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Jul 3, 2010 - Tour of St. Petersburg

Until just before the start of the tour, we were scheduled for a concert on this day, but the arrangements proved to be a problem, and we rescheduled the concert to tomorrow.  That left this whole day free for getting to know this magnificent city.  For 3 hours in the morning, we were driven in two busses to many points of interest, with numerous opportunities to get out, take pictures — and buy souvenirs.  Here are a few of the sights we took in.

St. Isaac's Cathedral	The State Hermitage Museum

The Winter Palace	Church of the Spilled Blood

Our guides proved to be very knowledgeable, and gave us a virtually non-stop narrative of the history and other details of the sights.

Then, after a group lunch, we spent 3 more hours in the Hermitage Museum — a place of incredible opulence and innumerable art treasures (well, maybe not “innumerable,” but a collection of 3 million objects is fairly impressive).  The crowds were also impressive, but we each had personal listening devices, which allowed us to hear our guide’s description of what we were seeing, despite the background noise and despite standing a good distance from the guide.  Here are a couple of views of what we saw, and believe me, they don't begin to do justice to the impact those spaces had on us as we entered them.  What is most remarkable about the Hermitage is that the building (the Winter Palace) is itself a work of art: there are priceless art treasures displayed everywhere, but the ceilings, parquet floors, wall coverings, doors are all different and all stunning in and of themselves.

After returning from the Hermitage, our group split up, and we went on to dinner and further sightseeing on our own.  (It's daylight until about midnight, so why not?)