Day 16 was a washout. It rained all day and, although we borrowed an umbrella from the hotel and walked down Nevskii Prospekt to the Tourist Information Office to ask about hotels in Pushkin, they weren’t a lot of help.
Day 17 was much better. It had stopped raining and, although the day was overcast, it was warm and dry. We got the metro to Gostinnyi Dvor and walked to Saint Isaac’s Cathedral, stopping on the way for a coffee and pain a raison at Khlebnik, our favourite coffee house. The cathedral is magnificent, although it has not functioned as a cathedral since it was turned into a museum in 1928. However there is a small religious section where Jennifer was obliged to put on a blue paper head scarf. It is dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, a patron saint of Peter the Great and was built by Aleksander the First in 1818 although it was not completed until 1858. We forgot to go and see the Astoria Hotel, a short distance from the Cathedral. Hitler had planned to hold his celebration of the capture and destruction of St Petersburg at the hotel, and even had invitation cards printed, but the celebration didn’t take place for some reason. We then walked through a small park to the southern bank of the River Neva to see the “Bronze Horseman”, a gigantic statue of Peter the Great on a horse built by Catherine the Great. Our plan was to go to Nevskii Prospekt’s bridge over the Moika Canal where there is a jetty for river cruises but, walking along the River Neva Embankment we came across another jetty advertising cruises. So we got on the vessel and, almost full, it set off within a few minutes. It went under the Palace Bridge, past the Peter and Paul Fortress and under the Trinity Bridge before turning up the Fontanka Canal. It sailed under the Anichkov Bridge before turning round and returning to the Neva where it sailed alongside the cruiser “Aurora”, which fired a blank shell in 1917 as a signal to Bolshevik fighters to storm the Winter Palace. After leaving the ship we walked across Palace Bridge and spent some time in a beautiful park, admiring the Stock Exchange.
St Isaac’s Cathedral
St Isaac’s Cathedral roof
Model of the Cathedral
One of a series of paintings to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of WW2. It shows the Cathedral protected by anti-aircraft guns.
Malachite colums
The side chapel where religious services are held.
The Bronze Horseman.
View of the Cathedral from the Bronze Horseman
The Russian Academy of Sciences on Vasilievskii Island
Peter and Paul Fortress
Sailing ship
Bridge on the Fontanka and Summer Gardens
The Aurora
The gun from which the shot to start the 1917 Revolution was fired.
The Rostral Columns
The Stock Exchange
