Day 7, Friday 23 August – St Petersburg, Russia

Our touring today centred around water and we were fortunate to have what is considered a very nice day. The forecast was for a high of 21 degrees, starting cloudy and grey progressing to sunny around the middle of the day, concluding with a good downpour after dark.

The water activities commenced with a hydrofoil transfer to the summer palace of Peterhof. It took about 35 minutes of travel out of the city across the gulf of Finland, berthing on the edge of the extensive palace gardens. We proceeded in an orderly fashion up the lovely woodland promenade to the base of the feature fountain framing the palace.

Taking nearly a century to complete fully, Peter the Great had this modelled on Versailles with a promenade leading up to a grand terraced gold fountain filled with 150 statues of classical and mythological figures. In the middle Samson pries open the jaws of a furious lion, from which water spurts 65ft up in the air out of the lions mouth. The majestic fountain is fed by a canal with a water source from a spring 12 miles away.

As expected there were hoards of tourists, predominantly Asian but we managed to push and join the crammed snake of visitors through the narrow one person wide entry to the palace. On with the booties to protect the parquet floors, we moved along at a steady pace through the restored palace rooms. They get very antsy if you stop to take photos – I think it is because there are so many people to get through and only small areas in comparison (palaces and rooms are big, but areas are roped off) so its move along like an assembly line of palace watchers.

Peterhof is a typical palace, and whilst not the most impressive we have seen, it was still enjoyable especially the little Chinese style rooms which were very trendy and exotic at the time. Also beautiful were the varied mainly floral print silk wallpapers and matching silk furniture. All of the rooms of course are accented with stunning chandelier that never fail to delight me. To Verns pleasure there was an impressive array of clocks from the tiny to the grandfather. As usual its easier for my photos to describe these places, and this time we have done a bit of video as that is even better at showing perspective and overall effect.

After the palace we spent a bit of time in the gardens building our step count for the day. There are other buildings within the huge grounds including a Dutch house, Turkish Sauna room and a separate art collections building. One unique feature is a fountain for children where there was a trick stone on the surrounding pavement that would trigger water jets on the person walking past. This was providing much fun and entertainment to children of all ages.

Tour reviews describe the gardens being more impressive than the palace, which I would agree preferring the style of Catherines palace to Peterhof. The grounds of Peterhof are certainly more impressive with its fountains and seaside situation. If you have not seen a palace before, then it is worth a visit, but if you have seen a few then I would probably give it a miss – or just visit the gardens. There is a separate entry fee for both. We strolled in the garden as long as we could before our driver pickup back to the city at 1:30pm. The trip back took nearly an hour, leaving us little time before our river and canal cruise at 3pm.

We used our 30 minutes to visit the big statue of Peter on the horse (which we should have seen on our city tour), then walked to the river and got settled in for our trip (again after the usual bumbling for tickets). I was surprised that our guide accompanied us as we had an English commentary and earphones. Never mind, she ditched us on one of the stops half way as she was really hungry. Right. At least it gave us some space and actually we perked up a bit to be on our own without her boring us. Sounds ignorant of me, but as I mentioned before she is hard work and must be the worst tour guide we have ever encoutered.

The cruise is probably not something I would recommend either – a fair bit of time criss-crossing the harbour and stopping as part of the hop on hop off operations. As we had seen the harbour from hydro foil, that was a bit of a repeat until we got to the canal. St.Petersburg has been called Venice of the North due to its many canals and bridges. I can see a few similarities, but give me Venice any day 🙂 It lacks a lot of the character of Venice.

Once we got to the canal part, we did get to see a few lovely older buildings and old palaces. As we have learnt these were all confiscated by the state in the socialist era. Sadly, the state has not been the best steward with restoration taking a back seat. Some are now privately owned and you can tell these by their better condition, more modern glass and a bit of a cared for look. Whilst the cruise was not brilliant it was good to have gone on it as we would not have seen this older part of St Petersburg otherwise.

Both the hydrofoil and canal boats were worn and not super modern. This aspect is typical of a lot in Russia and its interesting and a bit humbling to see the local tourists excitement on taking these excursions – even getting photos printed on magnets of them just sitting in the boat by the boat photographer. I get the impression that money is very tight for many and the standards the west get to enjoy are higher than the average Russian will get to experience. The general upkeep and standard in St Petersburg is noticeably lower than Moscow. I would describe it as shabby, unkempt and grimy.

After the cruise we confidently navigated our way home on foot getting brave and taking a side street or two for fun. We stumbled across a big square near the Hermitage and being Friday night the activity was starting to build with music and lots of people out on the town. The sun was still warm bringing richness to the pastel coloured buildings. We took in the music, the noises of cars and people and the smells of city pollution mingled with different foods wafting in tempting curls into our grumbling tummy’s.

We were energised by this stroll, being by ourselves and discovering St. Petersburg without constant propaganda coloured history. We were going to explore further and try and get a broader impression of the city but the clouds were coming in thick and fast so we abandoned touring for dinner.

We decided on another Georgian and Uzbek style restaurant for dinner near our hotel for a change and totally over ate as the menu was so extensive. Next to us was a couple of German girls and Vern decided to offer them some of our kai as we had too much. We had seen them looking at all our plates with curiosity, and they probably felt embarrassed at first – but soon fell at ease as Vern insisted they take it. One of them had been to NZ before and spoke very clear English so it was an easy and interesting conversation.

Dishes we enjoyed were all traditional; an eggplant and capsicum starter, a beans dish, cheese stuffed bread again, sausages and potato salad, chicken in nut cream sauce, and an amazing big soft noodle roll filled with seasoned lamb. This cuisine has been one of the most memorable and enjoyable aspects of our Russian culinary discovery.

As we left the restaurant it was pouring with rain. Luckily the walk was not far at all – just down the street and Vern had our umbrella. I love moments like these, being in a city with the coloured lights and hum around, huddling under the umbrella, dodging puddles like teenagers and smelling the freshness the rain brings.

On the way up to our room I grabbed a Russian Vodka to try – don’t normally drink it but needed to fulfil the try local rule. The bar man served it neat, and a single over there is our NZ double. I must say it was rather good (as was the Georgian wine at dinner). Come shower time I was so relaxed I could have slept upright leaning against the wall!

Tomorrow is our last day here, but before we leave we get to go to the Hermitage which we are looking forward to very much. The pace has been full, but not too much. We are so thankful that we haven’t had any jet lag what so ever, have been well and able to do everything.