scubacruiserx2

There are a number of different fountains there and this map may help locate and name a few .

The wind whipped French Fountain

A Roman Fountain , and in the distance , The Chessboard Fountain .

With the dragons on the top

One of our favorites is the Water Road Fountain , which must be seen in video to truly enjoy it !

If you choose the hydrofoil , it's a fairly long walk along the pier .

Until you reach the canal which leads up to the palace .

But , if you should get hungry from you effort , there is a nice restaurant Standart there .

With Borscht

and Beef Stroganoff , which we can attest , is well made and delicious .

It is widely accepted that it was invented in the Stroganoff Palace in SPB .

There are many palaces in and around St. Petersburg like this one .

But the special thing about this one is the fountains . Watch them come on , with music , in this video clip :

The Grand Cascade

There are several ways to get here including hydrofoil

Here come several now !

Sampson opening the jaws of a lion

There are also beautiful grounds here

Great following this.. Loving the photos.

 

PS the link seems broken (well it goes to a session expired page)

I don't think that we put up Gennadiy's site either :

http://www.guide-petersburg.com/

I'm not sure what's wrong , you made have to look it up . Here's her basic 2 day trip .

Day 1

- Meet at the ship

- Enjoy the beauty of the awakening city. Possible to visit St. Nicolas Cathedral.

- Drive to City of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoye Selo)

- Catherine's Palace; the Amber Room is definitely the highlight here. Enjoy beauty of the park.

- Drive to Peterhof

- Enjoy the beauty of Peterhof (Kingdom of Fountains)

- Enjoy unexpected beauty of subway on the way back

- Return to the ship/optional evening program

Evening program option is also available as Folk show or Ballet in one of the best theaters of St Petersburg.

Day 2

- Meet at the ship

- Start the city tour

- Visit the the Peter and Paul's Fortress and the Cathedral.

- Visit St. Issac's Cathedral, Church on the Spilt Blood

- You will be able to take pics at the most picturesque places of the city: Spit of Basil Island, the Bronze Horseman, Nevsky Prospect and more.

- Lunch

- Hermitage tour

- Return to the ship

PLEASE NOTE: You can easily change the plan - add activity or even lower it. I am opened to help You to get the Dream Plan!

It's $740 for 2 , but only $780 for 4 . I think that it doesn't include admissions and so we bought the SPB card which has a lot of coupons , for $ 48 .

https://petersburgcard.com/en/about-card/petersburgcard/

I found some photos which I had wanted to use yesterday , but my photo sharing site was ( and still is ) having some problems , and so I couldn't put them up yesterday . These are from the Narva station .

The arch decorated for Victory Day

The propaganda painting on the building

Statues in the station

Thanks for providing the tour guides info, when we book a Baltic cruise(which I hope will be when the new itineraries come out this fall) we will definitely contact them....it is so worth spending a few more $$ to be able to avoid massive crowds!!

 

Really enjoying your journey, what was Tyler's favorite part of the trip?

You're welcome Gracie . And we also had a good guide and tour in Copenhagen .

Like so many cruisers , he loves to eat and he does enjoy sleeping in . And so he would probably love a TA ! :) :D

I am sure I simply missed it but which company did you use for the tour in St Petersburg?

We used a private guide/driver , Gennadiy Chentov , on day 1 . He charges $ 25 /hr for 1 or 2 people and $30/hr for 3 or 4 . We first met him back in 2009 , when Pat had dark hair ! ;)

On days 2 and 3 we booked with Polina V. a guide/driver which we met through Tours by Locals in 2015 .

We booked her independently , but she also works for TBL and Alla . Polina's daughter was sick , when we were in SPB , and so she sent Anna with a driver , and called us on Anna's phone to explain . Here's her TBL contact page :

https://www.toursbylocals.com/TBL/WebObjects/ToursByLocals.woa/1/wo/mGraQiE6XJrEPvYEdIfvRg/4.27.7.3.13.1.13.3.1.1

This is a wonderful review; have enjoyed all your posts and learned lots from them too. Library train = amazing!!

Thank you , and we're happy that you enjoy it ! I think that they were trying to encourage reading , but I'm not sure that you can take the display books . The photo of the fire in the fireplace was a tip off and there's plastic in front of the shelves . ;)

Ooops ! I forgot to put up the photo of Anna , Pat and Tyler on the happy train .

Our final stop was at Avtovo

I love the photo of the library train speeding away !!

We asked Tyler to look serious while we were underground , and he took us serious !

This mosaic says a lot . Made 10 years after WW II , it shows the war years dates and a strong Mother Russia holding the future . The banner at the top using the same root word Mir , ( remember the space station ? ) means - World Peace .

They also have marble columns here .

And after meeting our driver here , we drove toward our next stop - Peterhof .

As we surface above the Narva station , we see the Narva Arch . The Narva Triumphal Arch (lit. Gate, Russian: На́рвские триумфа́льные воро́та) was erected in the vast Narva Square (known as Stachek Square since 1923), Saint Petersburg, in 1814 to commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleon . Wikipedia

We also see a building with a propaganda painting urging the workers of the world to unite .

Going back down

There was a diorama prior to descending urging " Glory to Work ! "

But this was not the original . The original featured Stalin .

This stop , Baltyskaya

Anybody , Baltiyskaya ?

We will get off at the next station , Narvaskaya .

When the station was first being built, it was named Ploshchad Stachek (Translated "Square of the Strikes"), but several years before its opening, the name was changed to "Stalinskaya" after Joseph Stalin. Shortly before it opened in March 1953, Stalin died and the political structure changed. The station was renamed Narvskaya after the Narva Triumphal Gate, located opposite the entrance to the station. This place-name indicates that it was once the gate of the road to Narva. Source : Wikipedia

Finished in 1955 , this station has social realism art glorifying workers and the State .

And , reflecting the cold war , these metal decorations which are really - heavy bomb blast doors , can be slid closed if needed .

We saw Pushkin as we changed lines to Pushkinskaya

As you can see , it's in English also

A quick ride on the train :

Here we picked up the library train

For a ride .

loving your review. I'm feeling the need to go to Europe again..soon very soon

Thanks , it reminds us until we go again . ;)

The purple 5 line is the newest line and the next exit is the closest to Palace Square , Admiralteyskaya .

This sign was up last May for Victory Day

Another stunning station on this line is Obovodny Canal .

We would be getting off where the new Zvenigorodskaya station meets the oldest line , the # 1 Red .

When we met Anna she gave us a briefing of where we would first go - The Metro .

We would be entering a new line on the purple 5 near Sportivnaya .

We were surprised to find out that our spb cards weren't working . You

enter the tunnel here and it goes way down

From here we were hopping on a new tunnel which went under the river .

It moves quite fast and you can hear the wind whistling in our video clip !

There is a much better version here , in Russian :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94YIowDjFro

When we woke up on our last day in SPB it was cold and surprise , rainy !

And up on deck , we had some new visitors

And on the other side of the ship is the Lakhta Center ( Gazprom , the Russian oil company ) , which at 463 m , will become the tallest building in Europe .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakhta_Center

Have been quietly following (cruising!) along and must say thanks again for a wonderful blog on your journey.

 

The photos have been wonderful as well as the snippets of history thrown in. All ports look wonderul but SPB especially magical - so much history, art and architecture! Truly mesmerising!

 

Only the overcrowding at some of the attractions is off putting, but if your advise to travel outside of peak times can be achieved it sounds like it will add immeasurable value to the experience!

 

Some cruises will dock in SPB For 3D/2N which also allows a rather quick but rare opportunity to visit Moscow. Have you done this previously and would recommend if you did not have a chance to visit pre/post cruise?

 

Cheers!

Matt

 

 

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Hi Matt , and thank you for you kind comments and observations , and Oz is on our bucket list . But with that being said , we couldn't imagine doing a cruise from Sydney to NZ without a pre and/or post cruise stay to both of the beautiful locations - unless that was the only way to do it ! In other words , we would recommend a stay in either one of these great places !

We made several stays in SPB without going to Moscow and had plenty to see and do ! But if this is your only chance ( we never dreamed that we would have returned before our first visit to SPB ) - THEN YOU MAY WANT TO CONSIDER IT !

We have not done it from a cruise but we have done a day trip and a overnight trip , both from SPB . The day trip is found here :

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1927687

It is a very long 15 hour day ( 3 hours each way on the train ) and very expensive . But , if that's what you want to do by all means go for it !

Even as visions of dinner , fireworks and the museum danced in our adult heads , we could see that Tyler had grown tired of museums and so w headed back to the ship . We thought that after dinner in the MDR the folk show would be nice . But by the time we finished dinner , we were all finished and the shower and the bed sure looked nice , AND IT FELT GREAT !

And we still had one more day in SPB . ;)

The Faberge Museum is the world's largest museum of Faberge and features the Imperial Eggs in the blue room .

http://fabergemuseum.ru/

The first photo is from their website and the 2nd and 3rd are photos from a book , as they allowed no photography when we last visited .

These fireworks are from Victory day in May of 2015 , when we went with some friends .

And a video clip of a very excited Russian crowd :

Yum!! That dinner and menu looks wonderful!!:)

It's an interesting , and delicious dining experience ! :) :D

After Yusupov's our tour for the day was completed . Tyler was tired and wanted to go back to the ship but Pat and I were thinking a DIY dinner , the Faberge Museum , and the fireworks that evening to celebrate Russia Day .

One of our favorites restaurants in SPB is Kilikia , and it features great Armenian food at a cheap price .

Kamatz Matzoun (yogurt meatballs) - delish

Kharcho - Georgian lamb soup

Greek Salad

Chicken Kabobs with wild rice

Three Bears beer

Here's a link to their menu , in English , with pictures . :)

http://kilikia.spb.ru/menyu

Another day, more wonderful pictures and a fascinating read!

 

 

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Thank you again . Kinda of a creepy way to finish the evening , but we were nearing the end of the second day in SPB . :) :D

We finished our main tour in a dining area which overlooked the main staircase .

After this , we separated from the main group of people to do a limited access tour of where Rasputin was murdered . We first entered an area with attendant sitting by a sign which said " Only for staff ".

We were stopped here and told to wait , until they were ready for us .

In life Rasputin was a strange and controversial person , and the account of his death was no less controversial . And I will borrow some of the Wikipedia account of his death from the article found here :

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Rasputin

When our time came , we were led to a door with a narrow , dark , claustrophobic stair way leading down into a cellar . Part way down , we had to squeeze past another small group leaving . Only one way in and one way out !

The following events from the Wikipedia account we similar to the story told to us :

Around midnight, on Friday 16/Saturday 17 December, Prince Felix went with Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert to Rasputin's apartment. Yusupov didn't use the regular stairs at this unseemly hour, but a stairwell for servants in the courtyard. Around one o'clock in the morning they drove to the recently refurbished palace, where a sound-proof room, part of the wine cellar, had been specially prepared for the crime with carpets and stain-glass lamps. They had placed four bottles, containing different kinds of sweet wines, either in a window or on a table. Waiting in his drawing room on another floor were the fellow conspirators: Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Purishkevich, his assistant Lazovert and Sukhotin, a friend of Felix's mother.

According to Yusupov in his memoirs , he offered Rasputin tea and petit fours laced with a large amount of cyanide .

After Rasputin was drunk Yusupov went upstairs and came back with Dmitri's revolver. Rasputin was shot at close quarters by Felix sitting left of him. The bullet entered the chest, penetrating the stomach and the liver; it left the body on the right side . However, Yusupov did not succeed in killing Rasputin. According to Maria Rasputin the bullet wounds were slight. After a while "Rasputin opened his eyes and became aware of his predicament."[288] He struggled up the stairs to reach the first landing, opening an unlocked door to the courtyard, which had been—not long before—used by Yusupov's conspirators. Alarmed by the noise, Purishkevich went down and fired at Rasputin four times, missing three times (from an unknown distance according to Nelipa). The bullet penetrated the right kidney and lodged into the spine.[289] Rasputin never reached the gate,[290] but fell into the snow, just outside the door. Both shots were fatal; he would have died within 10–20 minutes, but when the body made a sudden movement, one of them placed his revolver on the forehead and pulled the trigger.[note 17] Then the body was carried back inside. A nervous Yusupov severely hit his victim in his right eye with his shoe.[294]

This was a hall in which Rasputin tried to escape from his captors .

When his the body was wrapped in a broadcloth, Dimitri and his fellow conspirators drove in the direction of Krestovsky island.[310] The sentry on the bridge was asleep, which allowed the murderes to draw up quite close to railing and threw the corpse into an hole in the ice of the Malaya Nevka River, relying on the current to carry it out to sea. They drove back, without noticing that one of Rasputin's galoshes was stuck between the pylons of the bridge. They forgot to attach weights to his feet to make the body sink, but his fur coat formed an air bell, and the corpse drifted into an ice mass; it prevented the body's disposal into the sea.[311]

wow! so beautiful!

Thank you and welcome aboard , and we hope that you enjoy our cruise ! :) :D