St Petersburg

48 hours in St Petersburg and it's already time to say goodbye. Extremely quick visit experienced mostly in the pouring rain while jet lagged! I found the city to be very beautiful. I do love places that like bright paint and statues everywhere. Even in the rain, the umbrellas were all bright and beautiful (the complete opposite of London). The afternoon I arrived I met my tour group of 12 and our leader Bob (Borris actually but "don't call me Boris" was announced last night so Bob it is!). We headed to a Georgian restaurant and spent the evening eating fried cheese and drinking neon non alcoholic drinks, it was good fun. Our one full day I headed first to the huge Hermitage Museum housed mostly in the Romanov's Winter Palace. It was unbelievable. The building itself was worth seeing on its own but the art and artefacts from around the world were stunning. Apparently it would take 9 years to view each piece for 1 minute. I didn't have that long so after a few hours I took my tired feet to the open top tour bus for a two hour rest. It was good to have an overview of the city and as many of you know, I like my open top tour buses!! I visted Our Saviour on Spilled Blood church, which was done completely in mosaic inside and out. Simply stunning. Then it was home to bed only to wake up at midnight for our boat tour of the city. In the summer the 22 bridges from the Baltic sea to the interior of Russia open from 1 until 4am to let cargo ships into the country and it is beautiful to see. This morning I enjoyed a self guided tour on foot testing my map reading skills and stumbling upon some beautiful places, such as a bright blue church I christened "Smurf Church". We are now gathering together as a group again to say our goodbyes to this fascinating place and board an overnight train to Vladimir. We're visiting a small place called Suzdal for a night and then we'll be in Moscow!! I'm not sure when I'll find wifi again so until then, keep safe everyone, especially those of you in London. It's been very hard to watch a bunch of stupid yobs tear apart my neighbourhood...