St. Petersburg was the highlight stop of our Northern Atlantic cruise. This is the final part of our cruise story that started here with the planning stage. We would only be spending two days in St. Petersburg so we wanted to make the most of it. As soon as we booked our cruise, we made sure to book our excursions for St. Petersburg as well. For day 1, we booked the Peterhof and Hermitage tour. That tour would take up most of the day. On the second day, we squeezed in two tours, first the City Tour and Catherine’s Palace, then after a short time back at the ship, we were off to the Canal Cruise.
Before we arrived into port, we had an orientation for all of our excursions. The first thing that they emphasized was how to interact with the customs officers when we left the ship. Basically, hand them your passport, do not strike up a conversation with them, and do not “joke” with them. We thought they were kidding at first, but apparently not. We definitely knew what they were referring to as we departed the ship and ran into our first customs agent. They were very very serious and didn’t say a word as they studied our passport and finally, to our relief, waived us on. As our bus pulled out of port, the city didn’t look all that attractive. There was a huge housing complex right next to port, and several more identical to that one off in the distance. Every one of them looked pretty much identical to the other. As we drove into town, it looked like any big city in the US. So far, not much culture, but that would quickly change.
Several bland housing complexes as we departed the port area
Driving through congested traffic, this could have been any large city in the US
Peterhof Palace
We had read that a visit to Versailles had inspired Peter the Great to build Peterhof and its beautiful gardens. The gardens were indeed beautiful and had us wanting to visit Versailles so we could compare the two. When you come to Peterhof, you will probably come in through the upper gardens. These gardens are nice, but are nothing compared to the lower gardens which sits between the Palace and the sea.
Upper Gardens at Peterhof Palace
We went first into the Grand Palace. The palace is made up of over two dozen rooms, all lavishly decorated with different themes. The Palace is decorated in Baroque style with elegant ornate interiors. Silk tapestries cover the walls and furniture. The ballroom, Dining Room and Portrait Hall are just a few of the rooms that will definitely leave you in awe by their grandeur. Unfortunately, we were not able to take photographs while inside the Palace. Luckily, we could take photos while inside the Winter Palace and Catherine’s Palace, so we were able to capture in pictures what it must have felt like to live like royalty in Russia.
The beautiful exterior of Peterhof Palace
From the Palace we walked out to a terrace overlooking the lower gardens. There are dozens of fountains in the lower garden with some lining the grand canal that connects the palace with the sea off in the distance. The focus of the gardens is the Grand Cascade, where most of the fountains and flowing water is centered. At the bottom of the cascade is a pool that contains Samson tearing open the jaws of a Lion. We hadn’t been to Versailles yet, but we couldn’t imagine it being more beautiful than what we were seeing. We were thrilled that we were able to visit in the summer when all of the fountains were running.
The amazing lower gardens at Peterhof
Note that anytime there is a bus ride involved as part of a tour, you can expect to stop at some subsidized souvenir shop so you can do some shopping. Our tour also stopped for lunch at some hall that resembled an Elks lodge. There was a stage where “traditional” Russian performers played music for us. The food was very average, but we just figured it was part of the cost of taking the tour.
Of course, every tour has entertainment and an obligatory shopping stop
The Winter Palace was the official residence of the Russian Emperors from 1732 to 1917. Today it is one of several buildings along the banks of the Neva River that make up the Hermitage Museum. The Hermitage is huge! It is the second largest museum in the world… after the Louvre. As our bus pulled up to the museum, we could see several other buses letting their tours off. At this point, we were glad to be part of a tour so we didn’t need to fight through these crowds.
The Palace Square with plenty of buses and tourists
The Hermitage
The Hermitage is said to contain over 3 million pieces of art. It contains work from famous artists like Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Matisse, and Gaugin. By the end of the day, we were able to see works by all of these famous artists.
Several pieces of art by Gauguin
The Dance by Henri Matisse
Corner of the Garden at Montgeron by Monet
You can expect large crowds at the hermitage. We were lucky to be part of a tour group so we were able to bypass the huge line to get in. There were also crowds inside the museum. We definitely felt rushed as we made sure to stay in contact with our tour guide, who was up front waving the sign for us to follow. Some of the corridors were long and crowded so we sometimes needed to push through other groups in limited space.
Long crowded hallways to negotiate while trying to keep up.
We felt a bit helpless, as we quickly bypassed some things that we wanted to see and instead hurried off to the next room. Decisions were made for us as to what we would and would not be seeing… but we realized that was all part of being on a tour. On the other hand, we didn’t waste any time looking at museum maps wondering where we were. In all, it was a win to be part of the tour and we made efficient use of our time quickly going from one display to the next that the guide had picked out for us. Our efficiency broke down a bit as we had to wait for our guide to track down some members of our tour who disappeared but after 10 minutes of frantic search, the lost couple was found and we were back on our way.
Their maps were pretty clear but glad we had a guide
Some of the rooms were stunning. We were constantly reminded that parts of the Hermitage was once a Palace. The Leonardo Da Vinci room was decorated with several paintings and beautiful chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The 1812 war gallery was another room that stood out for us.
Leonardo Da Vinci Room
1812 War Gallery
Other rooms were equally ornate and you often were left torn between gazing at the art or the elegant room that it was contained in. Gold decorated the walls and beautiful paintings adorned the ceilings. Hallways that led from room to room were just as visually stunning as the rooms that they connected.
Beautiful hallways connecting the various rooms
Beautiful columns and gold colored arches reminded you that this was once a Palace
In the end, we were able to see works of art from all of the famous artists. Yes, we felt rushed at times, but we were happy to be able to see what we did. Rooms were sometimes very crowded but our guide did an excellent job of getting us to the front for a brief close up look at all of the paintings.
Madonna Litta by Leonardo da Vinci
Portrait of an Old Jew by Rembrandt van Rijn
Our two hour tour of the museum only allowed us to see a fraction of what was displayed there. A tour of both Peterhof and the Hermitage in one day didn’t give us nearly enough time at either one of them, but we were still satisfied to have spent the time that we did at the two amazing places.
Catherine Palace
Catherine Palace was named after Catherine I, the wife of Peter the Great. Interestingly, it was originally a modest two story building commissioned in 1717. It was Catherine’s daughter, Empress Elizabeth who completely redesigned the building turning it into the grand palace that you see today. The Palace was completed in 1756 with over 200 pounds of gold used to decorate the palace exterior.
The beautiful exterior of Catherine Palace
Catherine Palace was amazing, both inside and out. The Great Hall, with all of its gold, was right up there with Versaille’s Hall of Mirrors. There are large arched windows on either side of the hall and the entire ceiling is covered by a beautiful fresco.
The Grand Hall
The Amber room was spectacular with all of its amber paneled walls. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside, but we were later able to purchase a photo book of the Palace with several great pictures of the Amber Room. As we walked from room to room, the words Opulent and Decadent came to mind as each room seemed more extravagant than the one that we had just left. Both the Chevaliers dining room and the White State dining room were set up with beautiful tables and place settings, giving you a great feel for what the rooms would have looked like.
Chevaliers Dining Room
White State Dining Room
The decorations in all of the rooms were fabulous. It was worth paying attention to all of the details contained in the rooms, from the beautiful paintings on the ceilings, to the ornate gold decorations on the walls. The palace was truly elegant and stunning.
All of the rooms were beautifully decorated
Some of the rooms left very little space for people to get by after the walkway was roped off. That caused some of the rooms to be very congested as we all squeezed through the room. Each room had an older Russian lady sitting in the corner with a scowl on her face. Sort of a Russian Babushka grandmother that wasn’t afraid to scold you if you messed up. I watched as one of the women in our tour was berated for having her purse slung over her shoulder instead of holding it in front of her. That was kind of funny, but also a bit intimidating.
The garden at Catherine Palace was beautiful and worth strolling through, but it’s not as nice as the gardens at Peterhoff.
The Gardens at Catherine Palace
Note, that Catherine Palace, like Peterhof had to be restored after being badly damaged in WWII. In both cases, they’ve done a great job of restoring the Palaces to their original beauty.
The Canal Cruise
We booked the canal cruise as an afterthought since we had a free afternoon, but it ended up to be a great tour. We caught our boat along one of the canals. It was a nice open air boat with plenty of room to view in all directions. Most of the tour boats on the river looked similar to ours.
A tour boat like ours boarding behind us.
After having toured the Winter Palace and Hermitage, we were able to get a different perspective of those buildings from our cruise on the Neva River.
The Hermitage from our tour boat on the Neva River
It was interesting to see parts of St Petersburg from the open air of our boat as we cruised on the Neva and through the various canals in the city. We were able to see a number of tourist attractions along the river, and we were also able to get a closer snapshot of life in St Petersburg.
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology
St Michael’s Castle
Our boats came right up to shore at times so we could get an up close look at the architectural details of many of the buildings. Something that we try to take notice of whenever we’re in a different city.
Beautiful architecture as seen from the river
As we rode back to port on the bus, we were exhausted from our non-stop two days of excursions. Even though we were tired, we were happy that we were able to pack in all of our excursions in our two days in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg was fantastic and we were so happy that we selected it to be the focus of our cruise. We had a few stops left on our cruise, but we were sure that nothing was going to match the past two days.
