Saturday, July 11, 2015
We were both startled awake by the alarm. We had fallen off
to sleep immediately and hadn’t stirred all night. We set off to breakfast and
then got ashore to be on time for our 9:30am meeting with our guide. His name
was either Dimar or Dmitri. Our driver was Slava again from Thursday. It was
pouring rain when we left the ship, but it slacked off and only sprinkled or
misted the rest of the day. The good news was that we had museums scheduled all
day, so we weren’t out in it much.
It turned out that we couldn’t get into our first museum,
the Treasure Gallery #2 Gold Room in the Hermitage until 10:30am. Also, he
didn’t have our tickets yet. We drove to meet someone to get them as we had on
Thursday with Anya. Then we made a bonus visit to Holy Trinity Church. This is
a blue domed church with golden stars on it and a gleaming white building. I
had seen it numerous times in the distance but we had never driven near it
before. It had cannons and an obelisk built of cannons out in front. I forget
what war they were commemorating. Inside it was under restoration so we
couldn’t see a lot of it. But, they were singing a service when we entered and
the altar was open. They were having confession and lined up for communion. There
were at least 4 priest at or on or around the altar and all wearing golden
regalia. The guide explained it was a Russian religious holiday most closely
related to our St. Valentine’s Day. That was special. We still needed to kill
some time, so I asked the guide about finding a patch. He took us to a special
needle crafts store and they had a Russian flag patch. I had seen one of these
at a souvenir place when we were here before and didn’t get it because it didn’t
say a place name on it and I wasn’t sure I’d remember where I got it. I bought this
one because. They also had a big selection of cross-stitch kits and I looked
through them but I didn’t really like any of them. We went on to the Hermitage
in the hope of finding the guy selling paintings outside again, but alas it was
not to be. We looked all day for those outdoor painting vendors with no luck. I
guess a rainy Saturday is a good day to take off for painting vendors. We went
inside to learn that we would have another private guided museum tour. He came
with us and translated since today’s specialist spoke Russian. It was pretty
awesome. The ancient gold and diplomatic gifts were amazing. Especially the
ancient gold. I recommend it! We still had the Impressionists in the Hermitage
and the Faberge Museum to do. Faberge was scheduled for 3pm. It was 12:15pm so
I chose lunch first. We reclaimed our raincoats and went outside. The guide
suggested Stolle and we declined. It was not our favorite meat pies. It turned
out there was a Teremok about a block away and we were happy to go there. He
bought his own lunch while we looked at the menu! Clay had the same cold summer
soup he got for himself and which wasn’t on the menu since it is seasonal. Clay
must have liked it, at least he ate it all. We ordered an order of dumplings to
share. We liked them. They were like small steamed Chinese dumplings but with
sour cream on them. I had a bacon and cheese blini and a condensed milk
dumpling. I had a fermented rye soda drink, Kvass, which is a local favorite. Didn’t
love it! Clay had another Russian beer. Both guides disparaged it as a
Soviet-era evil thing, but Clay liked it Okay. We like this chain of pancake
restaurants! We walked back and went through the entire New Hermitage building.
It was a bit of a work in progress still, but the stark modern interior was a
surprise and sometimes the unfinished concrete surfaces were not attractive.
But, overall we liked it. The glass ceiling over the entire roof was nice as
were the glass walks and stairway. It was an amazing collection in a special
setting. Recommend! Our last stop was the Faberge Museum. The guide told us he
had to take another couple through with us because there was a couple that
wanted to go through and their guide wasn’t licensed there. It turned out to be
Zack and Cheryl again. They had other plans for the rest of the day (1 hour or
so) and so we did a condensed tour of the highlights of Eggs and then wandered
most of the rest of the collection. Spectacular. Recommend. It was another good
day. I highly recommend Alla Tours for St. Petersburg tours. I think the
private tours here are a particularly good value. We saw a lot on the first
time through with group tours for 3 days, but it would have been a better idea
I think to stay with all private for the value and quality of experience.
Either way, I recommend Alla Tours for St. Petersburg.
We got back to the ship way before the 5:30pm deadline. Clay
counted his rubles and said we had to shop it out in the terminal. We bought a
matryoshka pepper mill and a matryoshka small scissors. I love the idea of
twisting that doll’s head for pepper! The scissors are pointing and I really
need a pair that are blunt ended for travel but it satisfied Clay’s monetary
desires. It left over a 100 ruble note that Clay told me to put in my souvenir
paperwork as it was worth about one $.
We sailed about 10 past 6 just after one of our neighboring
ships departed. The captain came on the PA and announced we would sail past
Kronstadt in about an hour. We wanted to see that. We saw a lot more of the island
that we couldn’t actually see from the ground on Thursday. We saw the ship Aurora
that she told us about. We saw a lot of people out where I stepped in the Bay of
Finland. We saw a submarine. We saw cadets marching in formation again. We saw
the big white swing arms that can close the little slot with a road tunnel
under it that is the opening for ships to enter the bay to St. Petersburg. It
is part of their dam’s flood control. They don’t really get tides here, but
have a flooding problem in the city from the wind pushing the shallow Bay of Finland
back up into the arms of the Neva River.
We need to go to bed early and sleep in! Tomorrow is Tallinn
which is another repeat port for us and we have no firm plans so that is good.
Especially since the weather forecast is bad. Temps in the 50s F and rain all
day. If it is that bad, we may have a sea day.
In other news, we got a letter last night announcing a new schedule
due to operational reasons. Whatever that means. I know it means more shortened
port times aboard Marina. We will lose an hour at the end of the day tomorrow.
We will lose an hour in the morning in Riga. We will lose 2 hours in the morning
in Klaipeda. We will lose an hour in the morning in Warnemunde. We will lose an
hour at the end of the day in Copenhagen. We will lose an hour in the morning
in Amsterdam. That left only 2 ports unaffected. We are still scheduled to arrive
in Southampton on time.
