Episode 4At Pskov we spent a while looking for a bank, usually we don’t have any trouble finding banks but on this particular day they seemed to evade us and L ended up using an ATM instead only to find that she was limited to a 5000 rouble withdrawal. Do you people have any idea how little 5000 roubles is, well, it proved to be $108 AU, well less than 100 Euros and even in Russia it doesn’t go a long way. L worked it out at about 46 roubles to an Au$. She’s a whiz at doing things like that sometimes, other times she gets things horribly wrong. Well, at least we had plenty for filling up the car as that is only 35 roubles a litre, and in St Petersburg we will find a bank more easily I’m sure.In fact we got to St Petersburg that very evening having had a good run from Pskov and traffic wasn’t heavy going into the city, coming out was far worse. We drove into Shushary to see if you could find the hotel my lot had stayed at in 1998 or another one. From that point it is easy to get a train into the city. What we found were a vast number of new apartment blocks about 20 or more stories high, but not a single hotel. It seems to have become a satellite city of St Petersburg.Using information in Gertie (sat-nav) we picked first one hotel then another, then a third, only to find that one was’t finished, one was closed down and well, for the third, we never did find it. Someone trying to help us found a nearby one on his mobile, got its location on the map, we got it on our sat-nav, but again we never did find it, and no-one in the area it claimed to be in knew anything about one. Eventually we came to the huge “Russia” hotel, it was booked out, but then one of the receptionists gave us directions to a small place that we did find after asking a number of people for further directions. This little hotel was quite nice, clean and comfortable. It was very reasonable, had parking right out front, at least enough for our car, and we got a nice room, breakie included. What’s more there was a bank just over the road and the security man took David over to it straight way at 7pm and he changed some money. Later, after we’d settled in the same security man took us to a local restaurant that he recommended and there we had a lovely meal. One of the best steaks L's had in a really long time. All I ever get to do is watch them eat.Next morning after our breakie we followed direction we’d been given and found a metro station and caught the train into the city centre. Once you buy a token for the metro you enter the system and can go anywhere within it. There are several metro lines, all colour coded on the map so its easy to work out where you are going and where you need to change. Mostly there is a train every two minutes, if not less, so no long waits. Alighting at Nevsky Prospect my lot soon got their bearings and we set off in the general direction of the Winter Palace. One of the first things that caught our eye is the very pretty ‘Our Saviour of the Spilled Blood” church. Last time my lot were here it hadn’t long been repainted and the colours were much brighter than they are now, but the interior was closed, probably still being re-furbished, that took about 17 years apparently.This time we could by a ticket and head inside along with thousands of other tourist with similar intentions. The interior of this fairly small church is stunning. The walls are covered with religious mosaics. There must be millions of small tiles used here. L has loaded some of the better photos that D took within the church. It used to be that photos weren’t allowed in such places but what with people with mobile phones there really isn’t any way of stopping them so now photos seem to be allowed, although we saw no-one using flashes. The amount of gold used on the mosaics and on gold leaf decoration around the Iconastasis and elsewhere is astounding. The floor was patterned marble. We meandered along the canals and around the streets then headed into a cafe for some refreshment, it had been hot walking around in the sun.Then it was decided to take a canal trip: There are many canals around St Petersburg and over 500 bridges. David, feeling the need to take a rest didn’t bother to look for one offering an English commentary so we didn’t get to learn anything about what we saw, which really peeved L somewhat. Never-the-less it was a pleasant trip. It started out really hot and we were sitting in the sun without hats, then after a short time the sun went under a cloud and we all needed jackets, me too, but I don’t have one. Out in the middle of the Neva river around the Peter and Paul Fortress it was really windy and cold and by the time we finished an hour later it was just beginning to spit with rain. L took lots of photos of the palaces and buildings along the canals. It is a bit like Venice in a way but on a larger scale. The palaces here make the Venice ones look like weekend shacks. Just as we made it into a nice little cafe for lunch it began to tumble down and only let up just before we were about to emerge again. Well timed!In the afternoon we visited the Winter Palace that houses the Hermitage Museum. This is an enormous Palace, it makes Buckingham Palace look like a small weekender. There are something like 1300 rooms in the place, and many of those rooms are far from small.There is even a private cathedral and here there seems to be even more the gold decoration if that is possible.The opulence is mind boggling really. Everywhere there is gold leaf decoration, there must be tones of gold used here. There are two special rooms, the Gold and the Diamond rooms. We tried to get on a special tour to see the Diamond room but missed out so had to settle for seeing what we could. The Gold room didn’t seem to be on offer the day we visited. Its really not surprising that there was a revolution here because the local peasants were starving, just like in France in the late 18th century, yet the aristocracy flaunted their wealth and ignored all the warning signs when they could have eased the situation. The royal family met a very sticky end in Ekaterinburg in 1917 or 1918.Many rooms house great works of art, enough to rival many major art museums, most of the great masters are well represented. Apart from that there is an Asia section with Chinese and Japanese pieces, a Central Asian Islamic section and a Byzantine section with some very early Christian pieces from the 3rd century AD. I had to do a lot of posing beside and in front of things. Some of the Asian visitors were taking photos of me as well as of everything else. I enjoyed that and gave them my biggest smile.The palace was just closing when we left and made our way back via the metro to our hotel where L later worked well into the early hours naming the many photos that had been taken that day, then loading them onto the internet. For some reason this is taking much longer than it should.The next day was a much cooler day with heavy cloud overhead. Although my lot didn’t think it was all that cold the locals seemed to be well rugged up with heavy coats on. We all got very hot on the metro.The first place we visited was St Isacs cathedral. Here, while David still felt fresh we climbed the 252 steps to the dome where there is an observation walkway. The sign says there are 211 steps but that is only to the bottom of one of the side domes, from there its another 51 up to the walkway and you have to go on as it’s a one way system, the way down is on the other side. There was quite a crowd up here admiring the view. We could see a cruise ship in the port, possibly it was the one whose passengers were visiting the Winter Palace the same time as us yesterday.After making it back to ground level we visited the interior of the cathedral and found it to be very lavish too. There are several malachite columns and 2 lapis lazuli columns flanking the central Iconasteasis. My lot speculated on whether the malachite was solid or a veneer. Either way there is a lot of Malachite here. We had seen several malachite columns in one room of the Palace too.Afterwards we walked quite a long way to see the Trinity Church, the one with the blue and stary dome, only to find that it was closed up tight when we got there. So we meandered about the city, enjoyed lunch at a little cafeteria and watched some of the rehearsal taking place in Palace Square.Today, Friday 27th May is ‘city day’ here in St Petersburg and it is a holiday. Yesterday they were setting up a big stage and all the auxiliary gear for the concert that will be on tonight from 9pm. So in the afternoon there was some rehearsal going on with the performers and the technical people sorting out any problems.David got some video, that L has put on this blog, of the dancers, they are only rehearsing hence the coats etc, and D was only rehearsing when he videod the tenor singing.Well, that was our visit to St Petersburg 2016. We left the next day and as we headed out of the city on the Murmansk road we saw several vehicles towing trailers with some sort of 4wd buggies on them. They all were probably heading for the same off road meeting some place, David thought they might be ‘swamp buggies’. When we turned east those with buggies were keeping on northward. Plenty of swamps up that way.Back when we crossed into Russia there were some rally enthusiasts at the border at the same time that were heading for a rally in Kazakhstan somewhere around the Caspian sea area due to start on Saturday. They had some serious driving in front of them to be there by then.© Lynette Regan May 30th 2016