Aug 6 - Day 1 St. Petersberg, Russia

This is the port we've been waiting for. Everyone that we know, who has been on a Baltic cruise, has told us that it was THE favorite port. I've never had Russia on my bucket list. I didn't know much about St. Petersberg at all before planning for this trip. The port visit is for 2 days and requires a Visa to get off of the ship, if you were planning to visit on your own. Several tour companies provide blanket Visas, meaning that if you book with one of them, you do not need an individual Visa. And I have only received positive reviews, no matter which tour company was chosen. Our dear friends, Tina and Tim, were very pleased with Alla Tours and we were pleased to follow their recommendation (especially since our trip to Paris last year was based on wonderful info from Tina and was perfect for us :)). I posted our decision on the Roll Call for this cruise on Cruise Critic and we managed to fill 2 vans, each with its own tour guide and driver for the 2 days, with folks on our ship. The vans were new, clean and had seating for 16. We had 14 people in our van with Julia as our tour guide and Dimitri as our driver. Julia, an English teacher, who is a guide during tourist season and will be a translator at the upcoming Olympics, was fabulous. Dimitri drives 18 wheelers out of Philadelpia, was born in St. Petersberg, and drives to tour van during the summer. We covered all of the main sights including a short visit to and trip on the subway, lunch on Day 1 at a restaurant (Russian Cabbage soup and Chicken Kiev) and a carry-on lunch of a chicken crepe and snacks on the Hydrofoil to Peterhof on Day 2. We also had stops at souvenir shops each day (some were disturbed by this - we were glad to have the opportunity to buy Art a hat and me a visor that shows we were in Russia!). We loved St. Petersberg with its clean streets, beautiful churches and most amazing museums and palaces (the Hermitage has risen to the top of our list of spectacular museums). The subway system begs description (clean, no smells, well lit, each station has a theme that is spelled our in spectacular mosaics on the way, trains are very fast). Art is still smarting from the fact that a woman offered him a seat - because of his advanced age?? :) I took an unbelievable number of pictures. A few are added here and I'll add a slideshow of the rest at the end.

First view on a cloudy day

Clearly you can see that American fast foods have arrived in Russia. We had a wonderful day, arrived back at the ship at 5:30 pm and followed our typical evening routine. Early to bed knowing that we would be up early for another full day tomorrow.