2011-06-19 T St. Petersburg, Russia

Today we continued in St. Petersburg, Russia. Our tour was to Catherine the Great's Summer Palace in Pushkin, a few miles outside St. Petersburg. The ride through the city was interesting: among establishments with names I could not even guess at the pronunciation or meaning (they used the Cyrillic alphabet) were very familiar icons: MacDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Subway, Ikea, Yves DeLorme and a few others. The Palace grounds are beautiful green woods, with many flowering shrubs. We were told in the winter, when there is 18 to 19 hours darkness, temperature below zero, and snow several feet thick, it is not so pleasant. But today was sunny and warm, with birds chirping and the sun reflecting off gilded towers. Inside the Palace was very lavishly decorated. There was a spacious high-ceilinged ballroom, with huge windows giving a view of the landscape on both sides. Another section was composed of many large rooms, one after the other, connected by a long hallway that went through each of them. Gilt candle holders lined the wall, and the doorways were elaborate gilt designs. One of the rooms was the throne room, one the paintings room, one the giant portraits of Catherine and Elizabeth, one a dining room, one was the Amber room (wallpapered in real amber). After touring inside, we went outside, past the bath house, which was a very large multi-story structure that reputedly was used for more than just baths. We saw a Turkish bath house across a lake; apparently the Russian nobility enjoyed bathing. We had a concert by some singers inside a chapel that had incredible acoustics. They sounded really good. Then we returned back to the ship along Moscow Prospekt and through St. Petersburg. We enjoyed Tea Time and the string quartet concert, then prepared for our dinner at the Polo Restaurant, which features steaks. I had Surf 'n Turf, Kiyomi had a New York Steak. For dessert I could not make up my mind, so had the Quintet Special, a sampling of five of the eight dessert selections.