Saint Petersburg

Last week was our long-awaited trip to Saint Petersburg (or, "Peter," or, "Venice of the North").

Wednesday night after class we left on the sleeper train (!!!), which was amazingly nice. I mean, if you're significantly taller than the average person, you might feel a little squished, but I slept for at least 6 hours. Compared to air travel, it was incredibly low-stress and comfortable. Consider me a train convert.

So we arrived Thursday morning, and immediately began with a bus tour of the city. It was interesting just to see how much older the buildings are than in Moscow (though Moscow pre-dates Peter by about 600 years, a lot of modern buildings were put up in the Soviet era). Also, Saint Petersburg has a lot of canals. I mean, it's not Venice - there are still roads and cars, but you can navigate large chunks of the city by boat.

After driving around, we went to the outskirts of the city to tour Peterhof, Peter the Great's palace. The highlight is the Lower Garden area, which has, like, a million fountains (some of which were secret so that Peter could spray his guests without warning) and opens onto the Baltic Sea.

Looking out over the Lower Garden from the palace steps

Looking up towards the house from the Lower Garden

The seeeeeeeeea

Afterwards, we took a much more sobering trip to the memorial for the victims of the siege of Leningrad during WWII. Thousands of people starved and were buried outside the city in mass graves that have now been turned into a memorial and mini-museum.

We checked into our (super-nice, centrally located, private-bathrooms-included) dorm and then just walked around the city center.

Church of the Spilled Blood

Kazan Cathedral (about 5 minutes from our dorm)

Friday, we had a guided tour of the city center, at the end of which we climbed up to the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

Kazan Cathedral (front)

St. Isaac's

yaaaay churches that are also museums so it's not rude to take pictures!

Saturday, we had a tour of the Hermitage, which is in the Winter Palace and holds some ridiculous amount of art (numbering in the millions of works). Saw my first Da Vinci, nbd. 

Afterwards, we utilized the world's longest escalator to head out to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the first thing built in Saint Petersburg upon its founding.

The creepy two-headed eagle is the symbol of Saint Petersburg

The island also includes a beach, where swimming is "banned"

Sunday was for leisurely walks through the city, and eating lots of delicious food. I also made it inside the Church of Spilled Blood.

lol Russia