Day 5 6/3 Saturday

At 8 am, we took the excursion bus to Peterhof, the site of Peter’s castle. The little town, which was incorporated into the city of SP after the fall of communism, is very pretty - with beautiful buildings and parks -- and immaculate. The castle was built by Peter the Great (he was 6 ft 8) in the 18th century initially as a stopping place on the way to his shipyard. It was later enlarged and remodeled by his successors. The palace was badly damaged by the Nazis but has been restored. The grounds are immense, meticulously maintained and adorned with 150 different and very fancy fountains. The water is powered by gravity from a hill 60 meters high and about 10 km away from the palace. We were very lucky because unlike the previous sites, the palace was not crowded at all. We were one of only 3 groups there so the tour was relaxed and leisurely. After strolling through the beautiful park along the gulf of Finland (in freezing cold wind), we left the tour and took a hydrofoil back to the city. We were the only passengers going in that direction. The hydrofoils (3 in a row) came to Peterhof full, but left empty back to the city. It was a much faster way to travel (45 minutes) than the coach on the road, and a lot more convenient as the stop was right in front of the Hermitage. We wonder why there are no water taxis here. We walked through the enormous plaza behind the Hermitage, which was closed as they were preparing it for a free public concert to take place this evening. The concert is dedicated to a cult rock musician from St. Petersburg, Victor Tsui, who died at the age of 28 in a car crash in 1990. He remains extremely popular all over the former Soviet Union. As we were walking towards Nevski Prospect, we got rained on a couple of times. The weather was totally unreliable – 5 minutes of sun, then poring rain, then sun again, rain again, etc. We found a nice upscale restaurant (Literaturnaya) and had a nice lunch of borscht (Bo) and solyanka (Al) + desert. Then spent several hours walking in center St. Petersburg stopping at Dom Knigy where Bo managed to buy a CD of Victor Tsui. Then we took metro and bus back to the ship. Generally, we are both very pleasantly surprised by St. Petersburg – the city is gorgeous, with great tourist infrastructure, well maintained public spaces, excellent public transportation that is fast and efficient, and friendly people (almost everybody we encountered spoke good English and was very eager to help). The standard of living seems to be high and people seem to be satisfied with how their city and country are doing. Based on what we’ve seen here, they have no reason not to be.

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