Day 12 – Cruise – St. Petersburg, Russia

Finally we have made it to Russia. We had an early morning wake up call at 6.15am (after losing yet another hours sleep). We showered, dressed and dragged the kids from bed and off to breakfast (after they got dressed as well). We had a quick breakfast at Windjammers, then headed off the ship. We passed through immigrations with no lines (we just beat one of the cruise tours) and little fuss and Oksana was there to meet us. We then headed off on our tour, where the girls promptly fell asleep!

We drove out to Catherine’s Palace in Pushkin (which was a beautiful town – full of trees, flowers and cute houses). It was beautiful. It had been destroyed by the Nazi’s and painstakingly rebuilt.

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We had to put on little booties over our shoes to protect the parcay floor.

We left here and had lunch on route to Peterhof. We stopped a Russian restaurant.

I had bourst (cold beetroot soup) for lunch – which Oksana had recommended and was much nicer than I expected. Kevin had dumplings and Amy had beef stroganoff. Christy had bread!

Then it was on to Peterhof  – the lavish Summer home of the Tzars. It was designed mostly by Peter the Great (who it seems is everywhere in St. Petersburg) and he had fun designing trick fountains – which were turned on much to the surprise of well dressed ladies.

We wondererd around admiring the gardens and fountains, and the Gulf of Finland.

We enjoyed an ice-cream as we strolled and the girls had a photo with Peter The Great and his wife.

Next up was a short ride on the metro. These underground stations are amazing. Such beautiful architechure, complete with real chandellers. Just amazing.

We then had a stop at a shop where the girls picked up matruska dolls.

We then headed back to the ship where we changed and had a quick dinner at Windjammers before meeting our driver again, who took us to into town for the Folkloric show.

There was a lot of traffic and the drivers here are quite mad

but we made it in time to get a seat in the front row.

The show was amazing. Wonderful music and singing and amazing Russian dancing.

We loved it and Christy was sad when it was over. During intermission she had been given a CD-Rom with games on it – which we thought was very thoughtful.
After the show our driver met us and returned us to the ship. It was 9.30pm and we were all hungry again so we headed to the Seaview Cafe for a snack.

Tummies once again full we headed to our room and to bed. Tired but very happy.