St. Petersburg, Russia

St. Petersburg, Russia - July 11-12

Our time in St. Petersburg was heavily scheduled, as there was so much to pack in, and all of the tours needed to be guided. St. Petersburg is not a place for cruise passengers to navigate on their own. We had signed up for an early, all day shore excursion and noticed that the meeting time was a half hour before our scheduled departure at 8:00 AM, whereas our meeting time in Tallinn was only 15 minutes before our scheduled departure. Thinking we had more than ample time to get to our bus if we arrived a couple of minutes after the meeting time, we lagged a bit, but soon realized that after disembarking the ship we had to go through immigration and wait in a long line before we could get to our tour bus. Visiting Russia was a much bigger deal than all of our other ports, and security much tighter.

That was the first of many lines that day, and several long waits. Despite the long wait to get through passport control, we boarded our bus in plenty of time and settled in for the hour long ride out into the countryside to visit Catherine’s Palace, where we waited for ages just to enter the building.

Catherine's Palace

There were several large tour groups ahead of us, and the docents were metering people in verrrrrrrry sloooowwwwllly. We assembled in the sprawling courtyard as we waited, and admired the ornate blue, white and gilded gold facade of the elegant building. Finally inside, we donned the mandatory shoe covers and slowly made our way through room after room of splendor and ostentation as crowds of tourists elbowed each other out of the way to capture the perfect selfie in front of a sparkling golden mirror or beside a classical marble statue.

The most famous room in the palace is the Amber Room, where the panels of all the walls are covered, floor-to-ceiling in this semi-precious stone. Impressive as it was, it was actually a reconstruction, as the Nazis stole all of the panels during World War II and allegedly smuggled them to Paraguay, never to be seen again. 

Ewan hated every moment in the palace and made no attempt to conceal his disdain. I didn’t really blame him, as the crowds most certainly detracted from my enjoyment as well. After our tour of Catherine’s Palace we stopped for lunch nearby and then headed to Pavlosk, a smaller palace nearby that Catherine the Great had given as a gift to her son Paul when his son was born.

Pavlosk

This palace was smaller and thankfully less crowded, and also less grandiose though there were still plenty of baroque splendour: intricate chandeliers, fancy china table settings, marble statues, Corinthian columns, and gilded wooden carvings. My favorite though, were the tromp l’oeil paintings above our heads that made the flat ceilings appear to arch up into the heavens.

Tromp l'oeil ceilings are actually flat, but painted
to create an optical illusion that the ceiling is arched

After almost eight hours of touring, Ewan was only too happy to head back to the ship (after once again going through the lines at passport control before reboarding) to meet Grandma and Grandpa, who had taken a different tour that day, but had offered to watch him that evening for us so that we could go for an evening shore excursion which was an exclusive guided tour of the Hermitage art museum, which was closed to the public, but open to less than 200 or so lucky Holland America passengers. I had heard about the Hermitage from my in-laws, who had been there a decade or so earlier, but I didn’t realize the scale of incredible treasures it held. This world-class museum is housed in what was the Royal Family’s Winter Palace, right along the Neva River, and began as Catherine the Great’s personal collection in 1764.

Hermitage

The building itself is a work of art, with its ornate carved staircases, incredible parquet flooring that mirrors the designs of the intricately carved ceilings in perfect symmetry.

The collection is beyond vast, much like the Louvre, where it would take months and months to see all of the priceless works (over three million items!) Our tour just included the highlights: pieces by the likes of Raphael, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo.

DaVinci portrait of Madonna and Child

Another DaVinci Madonna and Child portrait

Michelangelo sculpture

One of my favorite features was the floor in one of Catherine’s bedrooms that was an enlarged, but exact replica of an incredible Italian mosaic table, where each tile piece was no more than two or three millimeters squared.

Mosaic floor in Catherine's bedroom, enlarged replica of Italian mosaic table

Mosaic table Catherine loved so much that she had replicated for her floor.
Notice my index finger to reference the size of the minute mosaic tiles. 

There was also an entire Rembrandt gallery, including the portrait of Danae that had been desecrated by a crazy, deranged visitor who threw acid on the painting and nearly destroyed it. It took months and months for the experts to restore and repair it, but still couldn’t completely bring it back to its original condition.

Rembrandt's Danae

What I described was only a fraction of what we saw (and that only a fraction of the collection). Though I had been feeling exhausted from our busy day, hesitant to go, having had somewhat low expectations before going on this tour, we returned to the ship at nearly 10:00 PM feeling energized and inspired by the beauty we had the privilege to experience.

The next morning, we awoke to our alarms set for another early, all-day tour. Once again, we were going to tour another royal palace out in the countryside called Peterhof. I was somewhat dreading another palace visit--we’d seen enough gilded, mirrored rooms the day before. I was worried as we lined up to slip our elastic and paper booties over our shoes, but we were pleasantly surprised at the different feel of this palace.

Peterhof

In addition, no photography was allowed inside, which at first I was disappointed, but then realized that this made it easier to focus on our tour guide, and learn more about the fascinating Russian royal family and their legacy. This palace is famous for its incredible gardens and impressive fountains, which we had the chance to stroll through as part of our tour, in our free time after lunch.

Peterhof is situated by the sea, on the Gulf of Finland. Our tour included a ride by hydrofoil boat to return to the city. We were amazed by the speed and the smooth ride of the hydrofoil, which seemed to glide across the surface of the water.

The ride lasted 30 minutes or so, and we arrived at a pier right in front of the Hermitage museum where we were met by our bus, which took us to the breathtaking Church on the Spilled Blood. 

Officially called the Cathedral of the Resurrection, this amazing church was built (beginning in 1883) on the exact site where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated in 1861. The assassination was quite gruesome, executed by members of a Russian revolutionary movement, who threw two bombs at the czar, which exploded killing several people and mortally wounding the emperor. Inside the church there is a canopy built over the exact place where the bombing occurred.

Site where Alexander II was attacked

The church holds the record for the most square meters of mosaics in the world (over 7500 meters!) Literally, every single wall and ceiling surface is covered in sparkling tiles. I was positively mesmerized walking around, my neck craning upward towards the magnificent cupolas as Ewan and I tried to identify the various Saints and many scenes from the New Testament, beautifully depicted in the colorful glass tesserae.

The Byzantine environment felt wonderfully familiar, though I was disappointed to realize that the church had become a museum, and was no longer a functioning place of worship, so we were not able to light a candle. Still, seeing the incredible craftsmanship of these mosaics was an absolute highlight of St. Petersburg for me, especially given that my dad and uncle are both mosaicists, and have instilled in me a sincere appreciation for this beautiful art form.

After two extremely full days of sightseeing in St. Petersburg, we were happy to head back to the ship to retire and enjoy the evening’s entertainment, as well as another gorgeous, late Baltic sunset.