We left Moscow on Wednesday night. We checked out of our hotel at midday and headed to the Kremlin to take a look around the grounds. There are a number of cathedrals inside the Kremlin walls as well as gardens and a museum. We skipped the museum knowing that in St Petersburg we would probably get out fill of Museums and Russian culture at the Hermitage. We spent the day wandering the Kremlin grounds before heading out for a last glimpse of Red Square and a bit of sight seeing of the Metro stations. The Metro stations in Moscow are like an art gallery in themselves - full of statues an chandeliers - sure beats Geelong Station!!
We had our final meal at Mu Mu and picked our bags up before catching the metro to Leningradski station to catch the overnight train. We got there early to wait for the train and waited untill 11.00 pm to board. Once on board we were shown to our cabin, there was some fruit on the table and the conductor asked us when we would like breakfast. We set ourselves up for bed, we had bunks, so me being nice took the top bunk. Pete slept pretty well down on the bottom bunk, I had a bit of broken sleep but we awoke okay just before breakfast. We had to track down the conductor to get our brekky but soon she brought along an omelette whcih was okay!
We arrived into St Petersburg at 8.30am, a little bit late but not too bad. We walked to our hotel, Swiss Star. We eventually found the accommodation and were shown to our room. The room seemed quite nice, we are paying just over $100 a night here with a shared bathroom, but given there is not a lot of people I don't think we actually have to share.
We headed out for a walk around St Petersburg, the weather was quite warm, a little bit of wind. We soon relaised that St Petersburg is under heavy construction and there are streets all ripped up, there is scaffolding everywhere. We wandered around for most of the rest of the day and decided that on Friday (the next day) we would go see the Hermitage Museum.
Today (Friday), we actually slept in, yes of all miracles, despte a very light room, we slept until 9.00am! We headed out to The Hermitage at about midday. We had pre-booked our tickets so got priority entrance, not that it mattered, there were no queues! We spent the afternoon wandering around the museum, it is spectacular, the building it self is a palace and it just beautiful. The art and artefacts it holds only adds to the splendour.
We have a second day at The Hermitage tommorow so we only saw one floor, but that took 4 hours!! From there we went to O'Hooligans's Irish pub for a few pints of cider before grabbing a bite to eat at a pasta restaurant - a bit like La Porchetta! We headed back to our room, it now appears we are the only guests here - very odd!! It is still light and it is 10.30. Time to go to bed! We have another day ahead of us at the Museum tomorrow, I am most looking forward to seeing the French art of Picasso, Cezanne and Monet, no doubt it will be beautiful.
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