2014 - Day 33 (St.Petersburg)

Travel is full of "jaw-dropping" experiences but today would be one of the best - we spent the whole day wandering from room to room in the Winter place and Hermitge gallery saying "That's incredible" and "That's amazing" to ourselves.

Pretty standard hotel breakfst to start with, then had  chat with the concierge who gave us some ideas and tips, as a result of which we decided to "attack" the Winter Palace/hermitage gallery today - quite easy 20 min walk from the hotel across the main bridge where the complex sits beside the Neva river. Plans also for the next two days but tell you about them later.

How can you decribe the winter place/hermitge??? Probably can't, but it is recognised as probably the largest and best art collection in the world and after today we don't dispute that claim. The builings themelves (joined) are just magnificent. Built in the mid 1700's, severely damaged by fire in the 1850's, badly damaged in the seige of Leningrad (St Petersburg of course) in the 1940's the complex has obviously had a chequered life but has been restored after each of those setbacks and is just breath-taking in its internal architecture and artwork - definitely more pleasing to the eye than the "over-the-top" Versailles.

You just walk from one incredble room to the next - even the doors and their surrounds are beautiful works of art in their own right. Then you add galleries of Reubens, Rembrant, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Rembrant and today we didn't have a large crown so you could walk right up to them and look/photograph ( I  paid the extra 200 Rbls - about $8 - to be allowed to photograph) - this sort of experience cannot be equalled! There were also Eqyptian, Roman, Greek galleries plus more tht we had no chance of getting to.

All in ll, one of the most memorable of days!!

Back to the hotel for a hot bath and again dinner at the hotel tonight - Chicken Kiev is another traditional Russian meal isn't it?? - again much better than any kiev previously tasted. Elizabeth, would you believe, had beetroot soup which she reports was beautiful and very filling!

A few observations on Russia and St Petersburg: *A lot of girls here must have extremely cold legs  *St Petersburg is not a city you love - you are, however, impressed with it - everything is huge  * there are very few cafes here - you can walk a very long way and not see a cafe or restaurant  *their uni students are well dressed and incredibly subdued! * it is seemingly constantly cloud-covered and freezing! * NEVER order meat pie in Russia - I ordered one for lunch and what came?? - a cold small dinner roll with equally cold mince in the middle!!! Quite forgettable. * the hotel has a heated floor in the bathroom - fantastic for drying the washing!!

Trivia: The Russian Ruble is declining sharply in value - inflation is running at a very high level, but Putin's approval rating is circa 80%. Work that out.

Cap report - starting to get confident (but not overly so yet)