Oh well, every day cannot go exactly as planned and today was one of those - contained some special moments and sights though.
Plan as to catch the "Big Bus" hop-on-hop-off tour and just have a look at a number of the special places scattered around the city. Simple. These bus tours are our standard and generally very successful way of getting around and finding out the basics of a city. But....
OK for a start - walked from the hotel again across the bridge into town, found the Nevsky Prospect which is their wide main street and after a little searching, tracked down the bus stop - no sign of driver, ticket seller, anything. Normally these buses are very easy to find and have ticket sellers everywhere in your face trying to sell tickets - but not in St Petersburg! And a little sign to say schedule change - only going every hour on the hour. Three quarters of an hour to wait so what else? - went and had a coffee. Returned and caught the bus and decided to get offf at the main railway station where there was also a large shopping centre - had a look around, found the station was not as spectacular as we'd heard and checked out the shopping centre- just like most shopping centres. Elizabeth also checked out the WC at the station, found she required all her spare coins to be allowed in and then found they were the hole-in-the-ground type!! Went at the shopping centre for free!
Back on the bus and saw some spectacular buildings (made a mental check to get back to those later) and went across to the islands and got off to see the St Peter and St Paul Fort complex which also includes the Cathedral which looked pretty spectacular. By this time the rain had started (see "trivia" below) but was very light so we checked out the complex which was the main fortification for the city from the time of Peter the Great. Hadn't realised before that this is the buriel place for all the Tsars since his time and is also where they buried the remains of the last Tsar (Nichols ll) and is wife and family after their discovery in 2008. Little crypt in the corner of the cathedral for them.
Just missed the next bus at that stop, so decided to (guess what??) - go and have a coffee and meet the bus at the next stop. Did that, got to the stop with 10 minutes to spare, waited in the bus shelter as the rain got heavier and more and more people gathered. No bus. Got chatting with a nice American couple and their daughters - they've been living here since February with the kids at the international school (parents also studying Russian) - after about half an hour, the group decided that the bus was just not going to come - they said this happens quite frequently here. At the same time, the police arrived and started putting baracades across to block off the whole (VERY busy) street so that was presumably that!!! Luckily we were not that far from our hotel so decided to just walk home - luckily the rain had stopped. Never did get back to those buildings and places............ Still don't know why the street was just blocked off!!
Some more impressions of St Petersburg: *people walk around announcing things on megaphones - no idea what as it is all in Russian * The police wander around with batons in their hand * there are a LOT of people in unform * there is almost NO rubbish and NO grafitti - cleanest city we've been in (might have something to do with those batons???) * They have huge parks and huge squares throughout the city - it used to be the capital in the time of the Tsars - Tsar Nicholas was based at the winter palace here for most of his reign and left from there in 1918.
Trivia: Officially, St Petersburg has 35 fine days per year - the rest are either drizzle, pouring rain or snow. That explains a lot!
Cap report: Not going anywhere without it! I'm feeling pretty smug 'cause someone else has lost theirs!
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