This morning is the start of our 2 day ACTIVE tour of St. Petersburg. I had arranged the tour almost a year ago with Julia, the owner of Dancing Bear Tours. She came very highly recommended and she didn't disappoint!
Getting thru Russian customs was a real mess. We stood in line for almost 2 hours. The weather again was cold and cloudy but at least it didn't rain.
The Catherine Palace is named after Catherine I, the wife of Peter the Great, who ruled Russia for two years after her husband's death. Originally a modest two-storey building commissioned by Peter for Catherine in 1717, the Catherine Palace owes its awesome grandeur to their daughter, Empress Elizabeth, who chose Tsarskoe Selo as her chief summer residence. Starting in 1743, the building was reconstructed by four different architects, before Bartholomeo Rastrelli, Chief Architect of the Imperial Court, was instructed to completely redesign the building on a scale to rival Versailles.
Grand Hall
Replica of Ball Gown of Empress Elizabeth
After Catherine's Palace we headed out to Peterhof to see the beautiful gardens.
The Grand Cascade is modelled on one constructed for Louis XIV at his Château de Marly, which is likewise memorialised in one of the park's outbuildings.
At the centre of the cascade is an artificial grotto with two stories, faced inside and out with hewn brown stone. It currently contains a modest museum of the fountains' history. One of the exhibits is a table carrying a bowl of (artificial) fruit, a replica of a similar table built under Peter's direction. The table is rigged with jets of water that soak visitors when they reach for the fruit, a feature from Mannerist gardens that remained popular in Germany. The grotto is connected to the palace above and behind by a hidden corridor.
The fountains of the Grand Cascade are located below the grotto and on either side of it. Their waters flow into a semicircular pool, the terminus of the fountain-lined Sea Channel. In the 1730s, the large Samson Fountain was placed in this pool. It depicts the moment when Samson tears open the jaws of a lion, representing Russia's victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War, and is doubly symbolic. The lion is an element of the Swedish coat of arms, and one of the great victories of the war was won on St Samson's Day. From the lion's mouth shoots a 20-metre-high vertical jet of water, the highest in all of Peterhof. This masterpiece by Mikhail Kozlovsky was looted by the invading Germans during the Second World War; see History below. A replica of the statue was installed in 1947.
Perhaps the greatest technological achievement of Peterhof is that all of the fountains operate without the use of pumps. Water is supplied from natural springs and collects in reservoirs in the Upper Gardens. The elevation difference creates the pressure that drives most of the fountains of the Lower Gardens, including the Grand Cascade. The Samson Fountain is supplied by a special aqueduct, over four km in length, drawing water and pressure from a high-elevation source.
The Grand Canal
Linda, Jim, Pam,Mike,Charlie and me.......COLD
Roman Fountain
The Russians are serious about pickpockets!
Monplaisir Palace in the Lower Gardens Peterhof. Peter the Great's pet project at Peterhof was this small summer palace, which the Tsar designed by and for himself.
Gardens at Monplaisir Palace
The Orangerie at Peterhof
Believe it or not......this is a Russian subway station!
Still in the subway......NYC should take a lesson!
The last stop of the day was at St. Peter and Paul's Cathedral at the Fortress.
The cathedral is dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, the patron saints of the fortress (Saint Peter being the patron saint of the city). The current cathedral is the second one on the site. The first, built soon after Peter's founding of the city, was consecrated by Archbishop Iov of Novgorod the Great in April 1704.
The current building, the first stone church in St. Petersburg, was designed by Trezzini and built between 1712 and 1733. Its golden spire reaches a height of 404 feet (123 m) and features at its top an angel holding a cross. This angel is one of the most important symbols of St. Petersburg.
The cathedral's architecture also features a unique iconostasis (the screen which separates the nave of the church from the sanctuary). In the Eastern Orthodox Church the iconostasis is normally a flat wall or screen with three doors through it, the central Holy Doors used only for very solemn entrances, and the two side doors, by which the clergy and others enter and leave the sanctuary. However, at St. Peter and Paul, the iconostasis rises to form a sort of tower over the sanctuary.
The cathedral was closed in 1919 and turned into a museum in 1924. It is still officially a museum; religious services, however, resumed in 2000.
Tombstones marking the burial of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in St. Catherine's Chapel
The cathedral houses the remains of almost all the Russian Emperors and Empresses from Peter the Great to Nicholas II and his family who were finally laid to rest in July 1998. Also buried here was Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia for 34 years. (Of the post-Petrine rulers, only Peter II and Ivan VI are not buried here. Peter II is in the Cathedral of Michael the Archangel in the Moscow Kremlin. Ivan VI was executed and buried in the fortress of Shlisselburg or Kholmogory (alleged discovery at Kholmogory in 2010 presently under forensic investigation)). The cathedral has a typical Flemish carillon, a gift of the Flemish city of Mechelen, Flanders.
Charlie found a cat.....sure looked a lot like Itsy!
Then it was back to the ship after a VERY LONG 11 hour day! We saw so much, it is hard to absorb it all.
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