Day Five - May 31, 2013
St. Petersburg, Russia
Daily Didactic
Our day started late, due to our 3:30 bed time. We also just like sleeping in. We were up and moving a little before noon. We checked in with the day crew at this really funky little hostel. Sasha showed us around the place, helped us plan a walk for the day, and (most importantly) aimed us at lunch. We walked around the corner to the trendy but tasty Zoom Cafe and enjoyed our first non-airport food in 36 hours or so. Brian had chicken in stewed tomatoes and Theresa had potato cakes. From there we started on our walkabout St. Petersburg. We stopped first at St. Isaac's Cathedral and climbed to the colonnade for a 360 degree view of the city. Filled with spires and gold onion domes, St. Petersburg is a really beautiful town. Next we headed through a park, walked along along the Neva River and worked our way across a couple of bridges to the town's original footprint, the Peter and Paul Fortress. The place reminded us a little of the Prague Castle last summer, in that it was a little town inside fortress walls replete with touristed up torture chambers, cathedrals and gift shops. We poked around a while and headed onward. Next stop was down the street to ogle the St. Petersburg Mosque and then head back across the Neva for a walk through the recently restored Summer Garden. At it's end (more or less) we found the wildly decorated Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood. Truly a site to behold, Brian is a new (and Theresa a reformed) fan of the onion dome. We headed home, with an entertainingly confusing stop at a local mini-mart to try to gather dinner makings. We ended up more with snack makings. Back at the hostel we enjoyed an odd meal and accidentally called it an early evening, falling asleep around 7:00. Only 12 more time zones to go.
Today's Photos
