All The Bridges Coming Up!

July 1st, 2016

We began the day trying to get tickets to the Russian ballet, but the websites don't accept foreign credit cards and the ticket offices were all very far from where we wanted to be. Although a little disappointed, we will make the most of what we can. We are finally starting to grasp some elements of the language after realizing that Pectopah translates to restaurant and is somehow pronounced "restoran" so now we know p=r, c=s, and h=n. While still incredibly confusing, this is helping us try to figure out other signs. Although we are still mostly relying on TripAdvisor and Google to figure everything out.

We started the day with a very hot walk to Peter and Paul Fortress. We walked the grounds, exploring the Peter and Paul Cathedral which was more stunning on the inside than expected from the outside. Again, all tours were in Russian so we will be doing some research later. We walked the Nevsky Panorama at the top of the fortress and enjoyed the views of the river and city across the way. At noon we got to see them fire the cannon (a very loud cannon!) and then toured the prison.

We grabbed lunch at Casa Del Myaso, a restaurant with mostly beef and steak on the menu and realized that beef is huge here! We enjoyed kebabs and a pork loin and decided we will come back dressed more appropriately for a dinner before we leave the city.

Next, we made our way back over the bridge to the Hermitage and walked through the palace rooms and avoided the massive tour groups to try to see as much of the art as possible. Again, and not surprisingly, most of the tours were in Russian and also had at least 40 people in each so we decided we would be better finding downloading an audio tour. Of course, we could not download these at the museum, so we would have to wait until getting back to our hotel. Luckily, we had purchased the two day tickets, so we will definitely be back tomorrow. However, it was a good first glance at the Palace and Museum and helped orient ourselves with getting around it.

We walked over to St. Isaac's Cathedral, but since it was closing soon, and the dome walkway was already closed, we decided to save this for another day. We made a close stop to see (another) statue of Peter the Great. It had an interesting story about Catherine the Great commissioning it so she could rise in stature among the elites, and that it is on top of the biggest stone ever moved by man (not sure if that means without powered machines).

Tired from so much walking, we decided to grab the "Hop-on/Hop-off" bus that circles the city and it looks like a London bus. Although, we have always had too much shame to do this in any other city, this finally provided an English tour option and we jumped on the change (and the opportunity to finally sit)! It was a surprisingly good tour, until the temperatures dropped and it began to rain on Chuck from the upper deck, so the last part was spent trying to huddle under the one hoodie we had brought, as the weather was supposed to be sunny and 80 all day. Chuck did find the end of the tour interesting, and bitter, when the last fact from the tour stated, “Alexander Popov invented the radio, not Marconi.”

We found a restaurant for dinner closer to our hotel. Cafe Abajour, which is known for their steaks, so we had even more steak. We have decided at this point the rest of the trip will be filled with fish, so we will enjoy all the inexpensive steak we can here! :)

We decided to end dinner with some espresso so we could finally stay awake and discover the fun of the White Nights. Since the sun just dips below the horizon all night, by the time we left the restaurant at 10, the sky was still so bright there were no street lights on! We made our way back to the city center to check out the sights lit up by both lights and the sky. It was crazy to see twigs light after midnight! Around 1/1:30am was probably the darkest it got, which is what our summer sky looks like around 9:30pm our time (4:30 in the winter)! We also had to make it back to our side of the bridge before they were raised, otherwise we would be stuck on the other side until the morning! We made it back to our side and stuck around to watch the bridges raise. It was crazy to see how many people were out celebrating this and all the boats that come out to watch the sight.

It was also time for people to show off their cars and they were drag racing and drifting on the street with people and police all around. By the time we got back to our hotel it was 2am and still light enough and busy enough to feel completely safe walking around. By the time we started falling asleep at 2:30 the sun was already coming out again!