Posts Tagged ‘Catherine’s Palace’

St. Petersburg – Day 2

Photo: St. Petersburg – Day 2

// September 2nd, 1998 // Comments Off // Russia, Scandinavian Capitals '98

Our second day in St. Petersburg our guide picked us up at the ship and we headed a further a field to Tsarskoe Selo (formerly Pushkin) and Catherine’s Palace. On the way we passed a monument that surprised us.It marked the spot where the Nazi’s had been stopped during WWII. We never realized that the Nazi’s had penetrated so far into Russia, we were even more suprised to learn that they had virtually stripped the palaces (including the gold guilding and frescos) in Tsarskoe Selo during their 3 yr occupation. It’s a pretty drive once you get outside St. Petersburg, mostly rolling green hills. Tzarskoe Selo is a pretty and quiet town, with tree lined streets and parks. We were greated at Catherine’s Palace by the official furry meet and greet committee. (more…)

St. Petersburg – Day 1

Photo: St. Petersburg – Day 1

// September 2nd, 1998 // Comments Off // Russia, Scandinavian Capitals '98

St. Petersburg, Russia – We were afforded two wonderful days in St. Petersburg. Russia is a little different than other ports, in most places you either need to secure a Visa, the ship is able to secure one for everyone, or you don’t need one. Russia puts a special twist on this: As long as we are on an excursion that is offered by the ship we don’t need a Visa, if we choose to go ashore independently we need a Visa. This is one place that we didn’t feel comfortable doing our own thing, because I don’t know the Cyrillic alphabet, which makes reading Russian a little difficult… we also weren’t really keen on visiting the sites with 400 of our closest friends. The ship offered a nice alternative: (more…)