May 10 This has been a busy trip with little time to write, so I am jumping ahead and will try to go back and fill in the missing days. So I am now in St. Petersburg. Buffet breakfast to start the day and then to meet at 9:45 for today's excursion to the Hermitage. It was raining and we had to walk the ¼ block or so to the bus since there is no parking for buses in front of the hotel. The drive was not too far; we entered through the group entrance and were ...

May 9 Breakfast and onto the bus. We navigated St. Petersburg traffic to head out of St. Petersburg to visit the two major palaces outside St. Petersburg . The day was a bit gloomy as we headed out with our first destination to be Peterhof. We passed older Soviet style apartments and through an area of newer developments with tall apartment buildings which are built as sort of self-contained villages. The metro does not go out this far so these areas are contr...

May 8 Today we were to explore sights of St. Petersburg. As we started out in Ploshad Vosstania, the large square by the hotel and the train station, we could see the decoarations that had been put up for the May 9 holiday.. The history of the square started in 1765, when Empress Elizabeth ordered to build the Znamenskaya Church on this site. The wooden church was restored in 1804 and the square got the name Znamenskaya. The first railroad station was built ther...

May 7 Another breakfast buffet to start the day and then a short drive in the bus crossing the river to Velkily Novgorod's Kremlin. We passed a monument to Rachmaninoff which is a statue of him as a young man complete with fedora. No chance to get a picture from the bus and we never came back this way.The bus then pulled into a large parking lot, and we exited . The parking lot had stands around the perimeter selling souvenirs and local crafts. We only had enoug...

May 6 Breakfast buffet at the Park Inn. Several of walked from the rear wing where we were staying to the front wing thinking that breakfast would be in the same dining room as dinner the night before.. As we were turning around my father and Mahin appeared, I said Good Morning and inquired of my father as to how he was feeling. . He then said he had to go back to his room because he had forgotten his wallet. Mahin just continued walking. I attempted to say go...