When I think of our time in St. Petersburg, I think of rain, intricate palaces, Easter eggs, stern customs officers, and our wonderful new friends we met through our tour group.
To give you a little context, anyone who would like to visit Russia is required to get a visa. This is an expensive and time-consuming process, but travelers are exempt from this if they meet the following requirements:
- they are cruise passengers
- their visit does not exceed 3 days
- they book a shore excursion and are accompanied by a tour guide the entire time on land
That's exactly what we did, but to get to our tour guide, we had to go through customs (it's exactly like going through the airport and having an emotionless person in a little booth take your passport and ask you where you're going/why).
None of the other ports we visited required this process; it was unique to our stop in St. Petersburg. That first morning, we queued up for a good 1.5 hours or so: from our line on the boat, we joined another line in customs. That afternoon, after our tour was over for the day, we queued in the cold and rain for yet another hour. Might as well increase the length of our day in St. Petersburg, right? Well, at certain hours during the night, many of the bridges close up. Depending on which side of the bridges you're on, you could be stuck in the city overnight! We were a bit tired, anyways, but don't worry, the long lines were only unique to the first day. Besides, the lines were worth it!
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| Our first stop was "Reka Neva" (the Neva River). One of our new friend's (from South Africa!) name is Neva! |
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| Nevsky Prospect - the main street in St. Petersburg |
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| Near St. Isaac's Square |
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| Saint Isaac's Cathedral - we stop here on Day 3 |
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| St. Petersburg offers more than a lifetime's worth of museums and palaces to visit. Given our short time there, our tour guide took us to the main sites. I knew to expect large crowds, but I didn't expect the crowds to be that bad! Though we got early entry to The Hermitage Museum, we still found ourselves nestled shoulder to shoulder with others! Early entry is worth it, though - as we left, we passed by longer and longer lines outside of the museum. I can't even imagine what the museum is like later on the day! |
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| Many of the museums are also palaces. How beautiful is The Hermitage?! |
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| "Madonna and Child with Flowers" (Benois Madonna) - a real Da Vinci! |
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| Our tour guide, Paulina, told us that this parade/march in Palace Square, right outside The Hermitage, was in honor of the Russian Airborne troops. |
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| Our Australian friend Peter in the State Hermitage Museum, which holds Modern European art (my favorite of all the artwork we saw!) |
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| You must think I'm so weird for including this photo. I am, but a bus that's been converted into a restroom?! That's pretty weird, too. |
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| Borscht |
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| Chicken Kiev |
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| Eclairs |
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| Faberge Museum - He's known for the one-of-a-kind Easter eggs he made for Russian royalty. |
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| St. Petersburg is also known as "The Venice of Northern Europe" |
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| Peter and Paul Fortress |
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| A double rainbow to finish off our first day. |
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| Memorial by the cruise port |
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ReplyDeleteThanks Mom ;-)! And thanks for reminding me of the name - I'll add "Madonna and Child" to the caption.
DeleteThank you Hannah for the beautiful pics of St Petersburg! I almost forgot i have seen a real Leonardo Da Vinci's real art work : Madonna and Child !
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