June 1, 2017
St. Petersburg

Just a note here: Three separate pages are used to describe our time in St. Petersburg, and this is just the first one. Kinks to the others:
The Winter Palace and The Hermitage
The Catherine Palace

Settling In

River Victoria

We made it! We were a little disappointed in the ship and the cabin, though it shouldn’t have been a surprise. We knew ahead of time not to expect everything to be as it was on our other Uniworld cruise. Russia requires all river cruises to hire Russian ships with Russian crew and staff. And though the River Victoria has certainly been refurbished recently, it still shows its age in some ways. Like very steep stairs with very narrow treads. Nevertheless, we were there, and what we saw of St. Petersburg was intriguing.

Honey Pepper Vodka

We actually reached the ship around 4:00, had a little time to unpack, and managed to look around a bit and enjoy our first Russian vodka before the orientation meeting. That answered some questions for us, and included some surprisingly pleasant observations. For example, we expected some rain while we were there, and museums in Russia all have free cloak rooms. Very convenient. We also learned that for the most part we didn’t have to worry about exchanging currency or withdrawing rubles at an ATM, even when dining out off ship. Very convenient again.

We also made it through dinner awake enough to realize that the Russian crew and staff included the chef. The food was certainly acceptable, but as we would discover within the next few days, the outstanding meals Uniworld serves on other itineraries were not going to be a part of this cruise. The wait staff was very attentive, though, and the wine was good, Soon after dinner, the day ended a little earlier than it might have. Not surprising at all, given the eight-hour difference in time zones we had crossed since leaving home!

Thursday, June 1

The River Neva in East St. Petersburg

We had heard about the “White Nights” in St. Petersburg, and I guess that’s what we experienced. The sky was still bright when we closed the curtains and bedded down around 10:30, it was bright when I woke during the night, and it was very bright when we both woke up for the day at 4:30 in the morning. (Jet lag is not fun.) The sun was high up in the sky, there wasn’t a cloud around, and it looked like we were going to enjoy one of the 60 rain-free days a year in St. Petersburg. I might not have clean clothes yet, but they would at least be dry!

I think most European river cruises start with a day or two in the first port for a number of reasons: those days allow for passengers who have had delays in their international travel to catch up before the ship leaves port, they allow extra time for delayed luggage to be delivered before leaving port (important to me this time), they give passengers the opportunity to acclimate to the new time zone if it’s needed, and they provide the opportunity for passengers to be tourists in a city of international importance. All of those reasons were in play this day. We met people who had arrived only that morning, my luggage still hadn’t arrived, passengers had arrived form all points on the globe (New York to Los Angeles to Sydney to Shanghai), and we were scheduled for a bus and canal tour of the city that morning.

St. Petersburg Riverside Park

The tour was focused on the historic center of the city, with the bus ride allowing a few stops for photographs on both sides of the broad river. That was to be followed by a canal tour that would take us out into the river for a while. As an introduction to tourist attractions and historic sites in St. Petersburg, the morning was great! The only real glitch was caused by a traffic accident that delayed us as we traveled from our port site a few miles from the city center. But that was a minor problem in the long run. Along the way, we had plenty of time to see some of the many parks we would find all over the city, Something that surprised me. Maybe this was the first of my negative assumptions about Russia to bite the dust on this trip.

Smolny Convent

Our first stop was at the Smolny Convent, a complex of buildings that had become part of a university under Soviet rule. Many of the buildings are still owned and used by the university, but the main building has been returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. The buildings are beautifully restored, as you can see in this photo, and one of our friends (Andrea Brown) said our photo looks like a Wedgwood building. She has a point!

For us one of the first things we noticed when we stepped off the bus was the enormous bell on the ground in front of the chapel. Judy made a beeline for it, while I stayed back to take a few panoramic shots. When I caught up with her she was more than happy to pose for a shot or two in front of a bell that was quite a site, though it would never become a part of her collection.

The bus ride continued, with a few more stops along the way for further photos. I’m not going to put any more of them out here where they might interfere with your enjoyment of my timeless prose. They’ll all be in the photo tabs at the bottom of the page. I will say, though, that one of those stops included visiting a huge souvenir shop where we saw the first of many vodka sale displays table that would become a consistent part of this cruise.

Cruising along a St. Petersburg Canal

Eventually the bus ride ended, and we were shepherded aboard canal boats. After all, one of the nicknames for St. Petersburg is ‘Venice of the North,” so a canal tour makes sense. Designed for tourists, these boats had a forward glass-enclosed section and a rear open area for seating. Judy moved inside and I–somewhat carelessly, as it turned out–sat in the back row of open seating. Look at the photos above one more time. It was a beautiful day, more sunny than cloudy, and moving along the Moyka River was really pleasant. Beautiful seventeenth- and eighteenth-century buildings on each side, tantalizing glimpses of other buildings beyond that, lots of sunshine… I really enjoyed the ride.

Then we made a left turn into a canal and moved from the relative peace of the small winding Moyka out into the huge open space of the Neva River and the boat put on some real speed. It was 50° and spray was kicking up left and right! I still didn’t have my luggage, I was wearing two-day old clothes, but at least my wind-proof jacket with a hood had been in my backpack. That had to be one of the coldest, most exhilarating boat rides I’ve ever been on! I would do it again in a minute.

Our Savior on the Spilled Blood

At the end of the boat ride, after we returned safely to the smaller river via another canal, we took the bus to one of those places that’s on everyone’s list of “must see” places in St. Petersburg: The Church of the Resurrection, better known as the Church of our Savior on the Spilled Blood. Sounds terrible, but it’s a truly stunning building, built on the spot where Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. Not an old Russian church, but in its exterior and interior elements summing up literally everything that the past 900 years had included in Russian church architecture. In my opinion, anyway. Sort of Russian Orthodox Mannerism, if you will. It’s a wonder everyone who goes to that place doesn’t end up with sore necks from just staring at the ceiling. And the walls. And the Iconostasis. And let’s not forget the exterior. Those colorful onion-shaped domes, with their bright colors and patterns, are as much a suggestion of place–Russia–as the pyramids and sphinx are of Egypt. Yay. Great place to see on our first day in Russia.

After our tour of the church and a short orientation session, Judy and I walked to another souvenir shop, primarily so we could avail ourselves of the plumbing, and then on for a while looking for a restaurant. We had our lunch at Azia, somewhere south of our meeting place, where we sat outdoors and enjoyed soups (Tom Yam for Judy and Borscht for me) and some really good bread. After lunch we walked back to the meeting place and decided to return to the ship rather than continue walking around on our own. After all, we needed to rest before we struck out for the evening’s entertainment.

J & J

The evening was really quite wonderful. Along with a few hundred other tourists we sat in the Alexandrinsky Theatre and enjoyed a performance of Swan Lake. This was one of the grand old theatres, with modern lighting as one of its major updates. Unfortunately, the modern updates didn’t include seating sized for 21st-century sized humans. It was a little tight. Altogether, being there made the uncomfortable seating bearable. The orchestra was good, the sets a delight, the corps de ballet good, and most of the principals were thrilling to watch.

But the best part of the day? That was getting back to the ship and discovering that I didn’t have to put those clothes on for yet a fourth day. That meant our visit to the Winter Palace and the Hermitage would be a whole lot more pleasant on our second full day in St. Petersburg.