St Petersburg – Day 2
This morning, we awoke to find ourselves still in St. Petersburg – which was a bit of a relief. If we’d drifted off in the middle of the night, that would just be embarrassing.
Day two of the two-day package saw us heading back into the city; both Tracey and myself, and three other volunteers, each assigned to a coach of roughly thirty passengers. An escort’s duties are really rather straightforward; count heads and don’t lose anybody, monitor the progress of the tour and write a full report at its conclusion, stating whether or not the itinerary had been as advertised, log any complaints and look after the welfare of the passengers under your watch. I can only recall a couple of occasions when I’ve lost people, and that’s mostly down to folks deciding they’ve had enough of the tour halfway through it, heading back to the ship without notifying either the escort or the guide. I recall spending an anxious hour or so in Portugal on one occasion, frantically scouring a little village looking for a passenger who, unbeknown to me at the time, had done just that. It eventually transpired that they’d caught a local bus back to the ship, and totally, selfishly messed up the excursion’s itinerary in the process. I’m pleased to report that, on this occasion, I was blessed with two good, largely well-behaved groups of passengers on both days in St. Petersburg; I didn’t lose anybody, and everyone stayed together… bliss!
The first part of today’s excursion was a City Tour featuring several photo stops and a visit to a souvenir shop. Our final stop of the morning being a visit to the Church on the Spilled Blood.
Typically – this being St, Petersburg – it didn’t disappoint; it’s impressive enough from the outside, with multi-coloured onion domes and brightly coloured mosaics, but when you step inside, its impressiveness is ramped up to 11. Every wall, from floor to ceiling is totally covered in intricate, and quite beautiful, mosaics. It’s become one of the top tourist attractions of the city, second only, I should imagine, to the Hermitage.
We had lunch in a science museum, which I think was called ‘Connect’. The meal was very nice (much nicer than yesterday’s) – veg soup followed by pork and wedges, all washed down with white wine. There can’t be many places where you can eat lunch with a full-sized satellite hanging above your head…
After lunch, we headed for the Hermitage (pronounced as if speaking French; it rhymes with barge…)
The Hermitage is a vast space that actually consists of 5 different palaces. If Catherine Palace was the Summer residence, then this was the winter residence – in fact, the first part of the Hermitage tour is actually through what is called the Winter Palace.
Think of any great museum you’ve ever been to (National History Museum, The Louvre), picture the hordes of visitors milling through its myriad halls bursting with goodies, and you have a mental picture of the Hermitage. It is said to be so big that if you spent one minute looking at every single exhibit, without sleep or meal breaks, then it would take you eight years to see it all.
Like Catherine’s Palace yesterday, the Hermitage features some staggeringly beautiful rooms. Interestingly enough; visitors to Catherine’s Palace are made to wear simple coverings over their footwear, to help protect the intricate marquetry of the floors. The floors in the Hermitage are just as ornate, but no foot protection is required.
The art collection alone is colossal, with several galleries bursting with well-known classical artists. They are very proud of their Michelangelo and two works by Leonardo De Vinci, both of which had crowds of folk vying for a good position to take photographs. I watched as a crowd of Japanese tourists burst into one of the rooms, looking to all intent and purposes like a human wave. I swear they would happily have climbed over each other to get to the front, with their eager little faces and clutching their expensive cameras and plastic selfie-sticks. Naturally, once they managed to get in front of the paintings, they insist on taking a picture with themselves stood next to it (ruining any possibility of anyone taking a tourist-less photo until they’d finished).
There is so much to see in the Hermitage it would be impossible to list them all; even picking highlights is a challenge. The guide for our group was fantastic, very knowledgeable and highly professional in the way she managed to keep the group together; more importantly, she had a good sense of humour.
Two days isn’t really enough to get under the skin of St. Petersburg, but it does give you an opportunity to appreciate its architecture and colourful history. I felt priviledged to be able to visit it again, and found it to be a thoroughly captivating place. I look forward to being able, hopefully, to visit it again someday…
