I love St Petersburg

Welcome to the Hermitage

2408 Miles GMT +3 hours Temp -6

I was up early this morning like an excited kid on Christmas Day, St Petersburg is fabuuuulous. I love the sense of history, standing in the cradle of the revolution, amongst other things.

The long awaited visit to the Hemitage Museum, one of the oldest and largest galleries/museums in the world, founded by Catherine the Great in 1764, and open to the public since 1852. The collection contains around 3,000,000 items, thankfully we don't want to see all of them. Apparently in the summer you can queue outside for several hours just to get inside, but only ten mins this morning. 

Cupid and Psyche

Once inside the building alone is spectacular, ceilings, walls and floors are works of art in their own right. We all spent some time last night marking out the must sees on a museum plan, but needless to say it's difficult to stick to it as there is so much to distract the eye, especially mine. The high light today for me were the sculptures by Canova, Cupid and Psyche, The Three Graces, and the Penitent Magdalene - simply stunning. 

However after four hours we've reached our limit of being able to take in what we're seeing, and we have two day tickets, so can return on Tuesday – it’s closed tomorrow.

Lunch, Lena asks if we want to try a traditional Russian works canteen - lead on comrade. The canteen belongs to the Herzen Institute, but is open to anyone. It's very busy and basic, but it's warm and the food is excellent, with soup, main course and a salad costing just over £10 for all of us.

The Aurora

Vitaly

Our next stop is a the Cruiser Aurora, which on 25th October 1917 refused to carry out an order to put to sea, which sparked the October Revolution. She is officially still on active service, even though she was launched in 1900, but underwent a major restoration between 1984-7, including a new hull. One of the interesting things found during that work was that some of the parts of the original ship, including armour plates, were made in England. Wye aye man, probably Swan Hunters. We were the only visitors at he time, so had a really excellent guided tour courtesy of Vitaly, one of the ships crew.

A brisk walk in the snow to the St Petersburg Mosque, whose large blue dome is easily seen on the horizon. The foundation stone was laid in 1910 and completed in 1921. It was closed from 1940 to 1956 by Soviet authorities and used as a warehouse. We didn't venture in as prayers were in progress, but the external mosaics were beautiful and the afternoon moon rising above the dome was just the icing on the blue cup cake.

St Peter and St Paul Fortress

A short walk to St Peter & St Paul Fortress, which is situated on Zayachy Island on the Neva river. It was originally built of wood in 1703, but the building we see today was built between 1706 and 1740. The fortress contains several notable buildings within its substantial walls, including St Peter & St Paul Cathedral (built 1712-1733). The Cathedral is the burial place of all Russian Tsars from Peter I to Alexander III. The remains of Nicholas II and his family were also interred here, in St Catherine's Chapel, on the 80th anniversary of their deaths, July 17th 1998. There is also a functioning mint, as well as the city museum. I'm running out of superlatives for the buildings and contents here, and it's only the first day.

It's a really nice city to walk around, there is so much to see, and we took in some of the canals this evening, which give St Petersburg its alternative name of the Venice of the North. The peasants revolted on cooking this evening, and we've been to a Ukranian cafe off the beaten track on the way home. Again the food was excellent, complete with patron sitting in the corner playing a balalaika.

We have spent the rest of the evening at home, talking laughing and eating chocolate. We’re off to the opera tomorrow night, to see Madame Butterfly at the Marinsky Theatre, we’re in the cheap seats, as we haven’t packed our furs and frocks.

NB: the photo gallery is now being updated daily.