Our tour for today is the Hermitage followed by the Summer/Catherine Palace. The people that took this tour yesterday did the inverse and after complaining about the sardine experience of the Hermitage of an afternoon someone has worked some magic and got our group into the Hermitage an hour and a half before opening the this morning. We didn't exactly have the place to ourselves, but we got up close and personal with everything we were interested in. 

Our tour starts in the square in front of St Issac's we have a little time to run around while we're waiting for the Hermitage to be ready to let us in. I tell the kids the little bit I know about hte Nazi siege of St Petersburg and the protective measures, painting the dome of St Issac's and many others to confuse the Nazi bombers. I point out the chunk out of the column of St Issac's and the hotel where Hitler had planned his victory dinner. The Hermitage is ready for us so we're back in the bus and on to Gab's Russian highlight.

Standing at the entrance it's hard to comprehend the size of this place. They estimate it would take 70 working years to review all of the works owned by the Hermitage, maybe Gab would take that long, the kids and I could do it in 2 years tops :) But the tour starts in the royal apartments and reception rooms. Hard to imagine trying to hold your chin high in the throne room, into the gold room and the two tonne chandelier Gab looks completely at home. We're into the room where they commemorate the top 70 odd Russian military leaders that defeated Napoleon. There are a few where the portrait isn't present because the person died in battle. I couldn't help but notice the one guy with his back to the artist, an undecorated leader?

Still in the apartments the animatronic Peacock clock is impressive, even if you don't see it work. Early 19th century I think, a contemporary of muddy tracks and convict lashings, difficult to understand these different states of progress being cohorts. But I imagine this place was the pinnacle of everything that could be had on earth at the time. Catherine had sent students to the Vatican to replicate the Medusa mosaic, collect all the works they could and duplicate what they couldn't.

Into the Italian masters and we're standing in the Rembrandt hall featuring the Prodigal Son amongst others, we're on to Da Vinci and just a few of the hundreds of Madonna and Child studies there are within these walls. Rafaello and too many more follow.Today we'll only see the Royal apartments, Italian masters and some of the Egyptian collection. We're travelling with a guy that has just learnt his relative is one of the most important Russian painters of the 19th century - he didn't know this, our tour guide informs him, but the Russian masters are in a whole other part of the Hermitage city. We're into the hall that forms the Russian bridge of sighs connecting the Winter Palace to the Theatre. it is simply endless. There is no way you escape without being impressed. But unlike the Gold and Throne rooms, rooms designed to inflict awe, it's all the more awe inspiring to think this collection begun, and has it's most significant roots purely in the pleasure of the patron.

We leave the Hermitage for a proper Russian lunch of Vodka, Salad, Vodka, Beer and Chicken. I sleep all the way to Pushkin and the Summer or Catherine Palace. again the crowds outside are impressive, Our tour though simply bypasses all of this and is into the enclosed forecourt of the palace. A gob smacking facade, it takes us a good 5 minutes to stroll along the front of it. There is an Opera rehearsal taking place right at the grand doors. To whatever extent it diminishes the vista, the majesty of sound they're pumping out lifts the experience. A derelict at the end of WWII the palace has been in continual renovation ever since and a marvelous job they've done of it. The German's stole back the Amber room and returned it to Prussia, but a new one has been constructed in it's place.

A single woman of indulgence Catherine knew no limits to her hedonism. She had hundreds of men from around the city vetted and prepared for her courtship. She held lavish indulgent parties so indiscreet she engineers the wait staff ouf of the process to ensure the parties never faltered for the embarrassment of the attendees. Catherine didn't like stairs she engineered the palace to ensure she could both have the wait staff serve the party from below without ever making eye contact, and that she could stroll out to the gardens without having to suffer the stairs. 

Through her apartments and into the Gardens the opulence just rolls on. We're back on the bus before we know it and heading back to shore. We arrive barely in time for dinner. Inspired by the Romanovs the kids are excited that there's only one half day shore excursion left before their two and a half sea days of their own special kind of pre-teen hedonism begins. Gab and I however have started to sink into the morose sense of the end :(

 
Catherine Palace (Summer Palace)