Baltic Cruise: St. Petersburg Day 1

JUNE 2016

Our Baltic Cruise included a once in a lifetime destination: St. Petersburg, Russia! Typically, as US Citizens, in order to visit Russia we would have to get a visa by sending our passports to a Russian Embassy, plus pay about $250 each. Since we can't really be without our passports for an extended period of time (#travelprobs), we opted to book an excursion with the cruise line. Cruises are an exception to the visa rule, as long as you are on an excursion. We decided to fork up the big bucks (not much more than the price of the visa) and do a full two day tour of St. Petersburg.

Russia is locked down, even for cruisegoers. We had to meet in the main theater of the boat about an hour before our excursion start time, then after half an hour of cruise employees reminding everyone to "bring your passports," we waited outside at the immigration office on land. One by one, we had to meet face to face with a Russian immigration officer while they didn't smile and thoroughly examined and recorded information from our passports. Thank goodness we had an early tour and only waited about 30 minutes... some people waited for over an hour!

The semi-downside to our excursion was that we saw a lot of St. Petersburg via bus. Of course, it was a great way to get around all of the important sights, but unfortunately I didn't get a ton of pictures of St. Petersburg itself. Of the photos I did get, I apologize in advance for the poor quality/reflection/crookedness!

Our first stop was also the farthest stop from the port- the Peterhof Palace. This was the summer residence for the Russian royal family, and is best known for its beautiful gardens. We began the tour by viewing a few rooms within the palace (no photos allowed), and then spent the majority of our time exploring the Peterhof gardens. It was a beautiful day, and all of the gilded decorations were really shining!

Throughout St. Petersburg, it was clear that this city was molded after Venice and Amsterdam. Peter the Great built this city along man made canals in the hopes of building one of the great port cities of Northern Europe. He loved canals so much, that he built this one through his gardens right up to his summer residence - quite a driveway!

We boarded the bus and headed on our way to a traditional Russian lunch. While the setup was pretty touristy, it was kind of nice because we were the only tour group there at the time so it didn't get too loud or crazy.

Looks a little German to me...

The food was less than spectacular, but the drinks and dessert were delicious! The meal started with Russian champagne and a simple salad. As with everywhere else in Europe, the salad included no dressing, just a little oil drizzled on top.

Our next course was incredibly bland. Pictured below, it was a soggy breaded chicken breast with white rice. I thought the ketchup on the side would have made it a little bit better since it was already on the plate when they served us, but nope. Just like the chicken, the ketchup sauce was watery and runny. We ate it quickly, and kept our eyes on the prize: DESSERT.

Do I still dream about this dessert? Potentially. It looks like a simple pastry, but the inside had a cream that was sent straight from heaven. Imagine delicious Wilton buttercream icing, but more of a thick, whipped consistency. It was basically like fried icing, and it was brilliant. After we finished our desserts, we are offered vodka shots. I opted out of them, since I simply felt like I didn't have enough food in my stomach, and I'm too much of a lightweight!

After our lunch, we were conveniently dropped off at a souvenir store in the city. Our tour guide told us that we would have another opportunity to shop the next day, so we shopped without feeling too much pressure. The store we went to had Faberge eggs, shirts, magnets, amber jewelry, Christmas trinkets (centered around the Russian version of "Father Frost" and his "snowman helpers"), and most impressively, Matryoshka dolls, better known as Russian nesting dolls. We found our magnet (which we collect in every city), and spent most of our time admiring and deciding which Matryoshka doll to take home with us. Normally we don't purchase larger souvenir items like the nesting dolls, but this will probably be our only trip to Russia, so we decided to go big!

These just crack me up!

Our final stop for the day was at the Hermitage Museum. Originally, the Hermitage was the winter palace for Catherine the Great (a few generations after Peter the Great). This museum has been open to the public for almost 200 years, and offers insight to palatial rooms as well as art from around the world.

We had to wait about half an hour even though we had a group reservation, because it was the afternoon and the museum was BUSY. Once we got through the entrance, the shoulder to shoulder traffic began.

As if the exterior wasn't grand enough, from the moment we passed through the entrance hall, the grandeur seemed to grow exponentially. This was just the first staircase we encountered:

The Russians definitely didn't skimp on the details, and all of those details are real gold leaf. As we climbed the stairs of the palace, I couldn't help but think about those large 19th century dresses worn by royalty, and how it was probably not easy to go up and down this staircase!

We were ushered through ballrooms upon ballrooms, and as exquisite as they were, after a while, all of the golden rooms and chandeliers began to look the same. Also, since we've visited the main palaces in Austria, we can't help but notice rococo style (white walls with golden trims and details) when we see it. It's interesting to see how some of the style trends have translated into different cultures.

One of our final stops in the state rooms was in the Hermitage chapel. Surprisingly, Russian Orthodox churches are very small. There are no pews, therefore worshippers stand during the service, and not much space is needed. All of the Russian Orthodox churches we saw had very grand altarpieces at the front of the church, with lots of golden mosaics and paintings of individual saints and other church icons. The chapel in the Hermitage was one of the only Russian Orthodox churches we visited that allowed photos. Also in this chapel was the bloodied uniform of Alexander II, which he was wearing when he was assassinated. Eerie.

As we continued to be ushered through the many rooms of the Hermitage, they started to slowly go from gilded ballrooms and studies to large rooms full of art from around the world.

Room after room, after room...

The entire art collection spans 120 rooms on two floors, with paintings, sculptures, and drawings from the 13th to 20th centuries. So yeah, it's got a lot of art. We didn't walk through every single room, but I would say we went through about 25 of them. 

Ciao, Da Vinci!

There were lots of crowds surrounding the more famous pieces, so I thought I would just share a Da Vinci piece with y'all. This is one of two pieces in the museum, and we had to work HARD at shoving our way to get within viewing distance. So enjoy this painting, because taking this photo took blood, sweat, and tears! 

We wrapped up our tour with this beautiful view of the palace square. During the day we were there, the city was showing some of their historical military vehicles on the square. We exited the Hermitage and ended up having an extra 15 minutes or so in the plaza since we lost a few people, and we took advantage of the opportunity and saw some of the vehicles up close. Luckily, our tour group members were found quickly. Of all of the places to get lost, I think anywhere in Russia would be the absolute worst!

We were running about half an hour late, and after a short and sweet bus ride, we successfully passed back through immigration and boarded the boat. We ate a quick dinner in the main dining hall, and headed straight to our room to prepare for our next day in St. Petersburg!

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