10 July - For days, we have seen a church with blue domes with gold stars on them, and we wanted to hunt down this church (Holy Trinity Cathedral) to see it close up. We started this morning by walking to Holy Trinity. It was built around the 17–1800s and in 2006, while it was being restored, it was badly damaged by fire and major reconstruction work was required. The church is not yet fully restored but what has been finished, is lovely. Again, we heard a service, and wonderful singing.
Today’s major mission was to visit the Hermitage museum. We had pre ordered tickets over the internet, and exchanging our ticket voucher for actual tickets, was meant to be so easy! Well, it was a different story when we got there. The ticket office that we thought we had to go to was closed, so we asked for advice. Tickets ordered on the internet are supposed to help you avoid all the queues and mucking around. Three times we were directed back to the closed ticket office, but eventually with a young assistant in tow, the problem was finally realised. Off we went to Information, and finally after a total of about 45 minutes, managed to get our tickets processed and we were directed to where we had to pick up our tickets (at the front of a queue, without queuing up). We were not the only ones in that boat – a couple from Paris were also being given the run around, trying to find where they had to go. All turned out OK in the end. The Hermitage is the most amazing museum and there is so much to see, you could visit it several times over, and still find it wonderful. Even if you aren’t a fan of art, it is well worth visiting the Hermitage just to see the building itself. You could spend a lot of time flat on your back on the floor, looking up at the ceilings! Every room you walk into is a wonderful experience. There were lots and lots of tourist groups and locals there. We thought we did quite well, because we walked the opposite direction through the various rooms, to the tour groups, so we weren’t caught up behind them. The grand scale of the halls enabled extremely large paintings to be displayed. We were very interested in the exhibitions of Russian culture and artifacts. From a number of the rooms, there were magnificent views over the water.
What we did notice, in particular, was that there was no air conditioning, and we wondered why they wouldn’t want to have climate control for the old paintings, in order to protect them. It wasn’t a particularly hot day but it was quite humid and people were fanning themselves, sitting down on steps, and generally looking heat exhausted. Anyway, it was all rather bemusing.
11 July – Today we did another private tour with our tour guide, who owns the tour company we were booked with. She took us to Peterhov Palace. On our way to Peterhov, we were chatting about our experience at the Hermitage. This practically opened the floodgates of our Guide’s frustration with the Hermitage administration and she said that the tour guides are having just as much trouble sorting out tickets as we did! She said for tickets for defined starting times, which the tour guides now have to pick up on the day – if they are late (even by a few minutes), they get hit with huge fines. This year they have a new system, which has apparently had a number of IT outages, causing all sorts of grief for the tour guides. It was all a rather amusing conversation!
We got to Peterhov and our guide took us through the palace and it was absolutely amazing. Talk about opulence! Lots of the rooms were decorated with so much gold and other rooms had a calm austerity from the classical period. The interior of the palace had a lot of variety. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take photos inside, so I have had to make do with postcards. (I have tried to upload a photo but the internet connection here is too slow to allow it.) The palace is described as a Russian Versailles, as it has lots of gardens and fountains, all operated through gravitational feed, which was fascinating. The gardens at Peterhov were spectacular, with expansive garden beds of concentrated colour. We really loved Peterhov and it is an absolute must see, and it was a wonderful way to finish our sightseeing in St Petersburg.
When we arrived at St Petersburg airport, we had that hair raising drive into the city, and wanted to avoid the same experience on the way back. Our guide said her company offered transfers to the airport, so she said she could ask one of her drivers to take us back to the airport today. Therefore the trip to the airport was wonderful by comparison to the other day. We are staying at the Crowne Plaza tonight and fly to Riga tomorrow. We are literally 5 minutes walk from the airport!
