Day 5 - St. Petersburg, Russia

Day 5 has been an extremely busy one. We left the ship this morning at 8:00 am – yes, I managed to get Graham up, fed and out the door (so to speak). We were required by the Russian authorities to leave the ship as a group, to remain as a group throughout our stay and return to the ship as a group. Unfortunately, our tour guide neglected to get this message – she totally lost 6 of us at Catherine’s Palace and it took the better part of 30 minutes for us all to get back together again. There were a couple of other times during the tour when she was convinced that she had everyone gathered up when she didn’t - thank goodness the rest of us realized that she was significantly counting challenged and we managed to make sure that no one got lost again.

Anyway, we visited Catherine’s Palace – this is the palace where Catherine the Great lived throughout her reign. The Amber Room alone was worth the entire day – unfortunately we were not allowed to take any photographs within the Amber Room. We were able to pay a small fee to take pictures everywhere else within the Palace. It was an awesome display of opulence and power. Following this tour, we travelled to Pavlov’s (Paul’s) Palace (Pavlov was the only child of Catherine the Great). Pavlov and his wife Marie lived in this smaller, more austere Palace and raised their nine living children (one daughter died at birth). Marie continued to live in the Palace for the remainder of her life following the death of Paul. Again, this Palace was a display of the wealth and power of the Russian Csars and Csarinas.