Day 23 - Tour Day 12 – Relaxed Start - Thu 25 July 2019 – High Speed Train to Moscow.

Sunrise:         4:22am                                              Sunset:          8:49pm

Forecast:       16 to 24 and partly cloudy in St Petersburg.  17 to 22 & light rain in Moscow

A very relaxing day for me today. I went down to breakfast at 8am and left the breakfast room  around 9am. I went back to my room and got everything ready for my 12 noon checkout and then went downstairs to read my book (first real chance since arriving in Europe) and people watch for an hour or so. Back to my room around 11:45am to get my bags and then checked out.

I then left the bags in the luggage room and went for a walk over to the mall with Bianca, as I needed to get off my butt, as it is a travel day. 

Come 2pm we were all on the bus, which drove us about 500 metres to drop us off on the other side of the road. We collected our hand luggage from under the bus and then walked the few metres to the station. 

I should explain that the road that the hotel is on, has 3 lanes of traffic going in both directions and if you are crossing the road on foot, you need to use the pedestrian crossings, which are timed crossing’s, as are all the intersection lights in St. Petersburg. Plus, the crossing’s are about 2 blocks apart.

We had to pass through 2 security checks before getting on to the platform. We are all in coach/car #9. Once we were all seated it was just a matter of waiting about 10 minutes before the train departed exactly at 3pm. AND I am really cross with myself, as I never took a photo of the train. :(

Sapsan is a modern high-speed train of German quality constructed by Siemens in 2009. Its speed goes up to 250km/h.  Sapsan trains take less than 4 hours on the Moscow - St. Petersburg journey. Over 10 Sapsan trains are regularly communiting between the two cities, from early in the morning to late in the evening. Usually there are 10 cars per train, offering different classes of service from economy to business. Recently, there has been a new 20-car Sapsan train where every type of car is doubled in quantity.

The above is from their website.  Our train only had 9 cars.

The train made 2 stops on the way to Moscow and was only stopped at both stations for 1 minute, then on its way again. 

A view from the fast moving train

A view from the fast moving train

It rained for a short while, when we were at the first stop but the outside temperature was still in the low 20’s. 

The highest speed that the train was doing, that  I noticed on the screen, was 229km/h.

The train arrived in Moscow on time at 6:45 and we were all on the Insight bus by 7pm and departing the station area.  There are 9 train stations ("vok`zal" in Russian) in Moscow and all of them are located in Moscow center. The three train stations: "Kazanski", "Yaroslavki" and "Leningradski" are located at the same area next to "Komsomolskaya" metro station (north-east center). Yaroslavsky train station is where the Trans-Siberian trains depart from, while Leningradsky station serves St. Petersburg trains. 

Kazanski Station

It only took 30 minutes to get to the hotel, which is the best hotel so far. 

 I’ll try to remember to take some photo’s tomorrow of the ‘common’ areas in the hotel. It is one of the The Seven Sisters.  Stalin's high-rises are a group of seven skyscrapers in Moscow designed in the Stalinist style.  They were built from 1947 to 1953 in an elaborate combination of Russioan Baroque and Gothic Styles.  The towers are inspired by the Giralda, the medieval tower of the cathedral of Sevilla.   At the time of construction they were the tallest buildings in Europe, and the main building of Moscow State University remained the tallest building in Europe until 1997.

Our bags were already in our rooms when we got there.  I quickly took photos of the room and the view.

Checked out the amenities and then went down to the bar to have my nighcap with Nicole.  Diane came along shortly after and joined us.  She ordered french fries for her dinner.  I had bought some almonds and dried apricots from the supermarket yesterday, and had been snacking on them on the train, so didn’t feel like eating anything.  Though, I did enjoy the olives and crackers that came with the “black russian” cocktail I had. After that, it was back to my room to unpack clothes for the next couple of days, including what to wear on the plane home on Sunday.

The security in this hotel is tight.  You go through the outer entrance door and then pass through a security detector similar to air port security. Like a lot og hotel now days, you need to enter your room key in the elevator before entering your floor and then on the 8^thfloor (I don’t know about the other floors) you need to insert your room key in a door, that allows you to get to the hallways that the rooms are on. That is a first for me.

Steps Walked                     5,277

Hotel: Radisson Collection Hotel Moscow.

Meals: Breakfast

Day 22 - Tour Day 11 - Wednesday 24 July 2019 - The Hermitage Museum.

Sunrise:         4:20am                                              Sunset:          9:48pm

Forecast:       13 to 22 AM showers and cloudy

I went down to breakfast around 7:30 this morning and put my bag out when I went down.  It was gone when I came back to the room.  

We departed at 9:20 for our optional Neva river cruise.  I like seeing cities from the water, if there is the optionto do so. The navy is celebrating their Navy Day here in St. Petersburg next Sunday, July 28^, and they have been practicing this week, closing some roads etc.  There are 4 ships, Destroyers (I think) anchored in the river, with all their flags flying from front to back.

This is the blurb about it. A striking event will be the main parade of the Navy. It will be attended by warships of four Russian naval fleets — the Baltic, Northern, Black Sea and Pacific, Caspian divisions, as well as naval aviation. In the first, historical part of the parade will participate artillery boats. They will pass along the Neva River and carry the flags of heroic formations that defended the sea borders of our Motherland during the Great Patriotic War.
In the second part of the parade, modern ships of the Russian Navy will demonstrate combat power. Here you will see the latest models of weapons. In addition, aircraft and helicopters of naval aviation will take part in the Main Naval Parade. In the sky over St. Petersburg will fly planes, fighters of the last generation.

Celebrations will traditionally end with a festive concert, which will be held at the Palace Square, as well as fireworks in the waters of the Neva.

The Peter & Paul Fortress viewed from the river

In 1917, as the main training ship of the Baltic fleet, the Aurora took an active part in the Revolution. On the night of October 25-26 1917, it fired a blank shot at the Winter Palace (then the residence of the Provisional Government), giving the signal to the rebellious workers, soldiers and sailors of the city to storm the palace. That moment triggered a dramatic episode in Russia's history and was the start of over 70 years of Communist leadership. 

The Aurora is now maintained by cadets from the nearby Nakhimov Navy School. 

Once the cruise was finished, we walked over to the Winter Palace, where we had a 12:30pm entry time. Julia, the local guide pointed out a few eateries, as it was just before 11am and then Anna told us where the bus would be if we wanted a lift back to the hotel and at what time we needed to be there 2:45pm.   We were meeting at 12 noon at the column,

to have our group photo taken before entering the Hermitage Museum.  Someone asked "which column". I'm hoping it was a tongue-in-cheek question. 😕

The Square is immense, as are a lot of things in St Petersburg.

Nicole & I wandered off and found a café and just had french fries for lunch (165 rubles). Whlle we were there another dozen or so people from the tour arrived to grab a bite to eat.

We eventaully gathered for the group photo but not all of us. We were lined up ready to have our group photo taken and Anna was counting us and 1 person was missing.  Anna went off for a walk around the column, in case the person was standing somewhere else, which she was.  Finally had our photo taken and we headed around to the other side of the Winter Palace to start our visit.

Seems like lunch time is the best time for entering the Hermitage, as the queues are fairly short. 

 I think all up, it probably took 15 minutes to enter and then go through the security screening, instead of the often hour plus waits. No bottles of water allowed in the museum. I had drunk all my water, so just put the empty bottle one the table near the screening guy and after passing through, asked for my empty bottle back. Thankfully he spoke English and when he checked that it was empty, I got my bottle back.

We then started the tour. 

One of our solo ladies from the Florida, walks at a slower pace than most of us, and after we went up the first staircase, she lost track of the group, so when she realised that we had vanished from view, she did her own thing in the museum. I was talking to her earlier this evening and she has been here before and she knew where the bus was parked and what time we needed to be on it, if we wanted a lift back to the hotel, so all was good as far as she was concerned.

After our 1.5hr guided tour, Nicole & I found the exit and just sat on a seat in the gardens around part of the Winter Palace and people watched. Neither of us wanted to do any souvenir shopping and it was much cooler outside that the hot & stuffy conditions inside, with all those people milling around.  Julia was saying that they don’t have air conditioning because it is bad for the paintings.  I’m just wondering what the thousands of hot and sweaty humans breathing, is doing to the paintings. 

The bus had us back to the hotel by about 3.15ish.  

A couple of policemen, discussing something.

The traffic here is full on and I have heard that it is worse in  Moscow. After dropping some things in my room, I then went over to the shopping mall across the road, to buy some snacks for the train trip tomorrow afternoon and something to eat for dinner this evening.

I went down to the bar at 7 for a nightcap and Diane was there, ordering some bar food for her dinner and drinking a ‘White Russian’.  I ordered a ‘Black Russian’.   Nicole arrived and the 3 of us chatted for a couple of hours.  

Another free morning for me tomorrow, as I don’t have to check out until 12 noon. Depending on the weather, I’m planning on going for a walk around the neighbourhood.

Steps Walked                     8,421

Hotel: Crowne Plaza St. Petersburg, Ligovsky

Day 21 - Tour Day 10 - Relaxed Start - Tue 23 July 2019 - Petrodvorets by hydrofoil.

Sunrise:         4:18am                                              Sunset:          9:50pm

Forecast:       13 to 22 AM showers 40%

I didn’t realise that there was a problem viewing videos on the blog.  I’ve now sorted that.  It helps if I upload things the correct way.

A very leisurely start to the morning.  Those not doing the optional have free time until 12 noon, when they will be picked up from the hotel and brought to where the rest of the group are.  Those doing the optional excursion don’t leave the hotel until 9:50, so a late start for all.

I didn’t go down to breakfast until 7:30 and caught up with Nicole and also Bill, before going back to my room. I also discovered that the hotel offers champagne with breakfast. Might have an omelette with champagne tomorrow for breakfast.

One of the women who arrived on Sunday, went back to the hotel early yesterday, as she wasn’t feeling well, so it was good to see her on the coach this morning.

We got away on time and were at the Savior on the Spilled Blood Church/Museum about 15 or so minutes before they opened their gates at 10:30.

I managed to get a photo of Kristina and Peter, even though she did poke her tongue out. 

 The place was swarming with tourists. Nothing like when we ‘viewed’ the outside the other morning.  What a difference an hour or so makes.

Church of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is known to Petersburgers as the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood - or even just the Church on the Blood - as it marks the spot where Alexander II was fatally wounded in an assassination attempt on March 1, 1881. Designed by Alfred Parland in the style of 16th and 17th-century Russian churches, the Church of the Resurrection provides a stark (some would say jarring) contrast to its surroundings of Baroque, Classical and Modernist architecture.

Quite spectacular inside and so many mosaics. 

Julie, once again imparting enough information without overloading us with information. 

We headed to St. Isaacs Cathedral at 11:15 and arrived there shortly after.

St. Isaac's Cathedral was originally the city's main church and the largest cathedral in Russia. It was built between 1818 and 1858, by the French-born architect Auguste Montferrand, to be one of the most impressive landmarks of the Russian Imperial capital. One hundred and eighty years later the gilded dome of St. Isaac's still dominates the skyline of St. Petersburg.

The cathedral's facades are decorated with sculptures and massive granite columns (made of single pieces of red granite), while the interior is adorned with incredibly detailed mosaic icons, paintings and columns made of malachite and lapis lazuli. A large, brightly colored stained glass window of the "Resurrected Christ" takes pride of place inside the main altar. The church, designed to accommodate 14,000 standing worshipers, was closed in the early 1930s and reopened as a museum. Today, church services are held here only on major ecclesiastical occasions.

Another spectacular Cathedral/Museum.

We then had free time to have some lunch, before meeting again at the bus at 1:30pm,  to be taken to the hydrofoil that took us to Peter the Great's summer residence of. Petrodvorets, where we arrived around 2:30ish. 

The bus had picked up the people who weren't on the tour this morning and delivered them to St Isaacs Cathedral Square, so we were all together for the afternoon included tour for about an hour and then had free time until 4pm and it took most of our free time to walk to where the bus would pick us up from.  We only saw a very small part of the lower gardens, non of the upper gardens or the imperial palace.  I know that there is such a lot to see in St. Petersburg but more time should be spent at these gardens, in my humble opinion.

It took just over an hour to get back to the hotel and then there was another Bon Voyage gathering in the hotel bar aT 6pm.  This one was much better than the one held in Vilnius. This time there were some bar nibbles as well as the glass of vino or soft drink.

I eventually left it at 7:30 to come back to my room.

We have to have our main luggage out by 8am tomorrow morning, 24^thJuly, as it will go on the coach to Moscow tomorrow, even though we don’t catch the train to Moscow until 3pm Thursday 25^th. So some luggage re-arranging will be done by most of us tonight.

Steps Walked                     13,040

Hotel: Crowne Plaza St. Petersburg, Ligovsky

Meals: Buffet Breakfast

Nikita Khrushchev apartments

I have fixed up the video not working problem. 

Our guide Julia was telling us today about Khrushchev's goal of making modern apartments available to as many Soviet families as possible and pointed out an apartment block as we drove past it.

Not sure how many windows in each apartment. I think she said living space is about 20 square metres for a 1 bedroom apartment.

Khrushchev apartments are a type of low-cost, cement-paneled or brick three- to five-storied apartment building which was developed in the USSR during the early 1960s, during the time its namesake Nikita Khrushchev directed the Soviet government.

Day 20 - Tour Day 9 – Monday 22 July 2019 - St. Petersburg Sightseeing.

Sunrise:         4:16am                                              Sunset:          9:52pm

Forecast :      13 to 25 and sunny

Absolutely beautiful day weather wise today.

St. Petersburg is a Russian port city on the Baltic Sea. It was the imperial capital for 2 centuries, having been founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, subject of the city's iconic “Bronze Horseman” statue. It remains Russia's cultural center, with venues such as the Mariinsky Theatre hosting opera and ballet, and the State Russian Museum showcasing Russian art, from Orthodox icon paintings to Kandinsky works.

St Petersburg became Petrograd in 1914, then Leningrad in 1924 and in 1991 it became St Petersburg again.

We got away on time for the included city tour and drove around viewing various palaces and churches. Got off the bus at the church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood to take photos.

From there we then crossed over the river and had a "comfort break" at a souvenir shop where we could use the facilities and buy a drink plus souvenirs if you wanted to buy. 

From there we continued on to the Peter & Paul Fortress. We arrived there just as it opened at 10am. 

The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini's designs from 1706 to 1740 as a star fortress. In the early 1920s, it was still used as a prison and execution ground by the Bolshevik government.

We visited the Peter and Paul Cathedral and Grand Ducal Burial Chapel.

Peter and Paul Cathedral is the symbolic center of Russia because it is the burial place of many of the imperial family. For two hundred years all Russian rulers from Peter I to Nicolas II (except Peter II and Ivan VI) and their families were buried here. The locations of the graves are marked by sarcophagi made of white Carrara marble. The lids of the tombs are decorated with large bronze cross coated in pure gold, tombs of the rulers have four bronze emblems of the Russian Empire at four corners. Sarcophagi of Emperor Alexander II

and his wife Maria Alexandrovna

were replaced by those made of green Altai jasper and pink Urals rhodonite in 1906. The remains of the last Russian Emperor Nicolas II and members of his family, who were shot under the town of Ekaterinburg by local Bolsheviks on 17 July 1918, were buried in the Catherine’s Chapel of Peter and Paul Cathedral on 17 July 1998.

Julia, our local guide, who is with us for the next couple of days, is very good. 

After that visit, the few people who were not doing the optional out to the palace, were dropped off the bus with Anna at 10:45 and the rest of us continued out to the country side.

We picked up our 2nd guide, Dasha, at 11:30. At the Pavlovsk Palace, they only allow 25 people at a time into each room, so we will be split into 2 groups for the visit.

11:40 and on the outskirts of the city and there are huge grassy parks and huge supermarkets. I think we passed under the spaghetti junction highway that we drove in on yesterday. The road we are on leads to the airport. There looks like new apartment blocks are being built out this way.

We arrived in the town of Pushkin around 11:50 and it is a pretty town. Lots of green parks around.  We drove past the Catherine Palace Gardens and finally  arrived at the Pavlovsk Palace at 12:10.  It’s actually outside the city limits of Pushkin.

Povlovsk Palace

is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by the order of Catherine the Great for her son, Grand Duke Paul, in Pavlovsk, within Saint Petersburg. 

It was built by Charles Cameron between 1782 and 1786. When Paul I ascended the throne, the simplicity of the Palace no longer satisfied him and he commissioned Vincenzo Brenna to enlarge the complex.  After his death, it became the home of his widow, Maria Feodorovna. They had 10 children together.  

A portrait of the family. One daughter had died and that is the bust in the centre background.

The building works continued on up until 1820.

Soon after the October Revolution (1917) it was converted into an art and history museum and it became one of the most visited  museum complexes.

It suffered tremendous damage during the 1941-1945 war. The Nazis plundered the palace and before retreating, they burnt the palace down.  Restoration and reconstruction work was begun immediately after the war. Many decades seemed to be needed to restore the complex. This giganic work is now close to its completion. Nowadays thousands of Russian and foreign visitors come to see Pavlovsk reborn and beautiful as ever.

There was a flower appreciation exhibition at the palace.

Our tour lasted about 1.5 hrs and we were on the bus back to Saint Petersburg by 2pm.  We arrived at the hotel just after 3pm.

I finally got off my backside and went for a walk to the Anichkov Bridge.  I was hoping to get further but the walk from the hotel took me ½ an hour and I didn’t leave until 5 and was meeting Nicole at 6:45 for a drink in the bar, so took photos of the statues on the bridge and then walked back to the hotel.

The Anichkov Bridge is the oldest and most famous bridge across the Fontanka River in Saint Petersburg.  The current bridge, built in 1841-42 and reconstructed in 1906-08, combines a simple form with some spectacular decorations. It is one of the architectural highlights of Nevsky Prospekt, and essential viewing for any visitor to St. Petersburg, both for the spectacular views of the surrounding palaces from the vantage point of its humped back, and for the famous sculptures - the Horse Tamers - that crown its four corners.

One of the 4 statues 

After meeting Nicole for a drink, we then went over the road to the shopping mall and bought some things from the supermarket there. Back to the hotel. Had a nightcap and I’m now catching up on the journal.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the old part of Saint Petersburg is built on a marsh and over the years, the buildings are slowly sinking.

Steps down to the store and the window is almost at street level.

I spotted this creative parking when returning from the shopping mall and I thought the Italians were the best.

Steps Walked                     8646

Hotel: Crowne Plaza St. Petersburg, Ligovsky.