Saturday July 27th - St. Petersburg Day 2

Day 2 in St. Petersburg was a later start, 7:30am, so it felt like we all had had a lie in! After a city tour with many stops to take photos:

View of the "Strelka" with the Rostral Lighthouses framing the Stock Exchange with St. Isaac's and the Admiralty Building in the background

Jilly with the Aurora in the background. The Aurora fired the shot that indicated the start of the Revolution

View of the Church of the Savior of Spilled Blood

Statue of Peter the Great

We took a boat trip and were able to see the full scope of Peter The Great's vision for the city, it must have been truly an amazing sight one and two centuries ago!

A view from the Neva River

The Russian Navy, which is now headquartered in St. Petersburg was holding its annual Navy Day the following day so preparations were underway for that and we got see a dress rehearsal for the Admiral's inspection up close from the water.

Rehearsal for Navy Day

Russian submarine against the St. Petersburg waterfont

Back on dry land our next stop was The Hermitage. This is an amazing collection of art work started by Catherine 1^st for her own enjoyment and about 15 guests per day, but now shared with around 3 million visitors each year! One can only see a fraction of the collection, but to say it's overwhelming is an understatement.

Inside the Hermitage

The Ambassador's Staircase

Amazing floors!

The Peacock Clock

The Throne

Amazing door

Arches

Detail from picture

Gaugin original

Detail from Rembrandt's Portrait of an Old Man in Red

Detail from Rembrandt's Portrait of an old Jew

Renoir's Roses and Jasmine in a Delft Vase

Amazing staircase

After The Hermitage it was time for lunch at the Legran Restaurant were we had Chicken Kiev. The highlight of lunch was when a waiter spilled a couple of glasses of red wine over Lynne and Gavin! The apologies were profuse and they both received a small gift of macaroons and a tee shirt for the inconvenience.

After lunch it was off to the Church of the Savior of Spilled Blood. The construction of this church was started in 1883, 2 years after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, by his son Tsar Alexander III. It is built exactly on the spot he was assassinated and in fact the canal was narrowed so that the church could be built in a symmetrical fashion. During the communist years the church was used as a storage facility and today after extensive renovation functions as a museum.

Crypt at the site of Alexander II's assassination

After the church we moved onto the Peter and Paul Fortress; this is where on May 27, 1703 Peter I said this is where my capital will be! Enclosed within the fort is the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where, with just a few exceptions, all of the Romanov Dynasty Tsars are buried.

Peter and Paul Fortress from the Neva

Inside the Cathedral

Peter the Great's tomb

We returned to the QV exhausted after our 2 days of sightseeing in St. Petersburg, and then we set sail for Tallinn, Estonia, our next port of call. As we left St. Petersburg we got to see first hand the structure that has been built to protect the city from floods. A 25km long levee has been built with 2 navigational channels and we sailed through the largest, 200m wide, that has two enormous gates that can be closed if any floods are expected to threaten the city.

The smaller navigation channel

The ain navigation channel with its enormous gates