We were on the road again at 10:30 and the Rostral Columns were now lit. We also noted that there were folks on the beach at the Peter and Paul Fortress.

 At 10:50, we were off the bus and walking to the Church on Spilled Blood. This church is so iconic of St. Petersburg that when I searched for “St. Petersburg cross stitch”, this is what all the designers charted. What an over-the-top church! 

 The church is built over the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. Alexi said that he was traveling in his armored carriage, when it encountered a bomb. He wasn’t injured and got out to check on his men. Then, he was shot. His son built this incredibly ornate church to honor his father, who was really a great reformer. He had freed the serfs, for example. You can walk around the exterior and read signs detailing Alexander’s various achievements. 

 We had a few moments to take selfies and photograph the exterior before we entered. As we entered, we encountered this sign, which made me wonder how much trouble they’d had with people trying to go in with ice cream.

Inside, we could see the stones of the street covered with a baldacchino (a cooler word than the English, “canopy”). It is quite impressive. I was rather appalled that there were people who thought it was cool to take a selfie in front of this. A man was killed there!

 Anyway, the interior of the church also sports incredible mosaics depicting the whole story of Jesus. We had to stay close to hear Alexi through the headsets, as the place was mobbed. (It is not a church now, but a museum.) The altar area was lovely. I was most taken with the story of the Annunciation told over two columns on either side of the altar. The Mary side has her connected by a beam through the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove through to the Father in Heaven. Just lovely.

The back of the church was just as elaborate as the front. The place has been abused over the years. The Bolsheviks looted it during the Revolution. During the communist era, potatoes were stored in it and the streets around it were named for the assassins. Damage from World War II was left visible during its restoration in the 1990s.

When we were back on the bus at 11:37, it was just an eight-minute drive to the St. Petersburg Hotel for lunch in the Panoramic Restaurant on the second floor. Other tour groups went there, too. The three of us could not find a table together, so J joined a table, where she had a lively conversation with her tablemates. K and I found ourselves with an older couple from Ohio. Actually, he was from St. Petersburg and had moved to Ohio to be near a daughter. Thanks to him, we got black bread. We were first served a nice salad and then a soup. We asked the gentleman at our table and he confirmed it was borscht. We loved it! J said she liked it, too. The main course was a wonderful risotto, cheese, onions and mushrooms and on top, a tasty chicken Kiev. The dessert was a lemony sponge cake, that I would have been willing to eat another piece. We were given a choice of wines today and while K chose red, I had a pleasant enough white.

We were back on the bus at 1:25, after some confusion about waiting for Alexi or heading down to the bottom of the drive, where we saw the bus waiting. We opted for the latter, as did others. We set off for Peterhof three minutes later. We arrived at 2:40, because the incredible palace is definitely out of town. Alexi told us that it was not used for living but to show off wealth.

We did not go inside, but rather went through the entrance to the side to reach the amazing, beautiful gardens and fountains in the back. Alexi told us more about the place, but, honestly, I got so blown away by what I was seeing, that I did not absorb what he said. Plus, there were a lot of people visiting and you had to shoot around them. He gave us time on the upper terrace to take photos, before leading us down by the central fountain.

 

Then, we set off through the lovely gardens. The Nazis had been here, too, of course. The trees dated, for the most part, from post WWII, because the Nazis had cut down the others for firewood. The caretakers had saved the statues of the gardens, by burying them in the garden as the Nazis approached. Restoration took quite a while.

 

I am a sucker for flowers and there were just so many lovely tulips here. Just think of the work it will take to replace them, when their blooming season is over!

After giving us time to stand in the long lines for the restrooms, Alexi led us up through the market area with no stopping to pick up a souvenir. We had to wait a while at the bus area in the hot sun, because there was no place for our driver to pull in. Finally, at 4:10 we were on the bus and headed back to the port at 4:17. Along the way, we saw the emptiest highway I've ever seen and passed over an interesting bridge with cool arcing lights. My husband was very interested to see the stadium where the games in the World Cup will be held next month. We arrived at 5:09 and gave Alexi a 200 ruble tip. He’d done a very good job.

The line to get in the terminal was just awful. The end was at about the middle of the bus line. 

But it moved relatively well. The passport officer came ever so close to a smile, when she finished with me. We were all through at 5:25.

We went to the cabins to dump our things, before going to dinner at 5:42. We saw so much today, that it was nice to sit and relax over dinner. It’s not that we did a lot of walking; it was more of sensory overload.

To start my meal, I chose 5 onion cream soup that was very good. J liked it too. K had a fish cake.

For my main course, I had farfalle boscailo, which was quite tasty. J likes lamb and picked a breaded lamb chop that she enjoyed. K went with chili prawns with garlic butter, which was a surprise, since he is not a big fan of garlic. However, he said this was not overly garlicky.

For dessert, J and I had to each get a chocolate delight. And delight it did! K had espresso ricotta cannoli. I am not a coffee person, but he is.

At 6:10, we set sail. We got some nice shots of the port area and Gazprom’s new tower. We liked what we saw of St. Petersburg, but, I, for one, feel like I don’t need to come back.

 At 7, K went to the Planet Earth Show, which he said was really good. J and I were not feeling drawn to it. We looked over tomorrow’s schedule, making plans, before heading off to the egg sale at 7:30. Some were quite expensive. They had a two-for price that I thought would be okay, if I found some good ones. The problem was that often the swirl on the lid did not quite align with the swirl on the bottom. I could just not find two that were perfect, so I passed it up. J didn’t find anything she wanted. We then went to the Russian bazaar, where I picked up a couple of items.

We were back in our cabins at 8:55 after a very long day. The thing was, we had to prepare for the next day’s adventure. So, batteries needed recharging, both for devices and humans!

 Oh, and the sunset shot is from 10:26 pm.