Yesterday was our first full day in the city built by Peter the Great. By European standards this is a very young city, built in the early 1800s. Like Houston it was Built on a swamp and provides a seaport.
We started with a morning bus tour during which our guide provided a lot of history and we drove by the main sites of significance. Our stops were only for photos and then one for the w/c where there was also souvenir shopping.
We were left off at the Faberge Museum, something we all said we wanted to visit. It was well worth it to view the intricately crafted, bejeweled eggs given by the later Romanov Tsars to their wives & mothers. Dan got pictures of a number of them.
We had a light lunch at the museum cafe, then 4 of us decided to walk back to the hotel area while the other two took a taxi. It was a bit over a half-hour walk, and the sun had come out so it was comfortable. Along the way we tried to find a geocache and were at the right coordinates but couldn’t find it. Also, the Cache description said to be discreet so as not to attract the attention of the police.
We managed to navigate the map, despite lack of detail and street names being in Russian, and made it to the Russian Vodka Museum Restaurant by our 4pm reservation. We had an early dinner because we had tickets for a show.
The night before, on a little walk around, our guide told us that the theater in the Michailevski Palace was having a show of Russian folk singing and dancing. All six of us decided that sounded like fun, so our guide got us tickets and a van to take us & pick us up. The show was well worth it! We even bought a CD of one of the acts – a men’s quartet.
By the end of the day, we were all very tired and I know Dan and I slept well.