On the Sea.

 This is an amazing old lighthouse that has the prows of different boats sticking out from it. Until you get up close to it to see what they are, the whole structure looks most odd!

 Here is a rather fanciful painting of it in our hotel. There are actually a pair of them on the foreshore.

               Some of the dozens of ropes needed to raise and lower the sails on the Sea Cloud 2.

 

Doesn't she look wonderful, well one of the masts does anyway! It's such a mammoth job to get them all up, that we only saw all sails hoisted once in the 2 weeks that we were on board.

At the St Peter & St Paul Fortress Church.

                                      Even on the outside there is gilding and ornamentation.

                                                This is a particularly elegant dome I think.

                                                    Inside is gilt and glitter everywhere.

               This is the tomb of Peter the Great with his bust at the foot of it behind the flowers.

These colours are so soft and pretty, much nicer than the hard edge of gold on all the other surfaces.

The Peterhof Palace.

 This photo was taken before the fountains were turned on at 11 am, accompanied by stirring marshal music with lots of beating of drums during the finale.

               The final water display, none of which is produced by pumps, it's all fed by gravity.

Celebration.

           A group of naval cadets waiting for the rehearsal of the special Naval Day to start.

                                                      Don't the officers look smart?

                These men are all standing on the deck of a submarine in the Nevsky River.

And Now for Something Different.

 Spotted in the church that I visited yesterday, these 2 obviously aren't interested in the glorious art work around them !

 This instrument sounded absolutely lovely, sort of like an amplified harp. He played all over the 'dish' with his hands, quite an unbelievable melody with a gentle percussion accompaniment.

 It looks as if he's hurting this baby monkey, but he actually seemed to look after it quite well. I hate the thought of using an animal in this way of course!

 This little girl's mother paid for her to be dressed up and photographed. She did look rather splendid.

                       Pity about the bloke in the back ground, a job for Photoshop I think.

Church on Spilled Blood, St Petersburg.

You can't help saying wow when you come around a corner to see this church. We walked from our hotel, along a canal and various streets, but eventually there it was!

           I always thought that these domes were painted, but in fact they are constructed of tiles.

                                            Inside, all the art work is constructed of mosaics.

High above is the dome letting light into the body of the church. For more information about this amazing edifice, see here.

The Hermitage Museum.

On the landing of the Grand Staircase, very grand indeed with the height of the ceiling being the entire height of the building itself.

                                   A small audience room just dripping with gilt decoration.

 A quiet corridor, amazing really given the huge crowds everywhere else. Not enough gilt maybe!
The Raphael Gallery, known as the Raphael Loggias, replicates the Vatican frescos originally sketched by Raphael and painted by his students under his supervision. They were much admired by Catherine, who commissioned designers and painters to do the Winter Palace work.

                  A garden somewhere in the palace, definitely not on the ground floor though.

                     The blank panels showing the soldiers who did not return from the war.

St. Petersburg.

Having every good intention to keep up with my Blog while travelling, I didn't get past the first day's posting! This will therefore be a retrospective Blog. After checking into our hotel, The Petro Palace we went for a short walk to get our bearings, and came across St. Isaac's Cathedral just around the corner. No time to go inside just yet however. (You can click on any photo to enlarge the image.)

 The very imposing Admiralty Building was not far away either, and I zoomed in with my camera to see what was on top of the spire.

                                                                   A ship of course!

 The next morning on our way to the Hermitage Museum we were shown this façade by our guide. Very impressive!

      This is the huge plaza outside the museum with it's commemorative column in the middle.

 The Hermitage Museum or Winter Palace, taken early one morning before the crowds and buses appeared.

Can you see the queue on the right hand side stretching right across the plaza?  As we had a local guide we didn't have to join such a long queue, in fact we were probably only 10th in line in our particular queue.