Welcome to page 1 of our St. Petersburg adventure.

Jumped out of bed at 6:00 a.m. full of piss and vinegar and ready for the day. Actually, I didn't sleep well and might have gotten 3 hours tops. The alarm went off and rang for ten minutes or so and the phone rang a multitude of times for our wakeup call. Finally figuring out that it was time to rise, I swatted at the alarm button several times, picked up the phone mumbling something at the recorded message then stumbled out of bed in a total fog. This was our full-day St. Petersburg tour day and was not starting out well. And Lee wasn't faring much better. Oh well, suck it up buttercups and get on with the program.

All eight of us are touring together today on a private tour I prebooked through DenRus Ltd. here in St. Petersburg. For yesterday, Laverne had booked a different itinerary for her, Bert, Denise and Bruce with the same outfit. Over breakfast, we were told they had a fantastic day out at Davidoff and other points of interest and as far as they knew we'd have the same guide today. So far, so good.

We walked off the ship at 8 a.m. with no delays or questions asked. Customs consisted of a quick look at the passport, issue the little red visa card and a curt nod. Once outside the Customs Shed, our guide and driver immediately greeted us. Ksenia, our other cruise buddies guide from yesterday was a lively, 27ish, animated young lady. She was quite a contrast from our Moscow guides, Nadia and Ludmilla. We boarded our very clean, quite new, roomy and comfortable 10-passenger Mercedes tour van and our driver immediately pulled out for our day of touring St. Petersburg.

Our first stop was the city's main shopping and business street, Nevsky Prospekt. We then proceeded to take an hour walk along the avenue to get a bit of a sense of what downtown St. Petersburg is about. The Nevsky functions as the main thoroughfare in the city. The majority of the St. Petersburg's shopping and nightlife, as well as the most expensive apartments, are located on or right off of the Nevsky Prospekt.

We started at the Anichkov Bridge spanning the Fontanka River with its four sculptural groups, "Taming a Horse". As we strolled on down the Nevsky, we passed the monument to Catherine the Great, the Gostiny Dvor (the largest department store in the city), the Grand Hotel Europe and many more interesting historic buildings.

    
       
     

Crossing the Kanal Griboyedova, we got a glimpse of the Cathedral of the Resurrection which we were going to visit later in the day. Then it was past the Kazan Cathedral and on to the Stroganov Palace. A very wealthy and influential Russian family since the late 15th century, the Stroganov's fortune was mainly based on mining, manufacturing and the Siberian fur trade.

    
     

Nearing the end of the Nevsky Prospekt, it was time to reboard our van and take a tour of the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, on the 8th, 9th and 10th of June, Saint Petersburg became the economic capital of the world as the XI Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum opened its doors. As a result, several thousand conference attendees were in the city for the Forum. Unfortunately for us the fortress was closed to the public today to accommodate Forum delegate private tours.

Without missing a beat, our guide Ksenia informed us that she would make immediate arrangements for an hour-long Neva River tour to fill in for our missed fortress tour. Fifteen minutes later we boarded our tour boat and away we went. The Neva is the river flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast (historical region of Ingria) and the city of Saint Petersburg to the Gulf of Finland. Despite its short length of 74 km (46 mi), it is the third largest river in Europe in terms of average discharge (after the Volga and the Danube). And now we were cruising it, for an hour anyways.

      

Powering upstream, we were soon treated to a river-view of the fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral contained within. The fortress is where Peter the Great founded this Petrograd (St. Petersburg). The cathedral is the burial place of the Russian Emperors and members of the royal family. There are 32 tombs, including that of Peter the Great.

      

Cruising on, we soon passed by the cruiser Aurora. Preserved as a museum ship, she is an important symbol of the Communist Revolution in Russia. On 25 October 1917, a blank shot from her forecastle gun signaled the start of the assault on the Winter Palace, which was to be the last episode of the October Revolution.

    

Now crossing the Neva, we entered the Fontanka River at the Summer Palace of Peter the Great. Travelling alongside the Summer Gardens, we soon tucked into the little Moika River, which took us to the Winter Canal. This is a short canal that flows right between the buildings of the Hermitage and is reportedly one of the most poetic corners of the "old St. Petersburg".

      

From there it was back out onto the Neva at the green-and-white Winter Palace with its 1,057 halls and rooms. The palace was the winter residence of the Russian tsars but is now part of a complex of buildings known as the State Hermitage Museum. After a short run back down the Neva, we docked and were quickly ushered to our waiting van for the quick drive back to the Hermitage.

    

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