RoamingRajuIn the last blog, post I briefly mentioned that we went to St. Petersburg, Russia while cruising the Baltic Nations in 2015. I wanted to make sure I gave enough space and time to share our journey in Russia, so, as promised, here is an entire blog post dedicated to St. Petersburg!
Before we talk about the experience, let me tell you about my past fear of the authoritarian government in Russia. If you have been reading my blog posts, you know that I prefer to chart my own excursions and avoid any kind of group activities. Well, Russia was different. I was not sure going alone was the best course of action due to security concerns. I also was not sure that if for some reason local police picked us up, and put me in some dark room, I would ever come out of it! I know, I am being dramatic. I was not confident taking my family to Russia on my own—this is from a guy who went to Lybia in the middle of the war!
Visa or Group Excursion
I decided to take the small group tour shore excursions. We signed up for a two-day tour of St. Petersburg. Interestingly enough, the two-day shore excursion was about the same cost as a visa for Russia (Russian visas were very expensive those days—$400 per person). If you take a shore excursion with a company that is registered with the Russian government, they waive the visa requirements—no visa needed! I thought that was quite interesting.
Anyway, our cruise finally docked in St. Petersburg. We had early reservations so we all woke up, disembarked our ship, and got in the line for immigration. We had to show our passports as well as confirmation of a group excursion. It was quite easy actually. As soon as we left the immigration area, our shore excursion company was waiting for us. Our guide spoke decent English.
We immediately began to drive to Catherine Palace in the Pushkin suburb of St. Petersburg. The city was a modern city—much like any city in Western Europe. The architecture is absolutely incredible. In about an hour or so in the minibus, we arrived at the Catherine Palace. Because this was a small group tour, there were two other couples on our bus. Once we arrived at Catherine Palace, our guide handed us tickets for the palace and asked us to meet back at the bus at a specific time. I really liked that idea as it gave us time to see the palace at our own leisure!
What a palace it was! We started walking inside and it kept going. I was really impressed with the separate master bedrooms for the King and the Queen. I made a mental note to myself—next house, two master bedrooms😊 The palace itself is over 1,000 feet long. To put that in perspective, that is longer than a Manhattan City block! I don’t know how many different rooms we visited. They had Grand Hall and Amber Room and White Vetiblie and Patriot Hall and Crimson Pilaster Room and on and on. After the palace visit, we enjoyed the grounds—it was splendid and vast. The Alexander Palace is on the same grounds. So you sort of get a twofer (two for the price of one)! The park has beautiful fountains. Overall, I was in awe. You can look at some of the pictures below—I am not sure the pictures actually do justice to this magnificent place. We spent almost four hours between the two palaces and the grounds. We were hungry, to say the least.
Our guide took us to a local restaurant for some authentic food. Big mistake! We told the restaurant we were vegetarians. They said no problem, they would make some vegetarian food. To our surprise, they brought us boiled cabbage as our main dish. I wish they said they did not have vegetarian food and we would have asked the guide to take us somewhere else. At least they had some bread and fries. We just ordered more of those.
We were ready to move! The next stop was the Palace of Paul. It was a short ten-minute ride from our restaurant. It is certainly a great palace, but this is pale in comparison to Catherine Place. On the other hand, the park at the Palace of Paul was incredible. It was so large we couldn’t see where it ended. After an hour or two at the Palace of Paul, we continued our tour to Peterhof Park. What a place. As soon as you enter the grounds, you see these majestic fountains. Just the walk from the gate to the palace is half a mile or more. They call it the Versailles of Russia. I have been to Versailles and this is much better. At night they have a light show that goes with the fountains! I wish we had a chance to see that.
We spent almost three hours at Peterhof Park and it was time for us to move on. Our tour guide took us to a metro station. I had never seen a train station this beautiful. Amazing architecture. They had crystal chandeliers in the train station! How fancy is that? The real amazement for me was the escalator. St. Petersburg has the tallest escalator in the world. That thing is humongous. The station itself is 282 feet below ground so you can imagine the escalator. It was like riding a 30 story escalator. It seemed like there was no end. We were amazed. My wife would not look down—it was too scary for her! Before we knew it our first day was coming to an end. Our tour guide took us back to the port for a relaxing evening at the ship. We were hungry. We ate a good meal and went straight to bed (my phone was showing me that we walked 6 miles that day)!
The next morning, we were ready bright and early. That day, we learned a few things from the experience of the previous day. We packed some lunch from the ship along with some snacks—just to make sure we had enough fuel for the day.
It turned out the other two groups that were with us the day before had only booked the tour for one day, so we were the only group. Our first stop was Peter and Paul Cathedral and Fortress. This was a short 5-minute drive from our cruise terminal. This truly was a fortress to protect the city from outside attacks. It turns out Peter the Great imprisoned his own son at this place! What is with rich and powerful people and their sons? It is actually a museum with a number of exhibits. We really took our time at this place. The Cathedral with the same name is one of the tallest structures in St. Petersburg. Really nice architecture.
After that, we took a short ride to the Church of the Spilt Blood. It is a church and worth a look but not as impressive as some of the other sites we visited in St. Petersburg. After a quick tour, we decided to take a lunch break—we were glad we did as the next and final stop was the Hermitage Museum.
Before we knew it, we arrived at the Hermitage Museum (a short 5 minutes drive). Our guide gave us the tickets and let us loose. This place is so big your head starts to swivel. It is a massive 700,000 sf building. To put that in perspective, it would be 300 average American houses put together. Imagine walking through every room in 300 houses! The Hermitage is the second largest museum in the world—second only to the Louvre in Paris. I have been to Louvre in Paris—the Hermitage is a lot more impressive in my opinion.
The museum has a number of floors and you walk from floor to floor—they have a wonderful flow so you don’t get lost. Some of the artifacts are 5,000 years old. Words don’t do justice to this museum. We walked and we walked and we walked some more. Finally, the kids had enough of it. They started to complain—I don’t blame them. According to my phone, we had already walked 7.5 miles that day. It was time to call it a day. We found our way back to our tour guide and soon back on the ship.
Those were two of the best sightseeing days of my life. It would go head to head against any trip I ever took. Looking back I realize that my fear of Russia’s government was unfounded. I found the country to have a friendly environment with an amazing culture to get to know. Did you ever have any fears of a new place? How did you get over it? Please do share in the comments below. Until next time….
Would love to see this place as you have described
It is certainly worth a visit. Amazing history.