Tsarskoye Selo-Catherine Great's Palace

This morning we were planning to have breakfast at a cafe near St Isaac’s Cathedral and then go into the cathedral but when we had a look at the cafe it didn’t look like they served much in the way of breakfast food, unless you liked caviar or soup for breakfast. There weren’t many other cafes around so we just went into a hotel and had breakfast there. We all ordered eggs Benedict and that’s what we got - no frills! Normally there’s a bit more in the way of bread, spinach, decoration etc but it seems the way of things here. No time for frills!

We were also going to Catherine the Great’s Palace today and they only had visits for non tour group people between 12 and 2. As the morning was getting on we decided to skip the cathedral for now (I think this is the third time we’ve tried to visit it unsuccessfully for one reason or another!) and head to the palace. We again had to catch the metro and then a bus out to Pushkin where the palace was located. Eli and I made a brief stop at a bakery on the way to purchase some tucker for later 😉

Eli had been carrying Heidi and stopped to see if she would walk - at which suggestion she decided to lie on the ground 🙄 then a Russian guy came over and was trying to coax her up in Russian. He switched to English when he realised and was saying ‘Stand up, stand up’ and gave her a cheer when she did 😂 so funny!!

We weren’t exactly sure which stop to disembark from the bus and as a result missed the one we should have taken, ending up a distance away from the palace! The bus driver instructed us on the bus we needed to take back and we hopped out to wait. Their buses don’t seem to have very good suspension or the driver didn’t slow down enough over the speed humps - I bounced off the seat a couple of times which was not particularly comfortable!

We caught another bus back and managed to get out at the right stop. We crossed the road and were able to enter the palace gardens (no cost at the moment) and walk up to the palace. It was another magnificent palace - blue and gold.

There seemed to be a lot more people at this palace or it was just we were later in the day. I’d hate to come in the middle of summer seeing what it was like today! There was the usual ticket buying, leaving coats etc in the cloakroom and then starting the tour. It was less enjoyable as there was people everywhere and you didn’t feel like you could spend much time enjoying a room as you didn’t want to get overtaken by the tour group you had just fought your way through! A few of the rooms were similar to those at Peterhof Palace. There was one room called the amber room in which the walls were covered with amber stones. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos in here. Apparently this was a gift from a Prussian to Catherine the Great. It has since been reconstructed - took 20 years to reconstruct and 11 million dollars as it had been sacked by the Nazis.Read more