Island Escape

This morning we headed to St Isaacs's Cathedral which, for both of us, was more about an aerial view of the city than taking in another religious building. The views and working out where we've been over the last few days was fun. What we found most impressive on the inside (which is actually a museum, not a church) was the drawings of how the mammoth granite columns were erected. 

We wandered to the Hermitage to buy tickets for later before catching a boat around to Yelagin Islands. On the way, we had a close up of the new stadium built for the World Cup last year as well as the tallest building in Europe, nicknamed The Corn. Speaking of which, Rich succumbed to his cornstarch poncho on the boat when the weather turned chilly and rain threatened. We think the boat took us in the right direction at just the right time because we disembarked in sunshine.

Then, lunch in tranquility! We both enjoyed noise-free, traffic-free down time walking through the park with squirrels, the odd butterfly and a duck. 

The way back across another island took us past fancy new houses and on to our first experience of the metro. I was hoping to find one of the stations not to miss but they were both fairly bog standard. It was still an exciting new experience, with the trains feeling very Russian. 

My feet are now up for a couple of hours before we tackle an evening at The Hermitage. 


...OK, so evening wasn't exactly representative of our time in one of the largest museums in the world. In fact, it would have been considerably shorter had we been able to find our way out! But, to be honest, neither of us are big museum goers and I think you really need to home in on something of interest if you want to make the most of a visit. We both wanted to experience the hugeness of the building and see the winter palace gardens and that's what we'll take from our short 'evening'. We then sat in the sun outside, near the river, before heading for a tea & tiramisu which was when I realised my feet had one thing on their mind. Bed!

Now to plan our last morning of adventure.