After a delicious
breakfast at the Maxima Panorama Hotel in Moscow ,
I took the metro to the train station and boarded the express train for St. Petersburg
I wandered around the
canals to get my bearings, stopping at Stolle where I wanted to have breakfast
in the morning, by a fruit stand to get some peaches and finally at a Georgian
Restaurant where I had a delicious Greek salad with walnuts and some hot
Georgian cheese bread for dinner.
Afterwards, walking along the canal back to the hotel I was already
enjoying being in St. Petersburg
In the morning after a
lovely walk along the canals I had a small piece of fresh plum pie and coffee
at Stolle (www.stolle.ru). There are only large pies for sale, i.e.
cheese, spinach, plum, hackberry which they cut into large or small pieces and
if you arrive at 9 a.m. when they just open the pies are still warm!!! I walked through the little craft market on
my way to the Russian Museum and decided I would buy a set of Russian
stacked dolls sometime during my stay in St.
Petersburg Mikhailovsky Palace
from 1819 – 25. The rooms are still filled with old
furniture and wonderful fine art. There
is also a separate folk art collection with gingerbread molds, toys, etc.
I went inside the famous Church
of the Savior on the Spilled Blood with its dazzling multi domes, topped with
glistening gold crosses and partly modeled on St. Basil’s in Moscow
I returned to Stolle for a
spinach pie and coffee for lunch before walking down Nevsky Pprospect (the main
thoroughfare) to Dostoyesvky’s “house”.
He lived there from 1878 until his death in 1881 and composed some of
his most notable works in that apartment.
He lived with his second wife Anna who wrote down and corrected his
stories and the flat is filled with memorabilia relating to his life and
work. Later I returned to this same area
for dinner where I had baked trout with vegetables and Georgian bread at a
charming little restaurant called Cat Café.
Huckleberry pie and coffee
at Stolle and then to the State Memorial Museum of Leningrad, also called the
blockade museum. It was a very
interesting museum about the famous 900-day blockade of Leningrad lake ladoga Island . It contains the Peter & Paul Cathedral
erected in 1723 and was St. Petersburg
Lunch nearby at a
wonderful outdoor called Café Botanika where I sat on the patio and had a
carrot salad with sunflower seeds and cashews and pancakes filled with cheese
for lunch. Afterwards I walked over to
St. Issac’s Cathedral called the inkwell because of its boxy shape topped by a
single gray dome. Its massive hall can
accommodate 14,000 people and during the 900 day siege its grounds were planted
with cabbage. The interior is breathtaking
with columns made of single pieces of granite, floors of different colored
marble and never ending frescoes. Dinner
across the river at Zoom, a funky café which doesn’t take reservations. It is like an old house where you dine in
different rooms. There are children’s
books, games and crayons on the shelves, a plate of grapefruit and orange
slices on the bar for you to help yourself to when you arrive and delicious
food. I had a beet salad with goat
cheese and pistachios and a warm fried potato, chanterelle and onion dish which
I had to wait 40 minutes for but which was really good. I finished off with a homemade oatmeal cookie
and then walked back to the hotel.
After breakfast at Stolle
I walked to the Hermitage State Museum
and Winter Palace England
I looked for a restaurant I
had read about near Botanika called the black cat but it had closed awhile ago
so I sat outside again at Botanika and had a delicious warm lavash sandwich
filled with cheese and tomatoes. I
walked to the Kazan Cathedral, inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome Swan
Lake
In the morning it was
raining so I decided to go to the Pushkin and save Peterhof for the following
day in hopes the weather would improve (it didn’t!!!). I bought an extra cheese pie for lunch and
took the metro to Moscowkaya station and caught a bus to Catherine’s Palace
located in the town of Tsarskoye Selo Russia
In the morning it began to
rain and rained allll day. I wanted to
take the hydrofoil to Peterhof but the water was too rough and they were not
running so I took the bus instead. I
waited in line to visit the great palace built in 1715 by Jean Baptiste Leblond
for Peter the Great and sometimes called the Russian Versailles. It was absolutely magnificent inside. The wall coverings matched the chairs, the
small Chinese room was elegant and wonderous, the study has 14 fantastic carved
wood panels, etc. The uncontested
centerpiece is the Grand Cascade, a symphony of over 140 fountains in the lower
park where I wandered for about any hour visiting small cottages, baths and
even more fountains. Finally I was
soaking wet so took the bus back to the hotel to warm up.
In the evening I walked to
Teplo for my last dinner in St.
Petersburg
In the morning I took a
nice walk along the canals, breakfasted at Stolle and then walked to the Grand
Choral Synagogue consecrated in 1893. It
is quite a beautiful building and quite lavish inside. I walked down to see the Mariinky theatre
built in 1859 even though I knew it was closed.
A last delicious lunch at Botanika and then the metro and shuttle bus to
the airport where I was able to carry on my bag as I would have a stopover in Vienna
I arrived in Vienna Vienna
In the morning I savored
the wonderful buffet breakfast of little pastries, hard cooked eggs, fruit,
rich coffee, etc. I picked up some whole
grain bread, cheeses and some fruit for the flight home as airplane food is
never very good. And so ended another
wonderful trip, thoroughly enjoyed.
