Day 2 in St. Petersburg
Day 2 in St. petersburg
Our first day in Saint Petersburg was magnificent with visits to Peterhof Palace and St. Nicholas Cathedral. Since we were there for two days, our day 2 would start with an excursion through the rivers, canals, and waterways surrounding the city’s numerous squares. And then we would continue by coach to the Church on the Spilled Blood.
The coach brought us to the river, where our cruise boat was docked. We had to wait to board. It was not long before we were all aboard.
It was a beautiful sunny day, but with high winds and rough water. What with the noise of the roaring boat traffic thrashing through fast-moving waters, and of all going on, it was quite a thrill to be part of it all. These waterways and rivers host a plethora of amazing tours. We sailed away and started drifting down the river taking in the city from the deck. Apparently, there are 500 bridges in the city, and 21 of them are draw bridges. Many people were lined up on the bridges to watch the boats pass by underneath and were waving excitedly. One young man kept running from the bridge to the bridge and got there before our boat and waved to us. He did this until our boat speeded up and the bridges got too far apart for him to catch up. It was fascinating. We missed him when we couldn’t see him anymore.
One of the historic landmarks we saw was Saint Peter and Pauls’s fortress on the River Neva. It was built by Peter the Great to protect the capital from feared Swedish attacks. It had also been used as a prison by the Bolshevik government. But now it is a State Museum of Saint Petersburg History.
We cruised thrashing through the swollen and choppy river, which seemed to have more water than normal, and passed the Summer Palace, one of the first palaces to be built in St. Petersburg, the second-largest city in Russia. It is located on the embankment of River Neva, right across from Peter and Paul’s Fortress.
As we headed towards the Bronze equestrian statue of Peter the Great, we saw an intriguing needle-shaped structure. We were told that it was an 87-story skyscraper in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Also that it is the tallest building in Russia and the tallest building in Europe. It was very slick and beautiful, and we really wished that we had seen the inside of the building. We could see the Bronze Horseman statue a little too far away for close-up photos as we proceeded.
Bronze Horseman is an equestrian statue of Peter the Great. It was commissioned by Catherine the Great and has become a symbol of St. Petersburg. The end of the tour brought us back to the coach for our visit to the Church on Spilled Blood. The name sounded harrowing, and I didn’t know what to expect. But turned out to be a unique experience.
After river cruise sightseeing, we boarded the coach conveniently parked from where the drive to the Church on the Spilled Blood was not too far. We arrived to see that the exterior of the Church was simply spectacular. It is, apparently, a top-rated tourist destination in St. Petersburg. Its onion-shaped domes were exuberantly decorated with jeweler’s enamel in magnificent colors. It was built as a memorial on the site where Emperor Alexander 11 was assassinated in March 1881.
Once we entered the church, we realized that the meaning of the word ornate climaxed in the church’s interior. Nothing could surpass (in my opinion) the beauty of the monumental stone carvings, intricate mosaics, mural, and beautiful display of religious paintings adorning the domes in stunning colors and designs. The photos below will give you only a glimpse of an immense historic feat.
The highlights of the Church were the huge mosaics of disciples and saints covering the entire interior, including the walls, arches, ceilings, and the altar from floor to ceiling. These masterful mosaics were a sight to behold. A close look at some of my interior photos above would reveal that thousands of tiny glass tiles were used to create these life-sized mosaics. Mosaics with their thousands of tiny glass pieces could be compared to megapixel images of modern digital photography in which thousands of pixels of varying colors make up an image. Although pixels are not seen in an image until that image is zoomed enough in an editing program to reveal these individual pixels of colors. Similarly, the last image above is a magnified version of one of the mosaics, showing how tiny glass pieces create a mosaic just like the digital pixels. It was an awe-inspiring visit.
At this point, we completed two parts excursion on day 2 in St. Petersburg. Our coach was ready to take us back to the Zuiderdam, our ship. We returned on time to set sail at 5:30pm to Helsinki, Finland, to arrive there the next morning at 7:00 am. See you in Helsinki, Finland.
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