Monday 16th June

Managed a very early breakfast before our ride to the bus station to catch the 9am bus to St Petersburg. The ride went well but we were at the border with Russia for about an hour whilst we had our visas checked & the bus inspected for contraband. The countryside was pretty flat again but we saw the Baltic & arrived early in St Petersburg at 2.30pm local time having lost an hour to the new time zone. A young guy picked us up & drove like a madman to our hotel which is quite near the main street. The drive in was on an elevated toll way passing many ugly blocks of flats & derelict factories but the central area is quite smart.

After booking in we walked to find an ATM as we had no Roubles but it was bitterly cold, as was our room. We returned for a complementary 'English Tea' of tea & a few biscuits & then a couple of hours later had dinner, beef tongue for d*** & beef stroganoff for Jane, neither was too impressive.


Tuesday 17th June

Had an email from the travel agent in Perth claiming the driver here couldn't find us at the bus station & were we lost? Told her all was well.

Another *********** the tourist trail. At 10 am our Russian guide, Tatiana, a trim 50 ish, arrived & off we drove as Tatiana lectured us in almost incomprehensible English about the sights of the city leaving us somewhat confused. As it was about 10 C with a biting wind we were well rugged up but Dick's ears felt particularly cold after standing & looking at the sites. We didn’t realise that St Petersburg was the Russian capital for nearly 300 years until the revolution of 1917 & that it has an official population of 5 million but may contain about 8 million in fact.

The scale of the buildings is amazing as it has really only existed as a city since 1700 & the Tsars & Empresses have spent fortunes on the place since its inception. We spent an hour at the St Peter & St Paul fortress which houses the tombs of the Tsars since Peter the Great & touring some of the major sights before we were dropped at the Hermitage for the walking tour.

This proved a huge test of stamina as we couldn’t get a meal in the cafe as the queues were so long so off we went. It is a monster complex which started out as a palace but became, what must be, one of the largest museums in the world. On we trooped through ever more luxuriously decorated rooms full of paintings starting in the 14th century & up until the late 18th century. It holds 16,000 paintings of which we must have seen 20,000 or so, with 10,000 being explained in minute detail. We were absolutely exhausted when we parted from Tatiana, with a sigh of relief, at about 6pm.

She suggested we caught a trolley bus back to our hotel but here the Noyelle care gene stepped in & so we decided we could walk it through the arctic conditions, so off we set. It was a fair walk but we found a cafe on the way & had dumplings, beer, pancakes & hot chocolate, which constituted a late lunch & an early dinner. From there it was a breeze to return to our cosy hotel. Dick’s knees kept their complaining to themselves so there was minimal misery for both of us.
Wednesday 18th June

Started at 10 o’clock & were off in the car with Tatiana, to Pushkin, the former aristocratic village around the Summer Palace. On the way she pointed out how close the German army got to Leningrad in the 900 day siege from 1941 – 44 in the Great Patriotic War. This is marked with a huge memorial to those who died there from warfare & starvation etc.

It was nearly as cold as yesterday but we had to walk around the beautiful grounds for 90 mins before it was our turn to go through the Palace, which is, not surprisingly incredibly ornate inside & out. The crowds were massive as usual & we were told that St Petersburg has about 6 million tourists a year on average & sometimes it felt as if they were all there today. The highlight is the famous Amber Room which has been carefully re constituted based on photos & watercolours to resemble its predecessor which disappeared in the last war. It is a triumph of opulence over taste but has to be admired as a demonstration of wealth. We returned to St P by a different route past huge blocks of flats some still under construction & masses of what looked like lock up sheds before reaching the city proper. We said good bye to our guide at 3pm & went for a coffee before visiting an orthodox cathedral & sitting in a park. Here we parted for d*** to return & Jane to go on exploring. Jane walked a few kms to St Isaac’s Church to find the museum was closed and there was a long queue to buy tickets to climb umpteen steps to the dome, she decided it was too hard plus the hour’s walk back to the hotel. After a good lie down to recover, we ventured out to restaurant near by which proved to be a good choice.