We had our 2nd full day of touring St. Petersburg and we are exhausted. We took a canal boat ride, spent two hours in the Hermitage Museum, visited the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, the Palace where Rasputin was killed, and St. Isaac's Cathedral. We are definitely ready for a day of rest.

Today we had the 1st of 2 full days of touring St. Petersburg. Jan and Graeme, a couple from Australia, arranged these two days as well as our tours to Berlin and in Tallinn. Being able to arrange private tours with fellow cruisers is one of the great things about Cruise Critic. The tours are usually half the cost or less and the groups are smaller than tours arranged through the ship. We were a group of 20 that had a 44 passenger bus to ourselves. We all met at ...

We spent 2 days in St. Petersburg. Our original plan was to do some exploring on our own. Russia requires a Visa unless you are taking a tour with a licensed tour company. We did get our Visas but after talking with several folks on board, we decided that going on our own was not a good idea. No taxi companies or tour companies are allowed to pick up people unless prior arrangements have been made. There are private cars but we were not about to get into one of t...