Enjoying Hermitage
Trip Start
Sep 13, 1997
1
15
22
Trip End
Oct 02, 1997
St. Petersburg,
Russia
Friday, September 26, 1997
Which made it a good day for seeing a museum. Especially a great museum like the Hermitage. Hermitage is said to be at the same level of Le Louvre in Paris and the British Museum in London. It exhibits the treasure of generations of Russian czars and the works range from ancient Egyptian, Roman to the early 20th century impressionists. Even I've been to both Le Louvre and British Museum (or even Metropolitan M. In New York), I was still stunned by the richness of Hermitage collection. It has 3 rooms for Picasso and 2 and ?for Renoir, one huge room for Rembrandt. Besides the collection it has, the interior decoration of Hermitage is even more impressive. Too bad I didn't bring my camera or video camera inside.
They charge 12 US dollars extra for using a camcorder, can you believe that? Again, welcome to Russia.....
After our tour group left, I and Mom even spent more time inside to try to see enough of the impressionist work. After we walked out of Winter Palace (the largest building in the Hermitage), it was all wet and damp at the palace square. We even tried to walk down the Nevsky Prospekt (it is said to be the Champs Elysee, or Fifth Avenue of St. Petersburg) in the rain. I just got all soaking wet. I did find one interesting book store called Dom Knigi on the Prospekt. Selling nice postcards at really cheap prices.......
My mother complained about the weather condition and didn't want to walk more. Oh, we hate the rainy days.....
We had to rushed back to our ship also because UniWorld arranged us to see a ballet performance (fortunately it's included and not optional! No extra cost!). It's weird that it was composed of several different works and pieces, instead of a whole program (such as Swan Lake). I guess it's specially designed for the tourists. I DO hope to see a complete piece of work. These dancers performed gracefully and lovingly, though.
Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be better. Tomorrow is another day..........
