Too Busy

Life is too busy.... we are having a grand time. Thursday we visited Catherine's Palace at Pushkin. The park and palace is an exquisite monument of Russian art and culture with a worldwide reputation. This was the summer home of the Russian Tzars. It is a fantastic splendour of the most magnificent and richest residence in Europe. It was built between 1744 and 1756, for Catherine I by Peter the Great.

We had a city tour of St. Petersburg so we feel we have a good sense of what this city has. The city is spread over 42 islands interlaced with close to 70 canals and rivers spanned by 300 briddges. Referred to Venice of the North. It lies in the same latitude as Alaska, yet its winter climate remains milder due to warming Altantic air masses crossing the Baltic Sea. The city boasts 200 stunning palaces in Baroque and neo-classical styles. The popluation is 5 million and they have 2 million cars. We certainly seen lots of them, in the deadlocks of traffic.

Friday October 1.

We took our private tour that we had arranged before leaving Canada. We visited Peterhof Palace. Peter the Great had a cabin 29km west of St. Pete. on the Gulf of Finland to oversee construction of his naval base. He liked it so much there that he built a whole series of palaces. This Russian Versailles has spectacular water fountains that were built over 300 years ago and engineered by water pressure from an under ground lake above the palace. At 1100 in the morning the fountain is turned on with great grandeur of music and water cascading over the gold leaf statues.
We then boarded a hydrofoil for a 30 minute down the Gulf of Finaland to the centre of St. Petersburg. We then toured the inside of St. Issacs Cathedral. The 3rd largest cathedral in the world but the most expensive to build due to its rare marble pillars and icons. Words can not decribe it just leaves you standing with your mouth open.
From there we went to Yussupov Palace located in the heart of the city on the Moika River. Built in the 19th century it was one of the richest palaces in the city. Queen Elizabeth declared it to be include in the top 10 Palace in the world. The palace is famous also for the scene of the murder of Rasputin in 1916.
Our last stop was the Church of the Spilled Blood or Ressurection Church. This is a mosaic wonderland both inside and out.

We had a full day. Our ship left the dock at 7pm and we sailed into the Neva River to Lake Ladoga. The staff of the boat had balloons they released off the back as we sailed away playing the national Russian Anthem.