THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!!!

Today will be a very long entry with lots of photographs, so don't say I didn't warn you!
We are finally in St. Petersburg!

The ship was cleared at 7:30 a.m. Since we have an all day tour ahead of us, we met the Lassley's in the Queen's Lounge at 8:00 a.m. for our all day adventure. Frank brought breakfast to me in the suite while I got ready. the bathrooms on the ship are very nice, but there's only one sink and there's not room for us both to be in there at the same time, so I let him go in first and then he popped upstairs for his breakfast while I got ready. I checked our imaginary list to make sure that we had everything we would need for a full day away. This is a time where we must have our passports with us at all times since Russia's security is very tight. My prayer for the day is that I have the stamina for this all day trek. I realize that this will be a very long and hard day, but I'm sooo excited about seeing Peterhof and all the wonderful sights in this interesting country. Tomorrow's tour is only a half day, so that will be easier on my back.
The Prisendam is docked here in St. Petersburg so it stirs a lot of memories for us. She was the Seabourn Sun when we sailed around the world on her in 2001, and seeing her seemed like old home week to us.

Jason Chase, an excellent comedian and friend from a cruise that we took to Alaska several years ago.

He will be entertaining on the Prisendam as we share a few ports, so I'm hoping to possibly run into him somewhere on shore. He has performed on the cruise ship circuit, conventions, and churches over the last 18 years. His brand of "dangerously clean comedy" is always well received by people of all ages. He has a wonderful singing voice and it is always a surprise for the audience as he brings back memories of the great performers of the 50s . His wife Tricia and I have become Email buddies and we keep in touch on a regular basis. I will hopefully meet her one day.
Well, today turned out to be the Bataan Death March! we weren't in the Philippines but we might as well have been! One of the people in our group was wearing a pedometer and we walked 7 and one quarter miles!
After we boarded the bus for an hour ride around St. Petersburg, we finally arrived at Peterhof at 9:30 and started our tour.

We were greated by music and the musicians were in the dress of the time that the Palace was built.

We all had to put "booties" on over our shoes in order not to scratch the floors. They were, without a doubt, the most beautiful inlaid wood floors that I have ever seen.

This did, however, make the floors very very slick, so you had to be extremely careful as you walked.

There were also marble floors and they were slick as well.

Peterhof (originally named Peterhof, the Dutch for "Peter's Court") is a municipal town within Petrodvortsovy District of the federal city of Saint Petersburg on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University. A series of palaces and gardens, laid out on the orders of Peter the Great, and sometimes called the "Russian Versailles", is also situated there. The palace-ensemble along with the city center is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Our guide's name was Alexie and he was not only very well informed, if he said something that he thought was funny, he would get so amused at himself that you couldn't help but laugh both at him and with him !

The Palace was absolutely fabulous. In some ways it reminded me of Versailles, only better. There was an abundance of gold everywhere .. both inside and out.

It took nearly an hour to tour the interior and we didn't even scratch the surface (literally, since we had the little blue booties over our shoes ;-)
This is an image of the Royal throne

the Princesses' private chamber,

the Royal dining room (wouldn't you like to be at that dinner party!)

the library

and a fresco on the ceiling of one of the public rooms.

From there we toured the gardens and that's when the death March began.

The only problem with Alexie was that he is about 6 foot 8 and he took VERY long steps, so it was hard to keep up with him. Whenever I would finally reach the group, he was off again! I was constantly a day late and a dollar short. I felt so sorry for Frank having to hang back with me.

You must stay with your guide at all times when you are in Russia, so he was making sure that I wasn't left behind. I have no idea how many gardens the Peter had, but it seemed as though we saw every inch of every one of them.

They were manicured to perfection and were all works of art.

We walked at a very fast pace for nearly an hour through the gardens and finally got to the Gulf where we boarded a hydrofoil so we could get back into the middle of the city.

This was a real time saver since we didn't have to deal with the traffic. The minute we got on the boat, Jack promptly fell asleep.

His legs are much longer than mine, but I think he was extremely tired as well. Thank goodness for my cane! I don't think I could have made it without it.
Once we arrived in town, we sent to a restaurant called Borsalino which was located in a hotel, and there we had a very tasty lunch which consisted of Russian Style cabbage soup,

Chicken Kiev with rice and broccoli and Almond flan for dessert.

After lunch we visited The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.

It is also variously called the Church on Spilt Blood and the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ , its official name. The name refers to the blood of the assassinated Alexander II of Russia, who was mortally wounded on that site on March 13, 1881. It was without a doubt the most magnificent Cathedral I have ever been in.

The Church contains over 7500 square metres of mosaics—according to its restorers, more than any other church in the world.

This record may be surpassed by the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, which houses 7700 square meters of mosaics.
The interior was designed by some of the most celebrated Russian artists of the day, but the church's chief architect, Alfred Aledandrovidh Parland was relatively little-known.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Church's construction ran well over budget, having been estimated at 3.6 million roubles but ending up costing over 4.6 million.

The walls and ceilings inside the Church are completely covered in intricately detailed mosaics,

the main pictures being biblical scenes or figures — but with very fine patterned borders setting off each picture.

It was absolutely breathtaking. As you looked at these images, it was hard to imagine that they were mosaics and not paintings. When we walked inside, I had no idea that we were going to see such a magnificent piece of Russian history.

The icon of Christ Pantokrator graces the main dome of the Cathedral and it is one of the most widely used religious images of Orthodox Christianity. The most common translation of Pantocrator is "Almighty" or "All-powerful." In this understanding, Pantokrator is a compound word formed from the Greek words for "all" and the noun "strength". This is often understood in terms of potential power; i.e., able to do anything, or omnipotent. It was a hugge mosaic and absloutely exquisite.

I have an antique Icon of the Pantokrator that was part of an altarpiece that I purchased the first time that we were in Greece and it is on my mantle along with several other icons that are among my treasures from our travels around this wonderful world of ours.

After spending about an hour at the church, we came back to the ship, had a double martini to rest our weary bones, took a quick nap an d then cleaned up for dinner.

I was so tired that the minute we finished dinner I came back to the stateroom and immediately went to bed. I think I might take the day off tomorrow and let Frank go into town by himself. Who knows, he just might find himself a Babushka to keep him company!

There'll be another report soon. They working on our house as I am writing this, so I never know when I'll have the time to make another entry. I'll let you digest this one for a day or two beforer I start again.

XOXO, Pcasso