Friday, July 24, 2009

Friday July 24 – Boat Tour on the Canals and Rivers of St. Petersburg

Our “trans-Siberian tour” officially ended at breakfast this morning and we said goodbye to our tour leader Chris. Jon, Ray and I headed out around 11:00 am for the Anichkov most (bridge) where we hoped to find a boat tour in the rivers and canals in the city centre with an English guide. Walking anywhere in the city centre is like walking through an art gallery and museum combined. Progress is slow. On top of that, Navy Day is on Sunday, and there are about six ships and one submarine in the Neva River. The ships have to slink in at night as that is when the draw bridges are open, so each morning has exposed one or two new ships in the river. This morning, the crew was lined up on deck of the ships on the opposite side of the River, and suddenly a huge “boom” resonated out over the whole area. In fact, I think there were 9 or 10 canon’s fired. It took us about 1 ½ hrs to walk to our destination, but we saw, and photographed so much! We found the boat tour, had about 25 minutes to wait and then boarded. The trip was about an hour. The weather was perfect; hot – 18C – sunny and bright blue skies. It was fun to see the city from the water – a different perspective – we travelled on the Fontanka River, the Moyka River, the Winter Canal and the Neva River and saw many of the historical buildings we are slowly becoming familiar with.

After our boat tour, we stopped in a bakery and had some delicious, but decadent, cakes and coffee/coke/fanta. Jon left us at this point to do some last minute shopping.

Ray and I took a slow walk back to the hotel. We had intended to go to The State Museum of Russian Art but when we got there at 4 pm we decided it was so huge we wouldn’t really have time to do much. Instead we went into Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. It is an amazing ornate church both inside and outside. Tons of tourists though!! We also passed and went into the Kazan Cathedral. This was a complete contrast to the previous church. Where the Church of the Saviour was brightly coloured and Old Russian style, the Kazan is graceful, elegant and absolutely stunning. The altar was beautiful and we had the wonderful opportunity to be present at a wedding. There was a small choir way up in the balcony and their singing was so lovely it brought tears to our eyes. So once again, we ended up hurrying back to the hotel to meet Jon and Arpana, a new friend we have met in the hotel who is just starting a Sundowner’s trip on the 28th, for dinner.

We went to another little inexpensive Russian restaurant on Bolshoi Prospekt just around the corner from the hotel. The owner was there and embraced us with complimentary vodka, so it was a merry affair and a good send off for Jon who leaves tomorrow at 6:30 am and welcome for Arpana. After dinner it was back to the hotel and bed, in the half-light of the night.

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