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Trans Mongolian Trip
St Petersburg
After a long and exhausting trip from Tbilisi I finally arrived in a baking St Petersburg, it wasn't as hot as Georgia but there was a distinct lack of air conditioning as Russia was and still is I believe experiencing quite an unusual and hot summer.
On my second day and first full day in Russia I had to check out of my hotel room as I was supposed to be sharing with another girl in the tour group, Verena. However the Russians, being, well Russian, made us both check out of our single rooms and re check in to new single rooms. I spent most of the rest of that day wandering around this vast city (getting a bit lost) before finally visiting the Peter and Paul Fortress. The fortress was originally built to keep out the Swedish invaders and keep prisoners in, it is also the burial place for place most of the Romanovs (Peter the Great to Nicholas II).
That evening I met the rest of my tour group, Steve (tour leader), Sam and Tony (fellow Trans Mongolian tour group) and Frank and Verena (who were with us for St Petersburg and Moscow sections).
Day three was the orientation walk, St Petersburg is very beautiful, grand, and absolutely huge. Its like a mix of Stockholm, Vienna, Venice, Amsterdam (sorry not London!) no wonder its called the Venice of the North. I visited numerous churches including St Issac's (whose bronze dome dominates the sky line), the Church of the Resurrection Built on Spilt Blood (yes that is its full name as it is built on the spot where Alexander II was asassinted in 1881 and Kazan Cathedral, which I originally thought was a museum. There were lots of stop of's in between mainly for the odd cheeky beer and then we all met up in the evening for dinner.
The final day in St Petersburg was dominated by visiting the State Hermitage Museum, it is one of the largest museums in the world (only the British Museum and the Loovre are bigger). The collection was started by Catherine the Great's private collection of art and antiquities. Now to be honest most of us did not realise just how bloody big the museum was, from the pictures it looks like its just the green and white building (winter palace) in fact it spreads over the adjacent buildings. Apparently there are over 460 rooms and to walk around the entire museum is roughly 25km. We had a local guide to show us around the main rooms and exhibits including the rooms themselves are they based Italian architecture. It was an interesting but completely knackering museum. A few of us decided to stay on after the tour ended, however as we later discovered none of us managed it for much more than an hour, personally after I had another go at wandering around I must spent an hour trying to figure out how to leave the place, it was only because I bumped in to Steve that I found my way out.
Most of the museums close for one day a week so if you are ever planning a trip there and want to visit certain museums you would need to plan around the closed days.
That evening we left St Petersburg for Moscow on the first leg of the Trans Siberian railway. I shared a four berth cabin with Tony, Sam and Verena, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures as I thought that the nice modern cabin with air conditioning would be repeated later on in the journey. I was wrong there! We had a few beers then tried to sleep.
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