Woke up and had a leisurely breakfast with everyone. Fran and Charlie arrived later than everyone else. We headed off to catch a local bus to the Hermitage, which is the main museum and located inside the Imperial Winter Palace. The bus fare was 40 Roubles (about 80c) and we arrived quite a bit early for our meeting with our guide. The weather at least was not too cold and we met and talked with several other tourists while we waited for 10:45am to arrive. We had...

This morning I left Todd snoring away like a freight train and went to find coffee in the hotel cafe. It was quiet at 7am and I managed to get some fresh blini (Russian pancakes) and relax until the others emerged. We waited around talking until our guide arrived to drive us to Catherine’s Palace our in Pushkin. Catherine’s Palace was set up outside of St Petersburg but was originally started by the wife of Peter The Great, and was expanded upon through late...

Woke up too early this morning on the train at 4am so spent several hours having several cups of coffee, a couple of muesli bars and listening to music while waiting for it to get light enough to see the Russian countryside. The approach into St Petersburg is through area of wetlands and birch trees, again, a different scene to both the Urals or Siberia. We got into St Petersburg under a grey snow laden sky, to be met by a Russian driver who knew no English at al...