Wednesday, July 3, Saint Petersburg

During the night we set the clocks forward another hour. It was sunny at about 76 degrees. We docked about 7:00.

We had an early breakfast in room and left for the Glories or St. Petersburg at 7:45 for 9 hour tour which included travel to the czar's village in Pushkin an hour South of St. Petersburg on a bus with Catherine our guide.

We toured 30 restored rooms of Catherine's summer palace. Most of the palace was destroyed by the Nazis as our guide spit out several times, they still have hundreds of rooms to restore, but the architecture was beautiful. We had a short walk through some of the fifty acres of gardens.

Lunch at Hunter's Lodge was Borscht, Chicken, Rice, corn and peas, bad wine and ice cream. It was a typical tourist menu. The borscht was the best part of the meal.

We then headed back to town for a forced march through the Hermitage which is not air-conditioned and wall-to-wall people. Catherine, as well as all the guides mentioned that if you stood by each work of art 8 seconds, 8 hours a day, every day, it would take you 8 years to see them all. The emphasis was certainly on quantity and not quality. It seems that in an attempt to look civilized Catherine would send buyers to Europe and buy whole galleries. They do have an impressive collection of Rembrandts, 25 of them. The collection is so large they lost a Van Gogh for years. However, it was poorly lit and many painting had glass over them, which made for poor viewing because of the glare.

We drug ourselves back to the ship for a quick dinner in the Rembrandt Dining Room. Appetizers were Garden Symphony with Montrachet (fancy name for salad) and Salmon Tartare with Baby Zucchini. Lois had the White Asparagus Soup with Salmon Dill and I had the Chilled Cranberry Soup followed the Seafood Cobb Salad for the Entree. Lois had the Grilled Halibut with Lemon Foam. For dessert Lois had the healthy choice of Dark Chocolate Ring, while I had the Italian Ricotta Cheesecake.

We had to depart the ship at 7pm for an Evening Folkloric Spectacular. A fascinating journey through different regions of Russia. We enjoyed the energetic dances of Don Cossacks, melodic Russian, Ukrainian and Gypsy songs. The costumes were beautiful. Sparkling wine was served during the intermission, however, it was so hot in the theater we all wanted water. The facilities are not air conditioned and the temperatures were unseasonably hot. It was a hot, crowded, and hard seated event.

We arrived back at the ship and quickly went to bed to prepare for another day of site seeing in St. Petersburg.

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