Onion River Exploration Project: Comrades

Sunrise over St. Petersburg

Day 15 (8/15/2010) Day 8 Baltic Sea Adventure

Day two in Russia was quite intense. Again we did a tour but this one spent more time exploring some of the buildings. The one area that I wish I would have had more time to explore is the Hermitage. It has over three million works of art and is contained in four huge buildings, one being the Summer Palace of Peter the Great. We didn’t do it because it is so huge. From what we heard, even if you spent four days you would only scratch the surface. The people who did go complained that it was unbearably hot, since they have no air-conditioning, and terribly crowded. Apparently it rarely gets as hot in St. Petersburg as it was for our stay. We went past some of the same buildings today as yesterday, the Cruiser Aurora, Cabin of Peter the Great, Admiralty, Stroganovsky Palace and the Hermitage, but this time we had more photo opportunities. The biggest part of today’s tour was going to the Peter and Paul Fortress which also contains there cathedral. Here many of the Russian leaders have been buried including the Romanov family with Anastasia. After a four hour tour we had an hour to ourselves which most people used for shopping. Eileen and I did some shopping but spent most of our time walking around the Court yard of the Summer Palace which again houses part of the Hermitage. Even though it is one of their most cherished treasures the buses don’t stop there because there is no place to park. We noticed the sky was starting to grow dark so we started making our way back to the bus. Soon after our group had loaded we had a huge storm which made several buses late back to the ship because of downed trees.

The problem with tours is that there is a lot of hurry up and wait time. It seems like there is always that one person or group that is always holding everything up. There is also the attention seeker who is always either asking stupid questions or trying to outwit the guide. It can also be kind of hectic trying to follow somebody who you can barely understand through large throngs of people often with their own guides going in different directions who they can barely understand. Eileen and I found it best to sit in the back of the bus, keep our mouths shut and stick to the guide like glue when in busy places. The problem with not taking a tour, however, is you have to find your own transportation and unless you are very good at preplanning everything probably won’t know where you are going or what you are seeing anyway. As you can tell by now I am kind of at that point where I need a little vacation from vacation.