Monday, June 20, 2011

I wear my sunglasses at night...



Glorious St. Petersburg!  

Steve and I made our inaugural trip (we will be back) to romantic St. Pete last weekend.  Dubbed the “Venice of Russia” it surely stood up to its reputation.  The best time to visit is June/July as we had front row seats to the magnificent white nights!  (Angels singing...).   I am a sunshine girl through and through, and so it makes perfect sense that we live in Russia where there can be no sunshine for weeks at a time in the dead of winter...but that’s another story for another time.  Well, actually, that’s part of this story.  If there are fewer hours of daylight in the winter....that means....there are gloriously long days in the summer.  Right now in Moscow, the sun rises at 4:30 a.m. and sets at 10:30 p.m. which provides for a whopping 18 hours of daylight!  (More angels singing...).  St. Pete is the most northern city in the world and with an 8 hour train ride northwest of Moskva, it plays host to over 19 hours of daylight...and actually, at 2 a.m., it feels more like dusk rather than a full dark night sky.
Sunshine after dinner at 11 p.m.!

About that train - we opted for the overnight train to St. Pete and took the high-speed train back to Moscow.  The overnight train seemed like a good idea, (turns out it was a bit more exciting right out of college).  This ride - sun up at 4 a.m....sheer train curtains...speeding by light posts that provided  a blinking strobe effect....the perfect equation for a peaceful night’s sleep.  I actually bought Steve an eye mask as he has an even more difficult time with light during sleep hours....I made sure it was pink and paisley - he looks darn cute wearing that thing, (but we won’t tell him that).  
The train left Moscow at midnight and we hit the streets of St. Pete at 8 a.m. The palaces are truly magnificent and ohhhh,The Hermitage!  I’m not necessarily one to spend a whole day in a museum - but I definitely could have here.  Not only is the 3 million+ art collection impressive, the rooms in which the art is displayed are magnificent.  

Lenin overseeing the goings-on at the Moscow train station...

A palace fit for a queen... a few czars...and some Peters, Alexanders and Nicolas's...

The grounds...

The Venice of Russia = caviar and vodka rather than pasta and chianti...

The Hermitage!
This sweet dog was hanging out solo with a change bucket...