One time, they gave me a Russian visa- Part 2

Tuesday Cont'd
After the bus tour of St. Petersburg we checked into our hotel, which ironically enough was called Hotel Moscow.  

We had some down time there and then in the evening we went to a dinner party that was held in an old palace (seriously, everything used to be a palace).  We learned how to make toasts before each course with Russian vodka and ate some Russian food.  Then a madrigal-type group came in and sang some songs and showed us some funny games.  It was really entertaining.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we woke up and went to Catherine's Palace, which is a huge estate in a suburb of St. Petersburg.  One weird thing I noticed was that as we left the hotel at 9am the sun was just rising.  Very strange.  But by the time we got to Pushkin, the suburb that the palace was in, the sun had disappeared and it was snowing!  Which was beautiful, but a little chilly for those of us who didn't bring their winter coat because the weather said it was supposed to be in the 40s all week.  So we took a tour of the palace and learned lots more about Russian history.  There is also a really famous room in the palace called the Amber room, which we were strictly forbidden to take photos in.  Apparently this room was entirely paneled in amber and it was really beautiful. But the Nazis invaded and camped out in this palace during WWII and the amber paneling disappeared.  To this day nobody knows what happened to it.  So when I become a treasure hunter I'll find it.  But we weren't allowed to take photos in this room that doesn't even have the original amber paneling.  Lame.

The outside of the main entrance to the palace

This room was entirely mirrors and gold and candelabras.  A little overwhelming.

There were lots of beautiful murals on the ceilings

Maybe one of the 2 Catherines that lived here, maybe Elisabeth, Catherine I's daughter?  I should have been taking notes.

Once we were through the tour we had some time to explore the grounds, which were really pretty.  This palace was used in the summer, and I wish I could see it in the summer because there were such beautiful lawns and plants everywhere.

Yeah that white stuff would be snow

After that we went back to our hotel and had some down time, which meant nap time!  Then that evening we went on a (Hummer!) limo tour through the city.  Not normally something I would be all about, but I'm glad I went; it was definitely a party!  

Afterwards we went to a club, and I got to experience the Russian nightlife.  I heard some crazy things about some of the other clubs in the city, but this one was pretty standard.  Then I went to bed.


Thursday
On Thursday we went to the State Hermitage Museum, which is right in the center of the city.  It's one of the biggest art museums in the world, and our tour guide told us the average tour is about 7 km of walking.  We saw lots of Russian architecture as well as Italian, Spanish, French, and Dutch artwork.  It was interesting and extremely long.

This was one of my favorite things; the picture doesn't show it very well, but the ceiling was painted to look 3 dimensional, which it did, but it was all actually flat. Neato.

Oh, did I mention this used to be a palace?

Look closely at the 2 pictures above; one is the ceiling and one is the floor, and they're exact mirrors of one another

Oh, just another Da Vinci, no big deal.

The outside of the State Hermitage.  It was on the Palace Square right in the middle of St. Petersburg

We had some free time after the museum, so Erin and I walked back over the the fortress of Peter and Paul, because we had heard that all the members of the Romanov family were buried there. Including Anastasia!  So we looked around the cathedral, and of course all the plaques were in Russian.  But we found dates on each sarcophagus.  None of them were remotely close to 1917, which was when Anastasia died.  So she is buried there, but not where we could see her. Bummer.  The cathedral was really nice though, and it was crazy to be walking among Tsars!

The giant fancy red one is Peter the Great (it's all about him in this city)

And after that, we bummed around the city center for the rest of the day and then took a night train to Moscow, which wasn't nearly as terrible as it could have been considering that I do not generally sleep on public transportation.  I'll do Moscow in another post, though.