Day 5 6/9/11 - Russia

St Petersburg

Highlight

• Woke up early because of snoring and the inadequate curtains.
• Very lazy people at breakfast. They didn’t want to clean up any places. Seems like only French people were staying at the hotel. Food was less variety but it was tastier than Hilton.
• Walked down by the river, with view to St Isaacs and crossed the bridge, since the weather was very good.
• The Hermitage and Winter Palace was not that impressive on the outside.
• Caught the Hydrofoil to Peterhof. It was twice the price for “foreigners”.
• Everything costs money to go in. We entered the lower garden, which had loads of lovely fountains and shrubs shaped up.
• The Grand Palace – had tours only in Russian, and we had to follow the tour grip. There was no explanation for anything in English. The rooms were grand, on par with the stuff you see at all the major palaces around Europe. The thing is, the place was bombed through in WWII and everything was rebuilt anyway.
• Wondered the Upper Garden with the hedges and fountains, then back to the lower gardens for more wonder through the grounds and the lovely weather.
• We didn’t visit any other buildings due to more admission charges, and had to go extra early to the hydrofoil because of Slokky’s paranoia.
• Walked to the Pel’mini Bar since the weather was good. Had all different variety of pelmini and manty and varenki. We definitely got our fill.
• Tried to get the tram back but waited 20 mins and nothing came, so ended up walking to the Metro.

Food

• Nashotel:
  • smoked salmon, potato hash, smoked meat and cold cuts cheese
  • cream cheese fritters
  • orange juice
• Pel’meni Bar:
  • beef, cheese, onion and parsley pel’meni
  • beef, mushroom, onion pelmeni
  • mutton and onion manty
  • cottage cheese with raisins varenki
  • fried cabbage varenki