Catherine’s palace above my should from the surrounding gardens. The little place on the right was a music pavilion.

Hired a guide and driver for a trip to and extensive tour of Catherines palace in the town of Pushkin about 20 miles outside St.Petersburg. A bit of an extravagance but in the end well worth it.

First of all we were able to jump the line waiting to get in. Should have felt more guilty than I did but after seeing the the thousands waiting my guilt was assuaged. We also got a guide name Andrey who had a wealth of knowledge about the palace and its contents. And, his amazing patience with the countless questions we had about everything. He never managed to finish a sentence without one of us interrupting him with a query.

More of the gardens surrounding the palace.
One of the many guided rooms. The most impressive was the Amber room with all the walls covered with pieces carved amber.
That is all carved pieces of amber.
More of the Amber Room.

The pictures above and below this paragraph aren’t mine. Photos were not permitted in the Amber Room. However the rooms decorations are all amber but a recreation of the original room. The genuine room was dismantled and stolen by the Germans during the war. Both the summer palace we saw yesterday and the palace today were almost obliterated in the fighting and except for the outside walls pretty much destroyed. What we see to day is restored but restored at the highest possible authenticity. The state spared no expense and it really shows. The level of detail is exquisite.

“Typical” room of our tour.
No shortage of gold leaf in this residence.
One of two remaining statues of Lenin in St Petersburg. Tom insisted on a stop to photograph his hero.

The trip back to the city was memorable for our guides’ recitation of poems by Pushkin in English to prove to me that they could indeed come across in English. His recitations were of course interrupted by more questions from the peanut gallery and he never got to recite more than two short works.

Faberge egg. One of nine at themuseum.

Andrey deposited us at a dumpling restaurant next to the Faberge Museum. I was more moved by the dumplings but it was fun to see the incredible craftsmanship and precious materials lavished on these presents the Czar commissioned each year for his family.

What a great day!