The Grand Palace

After a relaxing start to the morning, we headed off to find the hydrofoil. A wander through the park in the wrong direction didn’t deter us from finding the right wharf and we just turned around and headed in the opposite direction. Seven hundred roubles each later (around $35), we boarded the hydrofoil and half an hour later arrived at Peterhof. We enjoyed the trip, but were a bit disappointed when on arrival we saw a sign that said for one thousand roubles each (around $50) we could have taken a return trip by helicopter and shortened the trip significantly. I am not sure that we will have a return visit to St Petersburg to take that option, but I suspect Cam will.
The Peterhof is the Versailles of Russia. The palace is actually a series of palaces set in beautiful symmetrical parklands with numerous fountains. The gardens are very formal with tree lined alleys but with very few flower gardens. We walked along quite a few of the pathways through the gardens and finally made our way up to the Grand Palace where after paying three hundred roubles each to enter the gardens, now had to pay a further five hundred and twenty roubles each to go inside. Still it was worth it. We had to follow a roped off area within the Palace and it took us to some twenty rooms, set with the period furniture of the time. It was incredible to think that the Russian authorities had buried much of the art and artefacts for safekeeping during WW II as the Palace was later severely damaged and has now been renovated. There were lots of school groups touring the gardens and palace – university has finished for the year but school is still in and it is the time of the year for excursions etc. We saw lots of kids dripping wet from running through some of the fountains.
It has been a beautiful day here today – around 18 degs and sunny until late in the day as we travelled back on the hydrofoil it started to rain lightly. That has eased off now, so we will continue with our plan of going on a boat trip around the canals at about 8 p.m. St Petersburg was originally swamp land and canals were built to drain the land to allow building. They are now used as a source of transport and obviously a lot of this is for tourism. St Petersburg was very nearly demolished during WW II and has been rebuilt in the original era. It is a beautiful city with lots of character.