Wanderluster

St Petersburg was next on the itinerary

Next we headed to St Petersburg by train. I'll split this bit of the trip up into the city.... the Hermitage.... and Peterhof (Petrodvorets) to get a few extra pictures on this websit but a lot more will be on the Shutterfly site again.... just a sampling since we haven't gotten the real film pictures back yet, only the digital.

So we start with the city itself. It's just as beautiful as it was 5 years ago with maybe a little bit more neon and a few changes in businesses. I love Petersburg and I think Jeff got to see some of its magic on this quick white nights trip.

We stayed at a "minihotel" right off Nevskii which, although it looked humble, was probably the cleanest place we stayed during the whole trip. The women who worked there were very kind and watched over us to make sure all was well. The architecture in this ciry is so far the most amazing I have seen anywhere - quite over the top. Glad it survived so many political changes and upheavals.

We got to see a ton of the city and went almost nonstop most of our stay - those white nights can certainly extend your day! We didn't get to see it all but we did an amazing amount of things. We were especially lucky to get to see the Kirov Ballet company at the Marinskii theatre. Being here makes me miss Moscow and Russia a great deal and makes me wish we had more time here than we do this trip - but I knew that would happen before we came. We got to see most of the city on a surface level and got to go up to the top of St. Issac's cathedral to see the whole city to boot. We'd really need a bit more time to get to explore everything though..... well, we'll be back.

For July 4th we went first to the Hermmitage and then Petrodvorets - both in another post here... talk about a trip I will always remember in detail!

posted by Wanderluster @ 10:07 PM