The number one tourist thing to do in St. Petersburg is a visit to the Hermitage museum. It is right up there with Louvre in Paris. The hermitage museum has DaVinci, Raphael, Gainsborough, Rembrandt, Rodin, and many, many more.
The first part of the tour was going through the royal residences...wow! The opulence
and decadence is hard to imagine. It is pretty easy to understand why the tsars were disposed.
The Hermitage has collections of all art forms from about the 10th century onwards and collections from all civilizations.
We spent about 4 hours there, but a true art fan could spend days there. Andy was able to pick up some free wi-fi and could keep tabs on the Mighty Magpies crushing win over the Gold Coast. A good day all round!
From the Hermitage we wandered around St . Petersburg and at the St. Isaac's cathedral there was a public concert/choir performing.
St. Isaac's is the 4th largest domed cathedral in the world behind St. Peters (Rome), St. Pauls (London) and the Duomo (Flornce). We have been fortunate to see all four now..
In the evening, via the St . Petersburg statue (the symbol of the town), we returned to Palace Square (in front of the Hermitage Museum), to watch a free rock concert (in Russian). The concert was a celebration of the championship winning Ice Hockey team SKA of St. Petersburg . A large crowd was there, most dressed up in the club colours, or waving flags, etc..
After a kebab for dinner and a few beers (a Belgium blonde and a Czech velvet) we headed back to our hotel to watch a bit of Eurovision, and we were pleasantly surprised with Guy Sebastian's effort, by far the best in the first dozen.
Cheers,
A & K.
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