St Petersburg Part 2

Another fine sunny day even though rain was forecast. Fortunately it held off until the evening, after all our touring of St Petersburg was completed. Today we visited the Imperial Estate - Peterhof - also known as the Russian Versailles . Intended as a Summer royal residence, it features beautiful gardens with numerous statues and fountains. We were fortunate at this time of year to see masses of tulips and daffodils flowering.

Our tour took us through a section of the palace, which like most royal palaces just oozed opulence with carvings in gold leaf, expensive silks and tapestries, intricate timber inlaid flooring and basically no expense spared. We also visited the bath house complete with cold baths, warm baths, steam rooms and fountain shower room - all completely over the top.

Unlike other palaces / museums / cathedrals we have visited, at Peterhof we made to donn protective booties (like those used in a hospital), and were paraded through each room in quick smart time with rather serious faced Russian women in each room ensuring we did not touch anything and kept walking with a rather abrupt 'Move it'. It came across as quite rude but it think it was more due to the language differences.

Back on board the boat we sailed out from St Petersburg, making our way to Moscow.Read more