Day 9: St. Petersburg

POSTBOX


ST. ISAAC'S CATHEDRAL

Sunrise: 5:08 a.m. Sunset: 10:44 p.m.
Depature: 6:00 p.m.

Today's Treat: Chocolate Chip Muffins
Today's Towel Animal: Difficult to identify but I'll just call it Sad Sack because it is kinda droopy and sad looking.

Sunny, warm and hazy. I woke up with a crick in my neck. Did I sleep funny or was it that bump on the gangway yesterday morning? We took a walking tour in the morning with Larissa as a guide. In actuality, we rode in the bus more than we walked. We started off at St. Isaac's Cathedral. Since this was familiar territory, I took the opportunity to mail postcards in blue post box nearby, my only unescorted venture during two days in St. Petersburg. From St. Isaac's Cathedral we rode bus just a block away and walked for about 10 minutes through a park to Decembrist's Square and the Admiralty. Considered to be the arhictectural center of the city, The Admiralty was a shipbuilding center in the 1840s and is now home to the Naval Academy. From here we took a short walk to the top end of Nevksy Prospect, the main street in St. Petersburg. We walked across Nevsky Prospect and on over to Palace Square, a huge elegantly designed plaza that has borne witness to important events of imperialist as well as revolutionary Russia.

We boarded the bus again for a short ride to Mikhailovsky Plaza where we saw Mikhailovsky Castle, a statue of Alexander Pushkin and a very scenic view of one of St. Petersburg's many canals.

Another short hop on the bus brought us to the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood. The first time I read the name of the church I thought there must have been a misprint. But, no, that is the name of this highly ornate, incredibly colorful church dedicated to Alexander II who was killed by a terrorsist's bomb on the site in 1881. The church is topped by a confection of brightly colored and playfully patterned onion domes. There was no time for us to enter the church, now a museum, as we had to board the bus again for a ride back to the ship.

We arrived back to port at 12:45 p.m. We needed to report for our afternoon tour at 1:15 p.m. so it was a mad dash through passport control, back onto the ship, here we took a bathroom break, gulped down lunch and made a mad dash back to the buses. We had booked the Canals and Rivers tour for the afternoon. My neck was quite sore by now, not helped by the fact that I bumped my head, again, on the gangway leaving the ship for our second excursion. Doh!

Before embarking on our canal tour we paid a visit to St. Peter and Paul Fortress. The Fortress was built in 1704 to defend St. Petersburg from Sweden. It was never used for its original purpose (the war against Sweden was won at another front upriver) but was put to use mainly as a political prison under the czars. The Fortress is located on an island almost directly across the Neva river from the Winter Palace. Many of the buildings within the Fortress grounds are now tourist attractions and the banks of the island on which it sits are a favorite spot for sunbathers, out in force on this rare bright sunny day. We entered Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, an elegant atypical Russian Orthodox church. Instead of the usual onion domes it sports a tall thin gilded spire, making it the city's highest structure. Inside the church looked more like a palace to me than a place of worhip. All the Russian czars are buried in Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral. The remains of the Romanov family, who were executed in 1918, were buried there in 1998 in a special room. From the Cathedral we visited a former prison building that is now a print shop. We saw some beautiful prints and wonderful old printing presses that are still in use today. We took a short walk out near the banks of the island while our tour guide, Marina, spoke of the history of the Fortress. While she spoke I noticed a caricature artist busily making a sketch of someone in our tour group. I looked from the artist to our group and realized he was making a sketch of Brad! By the time our tour guide finished her talk the artist had finished his sketch and showed it to Brad who laughed but did not buy the sketch, even after the artist offered it to him "as a present."

After our visit to the Fortress we boarded a boat for a tour of the rivers and canals of St. Petersburg. We sat on top and could not hear the tour guide above the roar of the engine. The boat cruised under all kinds of bridges fancy and plain, some of which had such low arches I felt compelled to duck my head as we passed under them. We passed the Aurora Cruiser, famous for its role in the Bolshevik Revolution -- it was from there on Nov. 7, 1917 that the shot signalling the storming of the Winter Palace was fired. We passed by many other buildings, some rundown, others prim and fancy palaces and really enjoyed seeing the sights from this new vantage point.

We arrived back to the boat at 5 p.m. Dinner began at 6, so we each took a quick shower and changed for a smart casual dinner. Jerry and Jimmy joined us again. They had taken a private tour with a guide/driver. Lucky them. Entertainment tonight was a magician, Drew Thomas. His act was pretty impressive. We're invited to an invitation-only performance by Drew on Wednesday night at 10 p.m. Hope I can stay up late enough for it.

Tomorrow we make our final port of call, Tallinn, Estonia. My gosh, the time is going by so quickly!