2009 - Scandinavia - Day 12 - St. Petersburg, Russia

Today we saw two sites, St Catherine’s Palace, (her summer palace) and St. Isaacs Cathedral. We had driven by the cathedral yesterday and taken pictures of the outside, today we had a guided tour inside. The drive to the Summer Palace took about an hour. It was away from the downtown area, out in the suburbs so traffic wasn’t very bad. The palace was gorgeous, especially the Amber room. The Amber room walls were completely covered in Amber. Every spec was Amber tiled. One thing I didn’t know before this trip is that Amber is petrified tree sap, so it is very rare. I wish I could have taken a picture, but it wasn’t allowed. The palace was greatly damaged during WW2 and the Germans took the original Amber from that room, but they spent millions and over 10 years to restore all the Amber to the walls. It was an amazing room. We also walked around the grounds and saw the bath house by the pond. We were able to get some nice outside pictures of the palace. We then went to St. Isaac’s Cathedral. It is the 4th largest cathedral in the world. The columns outside are incredibly huge. It took 40 years to build this cathedral to the Orthodox Church. Now it is just a museum. I think the builders and founders of the cathedral would be sad indeed. Not many people are religious anymore. This cathedral was incredible inside and out. All the floor and walls are marble and gold overlays and mosaics and paintings. It was very beautiful. We then went to the train station, and caught our train to Moscow. It took 5 hours to get here. I slept an hour, read a Russian fairy tale book and started a new book and looked at the scenery. I saw homes that looked like little sheds, all run down, and a lot of buildings in disrepair. There are a lot of poor in Russia. Many homes don’t have running water. Our Russian guide said it was good for the old people, not to have running water, because they had to walk everyday and fetch their water, it kept them healthy. Moscow is every bit as busy as St. Petersburg; it was crazy just walking to our buses from the train. But our hotel room is gorgeous, a very big, nice room. It even has 2 queen beds, which I haven’t seen outside of the states. Usually there are only 2 twin beds. We will be at this hotel for the next 4 nights.