[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Fayz: *
Did you go to any of the museums or cathedrals in Saint Petersburg?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, it's called the hermitage..:)
lemme find my travelog email..got it. Please don't mind my typos.
----We are in St. petersburg now.
We took the night train from MOscow to St. Petes,
leaving at 1155 and arriving at 8 am...the ride was
fun and the beds were surprisingly comfortable.
We had 2nd class tickets (1st class wasn't available)
with 4 people in it, a french woman and a
russian....Husband (h) had fun translating to english for
the french woman, so she could talk to the russian guy
in our box (he only spoke english) and then the
russian guy could ask the conducter questions for us
and the french lady.... Our Train car had a bunch of
tourist who were very excited that H spoke
french and was canadian, they kept telling each other
and pointing him out..it was very funny.. ahhh
Canadian! ahhh french...ahhh....then they wouold point
to me and ask...canadian??? I think i disappointed
them with my Americaness. :)
The train was pretty intersting and surpringly nice.
They provided a little towel, toothbrush set, food and
drinks for us as part of the ticket there was a small
oriental style carpet on the floor and blankets and
pillows. The bathroom was pretty bad though..
Our hostel is a bout a 10 minute walk from the
station, we got there early in the morning yesterday,
dropped everything off and then headed out to the main
street in st. petes.
St. petes is a much nicer city than moscow in my
opinion. The people are friendlier, i think they are
much more used to european/forign tourist and the city
has many more signs in english as well. The car
drivers are less scary too so we are not fearing being
run over everytime we cross the street like it was in
moscow. Also, the st. petersburg women dress much
better than moscow women! Several other tourist and I
discussed this and we agreed, it seems as if the
moscow women read too many wierd fashion magazines and
put together the wildest color combinations....
St. petersburge like moscow seems to be invaded by US
companies we saw pizza hut, macdonalds and even a
subway here! I happen to be at an internet cafe
partially funded by IBM in the hermtage museum!
**WE spent some time yesterday in the Hermitage, which
is a museum inside the winter palace of the tzars.
The hermitage's history is intersting. Catherine the
great tzarina began to collect art and other pieces
and her collection grew so large she built a "small
hermitage" to show the pieces and she would invite
dignataries and the elite to come see her pieces for
which catherine herself played the museum tour guide.
The collection of each successive tzar was added to
the collection and then it grew so large the built the
big hermitage. today the musuem consists of over 3
million pieces from the tzar as well as other famous
pieces that were "nationalized" after the russian
revolution and taken from the private collections of
the wealthy elite. the hermitage is a name given to
the entire musuem which spreads over the winter
palace, small and big hermitage buildings.
IT is amazing what all is in here, 2 of the 14 in the
world divinicis, rembrandts, matise and picassos. Huge
urns, decorative tombs form the tzars, art from all
over the world, roman, italian, spanish, french,
flemish, etc.
I just saw a special treasure gallery tour in which
the tzars jewels were shown as well as diplomatic
gifts, the most amazing were gifts from the turksish
sultan in early 1800s to the tzar, a red and dark blue
horse blankets with harness, gun holdres and saber
COVERED in 6000 diamonds, in decorative motifs! it was
beauitful. a few years later another similiar gift was
given to thank the tzar for their help with the
ottoman's retaining egypt and htis had 14000
diamonds..all placed in a decorative flower/vine
design on a violet cover with a violet enamel and
diamond saber cover...it was too gorgeous and never
used.
**
The days here are very long, sunset isn't until
midnight with sunrise at 3 or 4 am. The whole city
seems to have more of a party atmosphere here in
response to the good weather so it never sleeps, there
are restaurants open 24 hours and one sushi place that
has all you can eat sushi from midnight until 6 am for
about 10 dollars. We also want to see the raising of
the bridges done at 1 am/2am. According to our guide
books this is only done once a day and a fun site to
see. we have spent yesterday and today only in the
city and the hermitage. We will check out the local
masjid here next, some of the other cathedrals,
fortresses and more tomorrow.
Our plan is to stay in st petersburg until tuesday
night, where we are going to take the train back to
moscow to leave for italy on wednesday. in our car
this time we will have a brother and sister from
america who are also staying in our hostel and the
sister and i are in the girls dorm, m and the
brother are in the boys dorm.
I will write more when i get a chance, take care!!
