St. Petersburg, Russia – July 26

Tonight we say Dasvidania to St. Petersburg and Russia. Customs turned out to be very much a ‘non-issue’. It is true that we had to go through each time we went on a tour and each time we returned – for what purpose, I’m not sure, but once we when through once it was very fast and a shorter process each time after that. St. Petersburg surprised me a bit in terms of the magnificence of the buildings. They are nothing less than huge, opulent and beautiful. Certainly there are communist-era apartment block which we encountered a bit today on our ride of the St. Petersburg metro system (subway) but the buildings from old Peter the Great/Catherine the Great times left me speechless. I am also aware that the opulence of these buildings came at the expense of the oppression of the Russian people.

Our afternoon tour of the St. Petersburg metro was a welcome change from the palaces, monuments and museum tours of the last few days. There really wasn’t much to the tour than riding the metro, visiting a local Russian market and a bit of souvenir shopping. It was very interesting though to be not as much of a tourist today. The St. Petersburg metro is one of the deepest if not the deepest in the world with some of the stops being more than 300 feet deep. The depth was obvious when we took very long escalators down to the tracks. This tour was also appealing because the St. Petersburg metro has interesting architecture, sculptures and paintings in it. Considering that it was very hot today (35 degrees) and that the metro doesn’t have AC it was quite comfortable in the metro. Our guide was very good (a bit too good maybe) at giving explicit instructions on how to use the tokens, the escalator and basically everything to do with being on the subway. Seemed at the time to be a bit funny, but who knows…maybe some of the people on the tour needed to be told to ‘watch and then do what the person in front of you is doing.’

After the metro ride we visited a typical Russian market and then had tome for souvenir shopping.

Russia (St Petersburg anyway…) seems to have very little in the way of fast food. Typically every large or small town we visit has McDonald’s etc all over the place, but all there seems to be here is Subway and one McDonald's. Nothing in the way of street food either. There are a few stalls selling pop (no beer) or pre-packaged ice cream, but no hotdogs, nuts, corn (we think we may have seen one corn stall) etc. Any no Vodka stands although that would have been very interesting.

By the way...I don't have any pics of the metro as they aren't allowed. Apparently the Russians are afraid that terrorists will make plans based on photos, so none are allowed.

After we return and we are finally sailing again after 3 days in port we spend some long awaited time on our balcony. I don't love the days in port - especially when we can't venture into the city on our own. One of the charms of being on a cruise is actually sailing!