View from the River Neva near our B&B
Beautiful classical architecture everywhere you look
Outside the Hermitage museum (Winter Palace of Peter the Great)
The Hermitage
one room in the Winter Palace in the museum
Crouching Boy - the only Michelangelo sculpture in Russia
The Church of Spilled Blood - Alexander II was assassinated here
The Bronze Horseman with St Isaac's Cathedral in the background
The locals enjoy the unseasonal hot weather
Inside the Yusupov palace
View from the colonnade of St Isaac's Cathedral
The crowds are plentiful for City Day activities
Nevsky Prospekt (the main street) is closed as hundreds of children dance
We're having a heatwave (a tropical heatwave...). It's been over 30 for 3 days now - very rare for St Petersburg, especially in May. Getting around here requires a lot of walking as the sights are spread around the place. And many of the sights are museums and palaces which require lots of walking to view them. There is a metro system but the city metro stations are widely spaced. There are plenty of buses but their signage is in Russian so you really need to know which bus number you need. We have happily discovered the 22 bus which drops us near "home" at the end of the day. Graeme is suffering with throbbing tops of his feet; hopefully that will stop soon.
In 3 days we've seen the Hermitage, Peter and Paul Fortress, Russian Museum and associated palaces, Yusupov Palace, several churches, parks and gardens, and been on a boat cruise. We've tried different restaurants; the most authentic being the one at the Russian Vodka museum. Tomorrow we're off on a day trip to see Catherine's Palace, leaving the last day to finish the few essential sights we've missed. It's finally cooling down a bit.
It's only dark from midnight to 4 am - they call this "White Nights". Eye masks are essential. I am tempted to stay up to see the bridges rise at 130 am but it's hard to stay awake!
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