St. Petersburg (not Florida)
We’re off on day two of our quickie no-visa visit to
Russia. Breakfast is included with our
room and they do the whole 9 meters. An
omelet bar, all the other hot things you could ever want, all the cold things
you could imagine, lots of juices, breads and pastries all washed down with
gallons of coffee and champagne.
Now that we are fully ready for the day we take off down the
Neva on a now-familiar stroll. We’re
splitting up, John to the Hermitage, one of the premier art museums in the
world housed in an imperial palace, and Mary and Pat to the Strelka and Peter
and Paul Fortress.
With a couple handy tips John gets through the ticket buying
process fairly easily using a machine in the courtyard and blows past about 200
Russians waiting in line to buy tickets from a human being. Don’t know why that is but it is standard
operating procedure so who am I to question.
The building is magnificent, the grounds and river views are
superb, the opulence is eye-popping, and the art is more than world class. If John were there alone it would be one of
the great memories of a lifetime.
Unfortunately no one is going to be there alone, and at 11:00 on a
Sunday morning it could only be described as the opposite of alone.
Please forgive any ethnic generalities, but if I ever see
another Japanese tour group coming towards me, I am going to run like the
wind. Let’s all take a moment to try to
understand what the artist was trying to convey in this painting, after all it
is an original Da Vinci. No! We will run
as fast as we can towards the painting in a group of 40 people and we will all
push and shove until we get our 2 seconds in close proximity so we can snap a
picture and then we will run in a group to the next stop. Lord have mercy on anyone who should get in the
way, especially an aging American tourist.
The visit lasts an hour and a half which shows tremendous
fortitude and an inclination to discover lesser known works that are not part
of the audio guide. Eventually one has
to reverse course to get out which is the equivalent of swimming downstream
during a salmon run. John emerges into
the plaza with ripped clothing, a black eye and a limp. (That part may be an
exaggeration but you get the idea.)
The St. Petersburg half-marathon is winding up in front of
the Hermitage so a bit of relaxation in the sun (yes, the sun) watching the
finishers brings the blood pressure down to a survivable level. Mary and Pat are also there for a plan “A”
1:15 meeting.
Where were Mary and Pat?
Pat reports…..
Mary and Pat stayed on
the opposite side of the river. We
headed to a place called Strelka which is a point of land that juts into the
river. This offered a dynamite view of
the airfoil water taxis that raced by us on their way to who knows where. We also saw yet another bridal party having
their pictures taken in the park that is there.
I hope they aren’t all doing this between the wedding and the reception:
‘hangry anyone?’
Standing on Strelka
and turning all the way around I’m sure we saw a church and a government
building and a museum. We decided to
walk across one of the many bridges over the Neva River to the island that
houses the Peter and Paul Fortress which was built around 1703 and is
considered the birthplace of St Petersburg.
While there, Mary and I watched some Russians play a game called, we
think, gorodki[JZ1] [JZ2] . We
clapped when the other Russian spectators did and felt quite in the know. If anyone is interested in this we can
explain it when we get back. Or better yet,
you can look it up on line. We walked
around the grounds for a while and saw the church (in the fort) where the
Romanovs from 1613 through 1917 are buried.
You know, Nicholas and Alexandra.
After we went back across the river to meet John, we went to find the
memorial to the victims of the ‘Siege of Leningrad’ which lasted over 800 days.
Very small but very poignant.
Back to your regular reporter. We went back to Tepemok for a small bite of
lunch to get us through the afternoon.
The same lady was there and immediately told the guy next to her to get
out the English menus. Mary and Pat had
a blini and John had the Borsch. Mary
waved a thank you to our new-found friend behind the counter and got a big
Russki smile and wave in return.
We visited some shops and a big department store for the
next hour or two before heading back to the hotel to catch the 3:45 bus to the
ship. John suggested that we take the
long way to absorb some more of the city and it turned out to be a little
longer than expected. John blamed
Russian architects that felt that buildings should be 2 city blocks long
causing a shortage of cross streets. We
arrived at the hotel at 3:42, grabbed our bags from the lock-up and waited
another 3 minutes for our bus to appear.
Plenty of time.
We had to walk 100 yards on our knees and then kiss the
Russian security guard’s shoes to get back on the boat but a small price to pay
(you will recognize another small exaggeration). This cabin on the Anastasia is even smaller
than the last one if that is possible.
We move immediately to the lounge for the normal line-up of late
afternoon entertainers before our departure at 7:00 local time. It is happy hour so cocktails are 2 for
1. Nice touch. Our departure looking back on St. Petersburg
at sunset is a dramatic scene that goes on well into twilight. Do svidaniya
Russia.
This is a smaller ship and the restaurants are slammed. We get into our last choice and it turns out
to be fine. John had the duck (overdone)
with a baked pear, Mary had the fried pike/perch that was a popular restaurant
substitute for walleye for a while, and Pat had the “Siberian Ravioli” which
was a dish of meat dumplings with a sour cream sauce. Mary had a more savory sauce with hers so she
swapped with Pat.
After dinner we checked out the floor show. Tonight is a Russian rock and roll band
playing nothing but oldies which means Elvis to the Beatles. They could at least say thank you for the
music. When we heard “moh leetle
rohnaway” we knew it wasn’t Del Shannon. It was all high energy and the dance
floor was packed so everyone was having a great time. We need to be in the front of the departure
line for our 8:00 AM docking tomorrow so we do a repeat of the Friday night
routine and peel off to our little cabin.
What did we learn today? The cell phone camera may be the end
of civilization as we know it.
What else did we learn today? Russian drivers know no speed limits and the
average speed on Nevsky Prospekt (like 5th Ave. in New York) has to be 50 mph
between red lights.
