Monday morning, we started our day with (what we thought would be) a quick hike to the apartment rental agency. The primary reason we were visiting the agency was so we could register our visas. In Russia, you are required to register each place you visit. Since we were there for such a long time, and stayed in so many places, this meant that we registered 4 times. Unfortunately, registration is not a cheap process.
On our way there, we stopped and took pictures in front of a very large monument to Catherine the Great. This picture gives a pretty good perspective, even though I was still standing about 20 feet in front of the statue.
On our way we walked through Gostiny Dvor, which is a gigantic open air mall, built in the 1750s. Kathy was tempted to stop, but we were on a timeline. At 1pm, we would embark on our city tour!
After returning to the apartment to freshen up, we made our way to a nearby "hotel" to be picked up for our tour. When we got there, we realized that the Russian interpretation of hotel is much different. We went into one of the courtyards (described in the last blog entry), and saw a sign on a door, tucked back into a corner of the building. This seemed odd to us, as there were many entrances that looked like they would have been better suited to hotel lobbies.As we got to the door, all we saw were stairs, leading upwards. Interesting. So, we began to climb. The hotel was a locked, secured door, branching off of the stairway on the 4th floor. We rang the bell, were let in, and entered a hotel lobby about the size of an average living room. There was a smoking lounge, and then stairs leading up to the rooms.
Eventually, our tour guide for the day met us. Olga was a petite woman in her 30s with lots of energy and (we would find out later) very talented walking in high heels. She led us downstairs to the vehicle, and off we went.
Our first stop of the day was the plaza in front of St. Isaac's Cathedral. While the plaza was interesting, our focus was solely on the cathedral. Even with all of the large buildings and statues we had already seen, the size of this place was overpowering. We had a few minutes to walk around, so we took many photos, and made the commitment that we would come back before we left the city.
Next up was the cathedral of St. Nicholas. Luckily I had decided to wear jeans on our tour; the cathedral was an operating orthodox church, so guests wearing shorts were turned away. Inside, pictures were forbidden, and tourists were confined to a fairly small section of the cathedral. We spent only a short time inside, instead focusing our attention on the details outside.
As the day progressed, we visited a number of other landmarks in the city. The sphinx Olga and I are standing in front of is on a walkway bordering the Neva River. This sphinx (and it's identical twin) were imported from Egypt by Peter the Great. We also stopped at the Rostral Columns (lighthouse shaped monuments), Peter the Great's summer cabin, and a canal bridge designed by the company that made the Eiffel Tower.
Our next stop was the focus of our city tour, the Peter and Paul Fortress. Built on a small island in the river, this fortress was the first permanent structure built in what would become St. Petersburg. Olga gave us a wonderful tour through the fortress, navigating the entire time on rough cobblestone streets. Our feet were extremely sore by the end of the day, how she managed on 2" heels, we weren't sure.
The inside of the Fortress Cathedral was very impressive. It contains the tombs of most of the last line of Russian Czars, the Romanovs. Peter, Catherine, Paul, Alexander and their families each had tombs encased in marble. Kathy was a bit unnerved by the thought of it, but Alan enjoyed the visit.We also got to see the prison cells, which housed political prisoners until the Bolshevik revolution. The cells did not have any heating or air conditioning, so summers and (especially) winters were extremely difficult for the prisoners.
The final stop on our tour of the city was the Church on Spilled Blood. This cathedral was built on the exact spot where Czar Alexander I was assassinated. We did not spend long here, as there were thousands of tourists swarming the church. Again, Kathy and I agreed that we would come back later in the week, to see the church on our own schedule.
That evening, we ventured out to find a Georgian restaurant that Kathy had read about in one of our travel guides. The Cat Cafe was very small. Situated in the basement of an apartment building, it looked like they had knocked the walls out of two apartments, squeezed in a kitchen, bar, and 8 tables, and decided that was good enough. The food was good, and there was lots of it. Kathy's order of Pelmini consisted of 6 egg-size dumplings, along with sides. We were sad we did not get a picture, as the size and decorative style of this restaurant was quite unique.
With full bellies and spinning minds, we retired to our room, ready for another long day of sightseeing.
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