Day 2 of our tour dawned sunny and clear, and we were ready to go by 8:30.  After the obligatory souvenir shop stop (which wasn’t hard sell fortunately) we were off to The Hermitage.  Formerly the Winter Palace, this is now the third largest museum in the world, after the British Museum and the Louvre (I still think the British is the best).  It was free admission Thursday, and the lines waiting patiently to get in were unbelievable. Fortunately we had pre-arranged admission and walked straight in.  Even so, we were mixed in with many other tour groups (there are five ships in our terminal today, and another closer to the city).  Katya put on her bossy pants and led us firmly through many rooms, pointing out the highlights and some of her personal favourites. If we’d been on our own it would have taken all day as there were so many things to look at and linger over, such as the Egyptian mummy who dated from the 11^th century BC.  As a former palace, the architecture, decoration and furnishings were as impressive as the artworks.  My favourites were the massive vases made from jasper and other precious stones.  We saw two small madonnas by Da Vinci, and you can see why he was such a genius – he understood perspective long before anyone else, and he also understood his subjects and brought them to life. In the second one, the baby looks at you while sucking his thumb, exactly as the Mona Lisa does.

We spent some time in the square outside the Hermitage, and learned that one of the buildings directly opposite was the KGB headquarters, and is still used by the “new” KGB – which explained the bristling antennas and barbed wire.  Prior to an excellent lunch of potato and mushroom dumplings, we lingered beside another canal and watched the boats squeezing under the low bridges.  It is much more like Amsterdam than Venice, because of course there are cars, trams, and wide streets.  We also noticed there are almost no bikes.  Katya explained that Russians prefer to drive their cars, as a status symbol.  Like Australians, they claim that public transport is too hot or too crowded, bikes are too difficult, and we just want to be in our nice new comfortable cars thanks very much. Traffic jams can last up to three hours but it makes no difference.

Our next stop was the Church of the Spilled Blood.  This church is very similar in appearance to the famous St Basils in Moscow.  It is a memorial church to Alexander II, who was assassinated by a bomb.  The interior is completely decorated with mosaic tiles.

The Fortress of Peter and Paul is where St Petersburg was founded, and the Cathedral there holds the tombs of the Czars, including Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and the last ruling members of the Romanov family who were shot in 1917 at the beginning of the Revolution.

It was here that we had a very special, once in a lifetime experience.  Katya noticed that one of the cathedral singers was there, so she asked if we could listen to them sing.  We were ushered into a small but acoustically perfect anteroom.  There were five male singers, all dressed in black robes.  As they began to sing, I got goosebumps.  We all sat spellbound at the power and beauty of their voices, which they used like perfectly tuned instruments.  They needed no amplification or musical accompaniment.  I could have listened to them sing forever.  It’s always the small unexpected things that happen, that can make a day truly memorable.

But we weren’t finished yet. Our final stop was a visit to the Faberge Museum.  Opened quite recently, it is not as well known as the other museums and churches, and not many tours go there.  It houses nine Royal Faberge eggs, purchased for $100 million by a Russian businessman, who then set up the museum to display them.  It houses other work by Faberge, as well as some French impressionist paintings.  The eggs are of course the centrepiece, and the attention to detail is exquisite.

Cruising is a surreal experience.  Tonight we sat in the large theatre watching a top class magic show.  Then we went up onto the top deck to stand in the rain and bid farewell to St Petersburg as it slipped away.  We sailed over the ring road, which goes underground at the entrance to the Baltic.  As the mist closed in we headed off for our usual three course dinner (goats cheese soufflé, followed by cocoa-rubbed pork, and crème brulee. Ian has ordered beef wellington for tomorrow, not something that usually figures on a GF menu but at dinner nothing seems to be  a problem if they have 24 hours notice).  We wandered into the TV studio where they were playing a trivia game.  Ian won the main prize which turned out to be a lovely necklace which will match my cocktail dress perfectly for tomorrow’s formal night.  Tomorrow morning when we wake up we will be docked in Helsinki.  Go figure.