Rossiya - St Petersburg St. Petersburg

... putting the faces in context and explaining the background to lots of the historical and cultural details in the paintings. I effectively had my own private tour guides for a couple of days and this added immeasurably to my experience.<br><br><br> Local knowledge prevailed also, when they were able to show me how to recognise the Russian equivalent of 'Spud-u'Like' for my lunch stops! So Russian cuisine isn't all just ...

... of Religious History which was really fascinating. There were sections dedicated to Islam, Christianity, Greek/Roman/Egyptian mythology, and Judaism. That evening I met up with Sarah at the Mariinsky to try and catch a ballet buying student rush tickets but they were sold out and holding only one ticket for 5 ...

... early by giving one a try. The cake is very tasty though not very rich. It is somewhat dry with raisins in it and some interesting spices that I could not quite put my finger on. A hint of anise perhaps? All in all, it is exciting to see signs of the Easter celebration popping up here and there now.  Yesterday was a big and exciting day. My college friend, Madelyn, came to visit me from Vladimir which is a small town outside of Moscow. Madelyn and I studied at the ...

... were "bad men", so on the bus we prepared for a possible mugging as we were going into the middle of nowhere with 3 drunk and semi aggressive guys. When we got to our stop we got off the bus very quickly and headed straight for the entrance to the park before they had a chance to converse with us any more. They seemed to be too drunk to keep up so we lost them pretty quickly. We walked through some beautiful gardens and fountains before we got to the entrance ...

... square. First we entered the Cathedral of Archangel Michael. Here, all of the bodies of the previous ruling Tsars are kept. (Gross!) The cathedral was huge, but the tombs covered most of the floor area. These churches were decorated with numerous icons and murals on the ceiling. We walked across the court yard and went into the Cathedral of Assumption. All of the Tsars were crowned inside this cathedral. We left the Kremlin and went to lunch at very nice restaurant. Next on our ...

... s represented on each bus). It was the beginning to a verrry long bus drive since we were driving the rest of the way to St. Petersburg and had to go through long delays at the border. There were moments on the bus drive when I would wake up for a split second before falling back asleep where literally everyone was asleep and the bus was eerily quiet. The bus ride was very smooth for me as I dozed on and off the entire way after taking my ...

... cultural treasures from Russia and around the World. Being part of the Winter Palace it is also absolutely huge. The only other museum I have been that was so exhausting was the Vatican in Rome. One thing that completely threw off my biological clock was the almost complete lack of darkness here during the summer. White Nights had just ended and it still didn't become dark ...

... all day. Perfect for what turns out to be our major mood swing about Russian as we try to get to Petrodvorets (which everybody calls by the German name Peter the Great gave the place - Peterhof). We catch the hydrofoil from the Neva River in front of the Hermitage. It starts running when they turn on the Peterhof fountains (all 150 of them) in May. It goes through October withe departures every 2 hrs starting at 8A and ending at 5P. Hydrofoil tickets are 300 ...

... sun disk, spraying streams of water like rays. I took hundreds of photos, as it was a gorgeous day ... We took two hours to visit the gardens but decided to by-pass the palace, as there was a long line for entry. So we returned to the hydrofoil and St. P. In ther afternoon, we visited the Hermitage. No lines for entry at all. We spent most of our time looking at the architecture and main rooms -- missed the DaVincis all together, which was a mind-boggling ...