Date: 01-02/08/2017
From/To: St. Petersburg – Helsinki
Distance: 0 Km
Total Distance: 14046 Km
Weather: Sunny
Road: Paved
After a nice relaxing night on board of our ferry we hopped off the transfer bus at the same point as a day before, the ‘Issac’s Catherdral’. This time we decided to have a closer look and climb the tower and have a look inside the cathedral. So we purchased the tickets and off we went.
As you can see, Sigrid is fitter then I am, I needed a rest on the handrail J
Here we are, finally we made it.
The view was great. Here a view onto the ‘Isaaks place’. Looking around we could see plenty of palaces and golden church towers, some we could identify, some we couldn’t. The turquise and green church towers of the ‘The Savior on Spilled Blood’ looked interesting, so we earmarked it for a later visit.
After we came down from the tower, we had a look inside the cathedrale. Lucky that we took a guided tour otherwise we would have missed quite a bit of information. The first stop showed us how the cathedrale was constructed. There was a huge wodden frame build to errect each of the giants columns before the walls were build, which was the first time that this appoach was used. On the right hand side you can see the model of the dome.
Below a model to scale, made by the architect.
Here you can see the pillar and the dome.
The huge door is covered in reliefs, we had to get closer to appreciate it.
Here a view onto the altar and a close up some sculptures. The heads on the sculpture are acutally paintings.
After so much information we went out and had a look at park just behind the cathedral. There were multiple sculptures and Sigrid couldn’t resist sitting on the camel J
From here we went to the ‘Hermitage Museum’. We decided no to visit it, since that would take us more then the rest of the day to get through it. Since we had to be back at the boat at 17:00, we opted to have a look at other places. But on the ‘Palace Square’, just in front of t the Hermitage museum, Sigrid spotted a ‘Cinderella’ cart, so we had a look at it. Below are some picuters from the ‘Palace Square’ and the surrounding buildings.
During our walk, we did find plenty of larger and smaller channels which I didn’t expect.
And then we came to the ‘The Savior on Spilled Blood’ church. This church was built on the place where ‘Emperor Alexander II‘in 1881 was fatally wounded.
And here is the place where Alexander II was wounded. This was a foot path bordering a channel. To get this place covered by the church, the channel was narrowed and the foodpath closed.
On our way back we saw multiple fountains and scluptures, but we were headding back to the bus.
With just enough time to spare before we had to be at the bus, we found an Irish pub, so we had to try the food and certainly the beer (might taste different in St. Petersburg) J
The ferry left on a beautiful sunny evening and looking from the ferry you could see multiple historic buildings on side with some modern alterations J,
The sunset on the ferry was just nice.
Tomorrow we are back in Helsinki, we will get on our bikes (if they are still there) and hop onto another Ferry to Tallinn.