With one day left, we had to decide what was at the top of our priority list to see. We decided on this famous statue of Peter the Great:
And the Peterhof Palace.
More to come, but it's late.
(continued)
The rain didn't let up so we set out with our umbrellas to the far edge of St. Petersburg by metro and bus. Here's a picture of what it looks like as you ride the escalator down, down, down.... into the metro. One we timed and it was over a three minute escalator ride. That's a long time on an
escalator.
See, you can't even see the bottom. In St. Petersburg you have to get down deeper than all the waterways.
This is a shot taken when the door was metro door was open across the central platform to the other metro headed in the other direction.
This is the interior of one metro wagon. Sometimes someone will enter in one end at a stop, peddle their product like bandaids or kites until the next stop, exit to the next wagon and do the same. The shots are so poor because James was trying to be inconspicuous. It would be like you taking a picture of someone else at a gas station pumping their gas. It's just something that everyone does and to take a picture of people doing it is wierd. When we got to the Peterhof Palace, I was so glad we chose this place to spend our time. Take a second to look at this link and you'll know why. Even though the palace itself was closed as it is every Monday, the grounds were simply...royal. Acres and acres of manicured trees, shrubs, flowerbeds, and fountains.
One of the most famous cascade of waterfalls in the world because of number and size of fountains.Including:
Sampson prying open the lion's mouth.
This canal runs from the fountains out into the sea.
The chessboard fountain.And after I paid my 10 rubles (about 33 cents) to use the public restroom, we found some lunch.
Would you like a half chicken or a whole chicken? (note the hand sanitizer which we carried everywhere)One room in the palace that I wish I could have seen is the amber room, made completely of amber. It has quite a history and mystery after the Germans seized it in WWII.
We took advantage of the few minutes of sunshine to buy souvenirs at the open artist's market that afternoon then packed them away and headed to the train station for our first overnight train to Moscow.
Little nap while we waited.
Train Platform
Our car
Inside our cabin. It was by far the nicest soviet train I had been on and would be on.
Looking at the mirror on the interior of our door.It was a smooth ride and a nice time to catch up on my journal and do some reading.
Love reading all of the details of the trip!
ReplyDeleteLove all the posts. On August 29th, Nikolay tried to console me by saying that it was bad weather there anyway. Was it?
ReplyDeleteIt was cool that day, I had to wear my zip up sweatshirt which wasn't exactly Sunday best, but I didn't have anything else. But, it didn't rain and was actually a relief from the record breaking heat. People said it had gotten up to 122 F and that birds were actually falling out of the sky!
ReplyDelete