A Walk Along Nevsky Prospekt

This is the "main drag" of St. Petersburg beginning at Admiralty Square across from the Hermitage and extending through the city. We walked it as far as Uprising Square starting at the English Embankment. (The pedometer reported that this was about 7 miles round trip!) It was a fascinating afternoon as we poked in and out of stores and historic spots and again we were glad for our Russian visas as others w/o them could not leave the ship unescorted.
The first picture is of Kazan Cathedral. It looks better in the picture than real life and after once serving as the Museum of Atheism now I think a Russian Orthodox Church. We started out with down jackets and rain coats....the afternoon warmed and so it was pleasant when in the sun. As you can see from the second picture, they are just beginning to plant annuals mid June. Winters are harsh. Besides being dark for many months there is much snow.
Of special interest was Stockmans Department Store! We had stopped in at Stockmans in Helsinki, a wonderful store with a huge underground grocery and specialty store. And so we wanted to know what a Russian Stockmans was like! The upper floors reminded me of Macy's and the lower floor was just about as amazing as the Helsinki store. There were many shoppers filling their grocery carts with just about anything we could buy at home or elsewhere in the world from specialty meats to caviar of Heinz catsup!
We even found a huge cooler filled with Driscolls strawberries, raspberries and blueberries!

Peterhof Palace and Gardens

Hermitage

Catherine Palace

This immense palace is named after Peter the Great's second wife and not Catherine the Great although Catherine the Great spent much time there as well as quite a bit of money remodeling the palace. It is closed in the evening and Seabourn had arranged a private tour and concert. Turned out to be a lovely evening. Our group was met at the entrance with a military band and escorted to the main entrance. We then toured the major rooms which have all been sumptuously restored (where does all this $$ come from for all this gold used inside and out?). The high light was the Amber Room as shown below in the picture. The original panels had been removed by the Nazis and taken to Germany and have never been recovered. So this entire room was redone again with real amber. We were told that this room alone cost millions and millions with some of the $ provided by the Germans. It is an amazing sight. Please note my lovely booties which we had to put on on all these tours. Al suggested I take some home in my pocket so that all guests could be expected to wear them in our home!!!!

After the tour we were served champagne and seated in the Grand Throne Room for what turned out to be a lovely concert presented by a small orchestra.

As with Peterhof Palace, the vastness and lavishness in their restored state is hard to comprehend.

Farewell St Petersburg!

These two pictures tell a lot.  We have just left St. Petersburg after 3 very un expectedly pleasant days and are settling down to our pre dinner delivery of champagne and caviar...a Seabourn tradition.
The other picture is of my Russian visa.  Al spent hours and hours and literally hundreds of dollars to get it!   We both thought we had gone nuts to go through the hoops to get them.  (i.e list employers and supervisors for the last 10 years!)  Turns out it was well worth it.  Our small ship pulled right up to the English Embankment just a few blocks from the Hermitage on the Neva River.
We were in long walking distance from almost everything and we did walk and walk and walk.  One afternoon we did the main drag, Nevsky Pr, and walked at least 7 miles.  We really saw St. Petersburg.
All the larger ships  were 20-30 minutes from our location and had to shuttle or taxi. From that location a Russian visa might not be worth it.  However after the first day when the paperwork for everyone took forever we were able to just walk in the special booth on the dock and show our passports.  When we exited immigration today the agent who had come to recognize us asked if we enjoyed his city and when we said we did "very much" he beamed and was so happy.
We took 3 tours offered by the ship but the rest of the time we explored on our own.   Will blog more about St. Petersburg separately.

Departure from Stavanger

On our walk back to the boat we were hailed by a man attempting to single handedly dock his sailboat. He was not doing at all well. I was so worried Al would fall in as the wind was very strong. After securing the bow he caught his stern line.
Later the captain announced he had arranged for a tug to assist due to the high wind. We stood on the bow and watched the tug.

Stavanger

Stavanger is the 2nd largest city in Norway and south of Bergen. We arrived on a gorgeous but extremely windy.
In the first pic on the left is the oldest house and on the right completely new buildings. Stavanger was a very poor town until Norway started drilling for oil in the 70's. now the town is a city and become cosmopolitan. We walked around old Stavanger before heading through town to the oil museum. On the way we encountered the postman pushing his bright red cart. We stopped and chatted with a gal washing windows. As with most every Norwegians that we have met her English was excellent and she was most willing to talk to us.
Next Al had to find a toilet and near the town square was an automatic one that cost 5 krone. To his frustration it was occupied AND when it was vacated he had to wait several minutes while it was automatically cleaned including washing of the floor! He made it!!!!