2019 Healy World Cruise : Wednesday July 3

Today we began with a city tour and saw the famous Nevsky Avenue. They have trolley trams running through this and many other streets. We saw what was a Catholic Church but is now an Orthodox Church, built in the style of St Peter’s in Rome. An Orthodox service was going on there. At these services, the Russian people must stand very straight for the length of the service which can take several hours. We then took a boat ride along the canal and the Neva river. This city is often called the Venice of the North because of its copious quaint bridges and natural canals.

After this we visited the Hermitage Museum. This consists of five magnificent buildings used by Catherine the Great. She started with the Hermitage palace and as she needed more room!!!! she added more buildings next door until the hermitage consisted of five palaces altogether. One was a theatre. One was called the small hermitage and was built so that Catherine could have her lovers visit her in secret. The main building was the Tsar’s former Winter Palace. It oozes gold, and has the most beautiful parquet floors, and painted ceilings. It now houses over three million art works, including paintings by Da Vinci, Monet, Rembrandt and Renoir. There were many gracious statues by Antonio Canova.

Kate told us that so much gold was used in the building because St Petersburg is usually dull, with no light for many months of the year. The gold gave some brightness in an otherwise dull world. We were lucky today. Every hour of the day was 80% chance of rain, but it did not rain until we were safely back on deck and sailing out of this unforgettable city. One Rembrandt painting of a naked woman was partially destroyed by a madman who entered the building about four years ago and threw acid at the painting. As a result no water bottles are now allowed in the museum.

After this we travelled to the Village of the Tsars called Pushkin. Pushkin stayed here at the summer residence of Catherine the Great in the nineteenth century. The castle is baroque in style and has room after room that are what I call “ooh aah” rooms. Some of the rooms are modeled on the hall of mirrors at Versailles, only these are bigger and grander. As Kate said, the Russians like to impress. One room is called the Amber room because the walls are covered in amber. Russia had plenty of amber in ancient times but it is expensive now because there is none left. It comes from pine trees that have been left to decay for over two million years. The best amber has been left in the ground for six million years.

Even though we were tired after our five days in a row touring we could not miss the professional singers and dancers from the ship who performed Bellissima tonight. Michael and Rachel are superb singers. I particularly liked the Spanish dance and the Irish dancing. After this we got second wind and went to the jazz show in the atrium. A wonderful time in St. Petersburg.