Hi All,
We ate last night at a Russian restuarant. Minor communication problem but we got what we guessed at some traditional dishes on the menu. Vanessa had a dish called hussary beef, beef and cheese, and I ate dumplings. Vanessa's was easily much nicer than mine but both were quite nice. Later she told me that her pick was not a guess but that the dish was recommended on the notice board of the hostel.
I think this is very Russian. Breakfast at the hostel is between 9 and 11am but there are not many people staying so the girl at the front desk asked us what time we would like breakfast. Great we though. Can we have an earlier breakfast at 8am? No she replied. Breakfast starts at 9am....reminds me of the 'you can have any colour as long as it is white' line.
Today we headed off to the Hermitage. This was the tzars winter palace now turned museum. It is considered one of the worlds greatest museums and I think that title is correct. There are over 3million works of art and treasured housed under it's roof and the building is massive with well over 1000 rooms but not all are accessible to the public. There were 3 floors of exhibits and we thought there was going to be no way we could see it all so we decided to focus on the second floor as it was recommended by the information desk. Each room even without the additional displays in a work of art and is absolutely amazing. The floors were different parquetry styles. My favourite room was the pavillion rooom with the Peacock clock and the Rembrant room was also excellent. We stayed at the Hermitage for 5hrs and did manage to look through most of the stunning second floor and almost all of the 3rd floor and a little of the 1st floor although we felt that we had already seen enough ancient history in other museums around the world so weren't disappointed. It was exhausting. I think that you should take at least two days to really enjoy the Hermitage as it is such a beautiful museum.
It started snowing in the afternoon.
Tonight we decided to have a georgian meal. Georgia Russia. Langauge problem. No english. This time Vanessa had a traditional chicken and I had a beef stew. Our side dishes were traditional potatoes (french fries with garnish) and country style potatoes (wedges with garnish). I ordered white wine for two. The waitress came back with double size red wine. Like I said language problem! Nice meal but the Russian the previous night was better.
Still snowing.
Next day.
Still snowing and we woke to a dusting of snow on the roof.
We intended to go on a paid walking tour of St Petersburg and walked over to another hostel in th snow only to find that the tour had been cancelled. So we walked down to the river and walked back to the old town which was a lot further than I thought (7-8km) and once we arrived we decided it was time to go back to our hostel for lunch and a break. Later we headed out to the old town area for some pictures of the snow cover and walked out to the peter and paul fortress. Almost all the tzars are buried in the very baroque church within the fortress. We wandered back towards the hostel in the darkness (plenty of lights) and stopped for a few pictures of the Church of the saviour on the spilt blood which was cleverly illuminated.
The snow has stopped at the temperature has been a balmy -2 deg C today.
We both are a bit worn out after all the walking over the last couple of days. So the plan for tomorrow? a walking tour.
Bye,
David and Vanessa
