FROM ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

St. Petersburg - Day 4

Visit to Peterhof (Petrodvorets)

SAINT PETERSBURG, May 27, 2006 - Today is the city's 303rd birthday! [click here to read more about the city's rich history].  And we are here to witness the elaborate celebrations.  How lucky can you get? 

And lucky is right.  For, I did not know that actually until this morning.  When I inquired about the boat ride to Peterhof (Petrodvorets - see the map), another imperial summer residence, the hotel concierge told me to expect huge crowds because of the city's birthday celebrations, all of which were to take place in our neighborhood.  There were concerts...

...such as this one, just outside the hotel, at the adjacent concert hall, where military bands from all over Russia and other countries participated all day long in a music competition.

There was to be an afternoon parade along Nevsky Prospect (like Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC), and a big rally at the Palace Square.  Both are literally just a few steps away from our hotel.

Indeed, as I walked through the Palace Square on the way to where the Peterhof boats dock, I saw this enormous sign, just outside the Winter Palace. Its message, quoting Peter the Great in old Russian, was similarly poignant.

Today was also the first time that I was able to get inside the Winter Palace courtyard, where the above photo was taken.

The skies looked threatening but no rain was falling in St. Petersburg when we arrived at the dock where these fast hydrofoils leave.

After loading up all of Nikolai's gear on the boat, we set off around 3:30PM for a 30 minute-ride.

Once we got to Peterhof, however, it was pouring.  Plus cold blustery wind turned the inclement weather into horizontal rain that toyed with umbrellas and penetrated all pours of one's body from top to bottom.  I left Tanja and Nikolai in a restaurant in to get warm and stay warm, while I trekked on on my own what I had heard was another magnificent imperial site.

This is what it looked like from the distance, as one approached it from the dock on the Gulf of Finland and the above restaurant area.

And magnificent it was indeed, close up. 

Little did I know about another stroke of good luck - that today was the first day of the 2006 season that these famous fountains were turned on.  I only found that out later on.

The palace was also very pretty, especially the two churches with identical five steeples (only one of them is shown above)...

...and a close up of it.

A side view from the terraced area around the palace...

... and a frontal view, too, toward the ocean (Gulf of Finland).

And here's the same view on a sunny day...

The grounds around the palace - more than 250 acres of them - are also very beautiful, as you can see from the photo below...

Moscow Train Station - Goodbye

After a dinner at the hotel, I rode with Tanja and Nikolai in a hotel car to the Moscow Station to help them board their midnight train for Moscow.

Here they are at the station...

The Moscow station also seen here in the other direction.  

Then it was time to say goodbye to each other.  Four hours later, it was time to say goodbye to St. Petersburg, too.  My hotel alarm woke me up at 4:30AM to get ready for an early flight to Prague.

And that's all she wrote from St. Pete...

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