More Ideas for the Garden!

Our last day in St Petersburg was spent looking at two palaces – the Hermitage, also known as the Winter Palace, used by most of the Romanovs during the very cold months of the year, and Peter the Great’s Summer Palace at Peterhof, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, about an hour’s drive from the city centre - it resembles Versailles in France (the same architects were used!). The weather has improved and was warm and sunny most of today.

At the Hermitage we started with the “Treasury” – a set of rooms containing jewellery from the 4th century BC up to the 1800s. The detailed work on some of the older exhibits was amazing – I don’t think we could reproduce anything like it today, even with technology. Millions of tiny gold balls made up necklaces, brooches and headdresses and fine craftsmanship was displayed on many royal accoutrements such as swords, snuff boxes and dressing table sets. The more modern jewellery included watches and trinket boxes inlaid with a magnificent array of precious stones, many of which were presents to the Russian Empresses and Princesses from English royalty.

A ‘whistle-stop’ tour of the rest of the Palace followed to see many artifacts and paintings collected by the Russian rulers and members of their families. One of the items we saw was a large gold peacock with a cockerel and an owl that was actually a clock – all the animals moved when the clock chimed the hour - very similar to the silver swan at Bowes Museum near Juzzy. Apparently if you looked at every item owned by the Hermitage for one minute, for eight hours a day, it would take you over eight years to complete the task!

We then caught the hydrofoil down the River Neve to Peterhof. Walking up to the Palace from the quayside we were entranced by the massive fountains – there are about 150 in all in the gardens, many reaching over 20ft high – which gave me plenty of ideas for our garden!!

Here we were entertained to another delicious four course lunch before touring the Palace itself, which had been mainly used for entertaining throughout its history and continues to be used as such by Mr Putin – indeed he entertained Tony Blair and George Bush, etc to dinner here in the large gilt dining room whilst at the recent G8 summit. We were then quite relieved to be able to roam the gardens to walk off our lunch as another meal was planned for early evening. This time at the Orient Express Restaurant – one of St Petersburg’s finest and the food was first class. Russians seem to eat at least three large meals a day and we have been no exception on this tour.

Yet again today, many of the exhibits were replicas of originals, which had either been lost in the War, destroyed by fire, or given away as presents. It appears that much of this city has been rebuilt or recreated from photographs in the last 60 years. Not a lot is left that is ‘the real thing’.

Tomorrow we fly to Moscow – a fleeting visit, staying just one night before boarding the Trans Siberian Express. We have been marvelously guided around this city by Julia – keeping up a continual commentary as we went from place to place and exhibit to exhibit. We have been treated like royalty, as she always went straight to the front of the queue (sometimes several hundred people long) and made sure we had instant entry and on the hydrofoil she insisted we had the best seats at the front. She has entertained us with anecdotes of Russia and the ruling classes and helped us understand the culture of the Russian people today.

Our GPRS card appears to be working again – but mightily slow, so I am not sure how often I shall be able to post blogs for the next couple of weeks. But be assured I shall be writing every day and will publish as frequently as possible.