Day 105 (11th October) Saint Petersburg

After changing 1,000 dollars for roubles, we had breakfast in a very nice coffee bar on Nevskii Prospekt, then continued to walk down it until it crossed the Fontanka Canal, and then turned right along the Fontanka Embankment to the Faberge Museum. I always thought that he was French but, although he had French ancestry, he was born in in Russia, lived there all his life and considered himself to be Russian. He produced the most beautiful porcelain eggs, but also made a wide range of other types of jewellery including clocks, cigarette cases, plates etc.

The Mikhailovskii Castle (now the Russian State Museum) is further along the Fontanka Embankment and is billed as a major tourist attraction. Badly damaged in WW2 it has been restored at enormous expense which is probably why we had to pay £10 each to get in. The building is quite nice inside but its exhibits, which are primarily about the Romanov family, are boring and it was a total rip-off. At least I could take pictures of some of the more famous Romanovs including Peter the Great (Peter 1 who founded St Petersburg in 1704), Nikolai 1 and Nikolai II, Aleksandr II and Catherine the Great.

The Church on Spilt Blood was brilliant. It was built as a memorial to Aleksandr II on the spot where members of the Narodnaya Volna anarchist goup threw a bomb at him in 1881, and was restored over many years after being badly damaged in WW2. The frescoes were absolutely stunning and you can see a canopy over the spot where the Tsar was badly wounded. We got the metro back from Nevskii Prospekt to Ploshchad Aleksandra Nevskogo, went down an escalator which moved very fast to a great depth and were almost crushed to death in the metro carriage. A kind man let Jennifer take his place hanging on to a rail. After walking a short distance to the hotel, we booked into our room and then had a nice meal in a restaurant full of somewhat noisy young men.