Day 12: St. Petersburg in Russia Travel Log

We woke up early in the morning (after having a late night the previous night) to go to Catherine’s Palace at Pushkin.

The palace was nice; we took a guided tour round the garden first, and only Viking guests were there - we had early access - so it was eerily quiet. We had fun running around the garden and seeing the “dumb waiter” mechanism. When the palace opened, La Professeure and I got separated at the cloak room and the group had to wait extra time for her. I learned how to say “she is my wife” in Russian so I could tell the guards to let her in when she arrives.

I don’t remember much about the art work hosted there - it was difficult to match the Hermitage, which we saw the day before, and I don’t remember much about the architecture - it was difficult to match the Peterhof palace, which we see the day after. But I remember it being a very cold day. And seeing the Amber room.

We then went back to the boat to have lunch. We got some time to kill, so we went out to a nearby supermarket to buy Vodka for La Professeure’s co-worker. It was an adventure, since it was really the first establishment we went to that is not geared toward tourists. Google Map’s accuracy isn’t great (the supermarket was a block off), but between that and the instruction from our Program director, we found the place. We realized that the dock the boat was in actually has a Viking sign to it.

Later in the afternoon around 2:30, we went back out to the city center for a bus tour. We stopped at the Church of Spilled Blood, and later St. Issac’s church, then finally toured the Peter and Paul Fortress grounds and the Chapel. It was a relatively cold day, but after a full day and a half of walking, I appreciated being able to sit on my butt. The bathroom at Peter and Paul fortress was interesting… It was a bus. The stalls are separated by low walls, so it reminded me of the public urinals in Amsterdam. At least here you have a roof over your head. My mother-in-law said they would give you a few squares of toilet paper when you walk into the ladies’ bus.

Afterwards, we took the bus back to the boat for dinner, and walked over to the tent on the dock for a Cossack folk dance show. The dancers were impressive; the singers, not so much. At this point I had heard the same folk songs over and over again, and was pretty sick of “Kalinka” by now. We heard it at Moscow concert of Russian traditional instruments, at Uglich with the Ark choir, on the boat with the onboard musician during cast-off party at Kizhi, during Russian language lesson, here, and at the end of the tour heard it at the Mariinsky singer’s concert.

After the concert it was already 10:30 (though it was still light out) and we had an even earlier day tomorrow.

Last updated April 24, 2020