May 27: St Petersburg, Russia Day 2

On Day 2 of St Petersburg we had booked our second tour: "Imperial St Petersburg". This was to include Peterhof Palace south of St Petersburg (on the other side of the Gulf of Finland), and the Ss Peter and Paul Fortress.

It started off with a nice ride through Russian countryside (as much as is available around such massive urban areas) and then we arrived at the Palace. Peterhof was one of the palaces of Peter the Great. It was my favourite one to visit. Who would have thought it is possible to get sick of gold leaf? But indeed it is, if you are looking at the Baroque buildings of St Petersburg as we had been the day before. Walk into a room... meh, more gold! But Peterhof was different, set out in a different style, with a variety of themed rooms (the green room, the Oriental room...), fabric wall-'paper', beautiful furniture and more parquet floors. Unfortunately cameras/photos were not allowed inside at all, but there are some pictures on the internet: picture 1, pic 2, pic 3, pic 4. At the front of the palace there are gardens and a few fountains.

But at the back, it's a different story.

The palace is sometimes called the "Russian Versailles" with all its fountains. The fountains at Peterhof are entirely gravity driven as opposed to pumped - Wikipedia says: "...the fountains operate without the use of pumps. Water is supplied from natural springs and collects in reservoirs in the Upper Gardens. The elevation difference creates the pressure that drives most of the fountains of the Lower Gardens, including the Grand Cascade." We had lunch in the Orangery in the palace gardens and a little walk around the gardens to see more fountains and beautiful flowers. The canal you see in the picture above flows out to the Gulf of Finland:

This photo is from the same point as the one above but looking the other way. To get to the next part of our tour, we walked the length of the canal towards the water and caught a hydrofoil back to the city. We had a quick stop at a souvenir shop before making our way to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

The Peter and Paul Fortress is essentially the birthplace of St Petersburg, so us being there not only on St Petersburg's 309th birthday, but also when the sun was shining meant it was very busy there. There was a helicopter doing sightseeing tours (it was just landing and taking off in the middle of the field, no safety tape or anything. Love it!), lots of people sunbathing, most of them almost nude. The most obvious point of interest (apart from the nudey people) is the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral:

The cathedral was made to be the highest point in St Petersburg (I think I remember the guide saying it still is). The steeple is 122 m high, and has an angel on the top. I just found a fascinating piece of trivia from Wikipedia: "When renovators were cleaning the angel on the spire in 1997, they found a note in a bottle left in one of the folds of the angel's gown. In the note, renovators from 1953 apologized for what they felt was rushed and shoddy work (Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev wanted the angel refurbished for the 250th anniversary of the city that year). It is said that the renovators in 1997 left another message for future generations, but the contents of that message have not been revealed." Cute!

Inside the church are the tombstones of the Romanovs, the Russian Royals.

(They are buried underneath the church). In 1918 the last of the Romanovs were executed in a basement in Yekaterinburg. Their tombs are in a special room away from the others. The tomb of Peter the Great is in the the top-right in this photograph (with tour guides' hands pointing at it!), with the bust of Peter the Great at its head.

The cathedral is as opulent inside as the palaces. This is the pulpit:

The lady with the tour group "19" card is Elena, our tour guide for the day.

After tea and a drink in the Observation Lounge again on the cruise ship, we were off to bed.