Melsea's Adventures of 3 Boats & a Baltic heatwave. Part 6

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melsea
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Melsea's Adventures of 3 Boats & a Baltic heatwave. Part 6

#1

Post by melsea »

St.Petersburg. Day One

Very warm & sunny, wall to wall blue sky.

The awful alarm went off at 6.10 which signalled that I had to get out of bed very pronto, have a shower, go to the buffet to get breakfast and get the last of my things together before I got off the ship to face the Russian Immigration. Part of the process of being allowed through is to have in your possession as stated in the daily horizon 1.your cruise card 2.your passport 3.your tour excursion ticket. The last one was aimed at passengers who were on a P&O tour. I checked for when the earliest tour was due to meet and were likely to get off when I wanted to and that was 7am. The all clear to be able to get off was around 7.15. I had booked before the cruise a 2 day tour with a Russian Tour company called TJ Travel Tours. On the information that was emailed to me the meeting by the ship was between 7-7.30am. All their instructions about going through immigration was quite funny if it wasn't a serious part of getting into the country but this is what they said "First of all, the ship employees cannot hold the passengers aboard against their will. All the foreign tourist will be allowed to enter Russia provided they have the proper documents:" The same as P&O only mine would be a blanket visa that is my tour ticket. It then continues to say so be sure you have the same rights as other cruise passengers on your ship!!! It was what it said next that made me chuckle & I quote again "The fact is that for the Russian Immigration inspector, sitting in his or her booth, it makes no difference if the person standing in front of him handing his documents is a member of the ship's group tour or a privately arranged excursion programme"
So off I went as soon I was able to and when I got into the terminal I recognised it from my visit from last year in July. They had a few booths open but as soon as more people came through they had opened more booths and they I sense there was a sense of urgency of getting people through. I got through quickly and felt relieved I was passed through. There were some that seem to take a while to be processed, mainly because they had not put the various papers on the right page of their passport.
Once through I went in search of the tour company which I need not worry as a young lady held up a small board with the company name. There were already some people from the ship there and we only needed to wait for two more which was only a minute or two. All gathered we were ushered outside to a waiting mini bus which looked very new and was a Mercedes, the interior was immaculate. Our tour guide was a lady whose name was Irina and our driver for the 2 days was a young man in his late 20's early 30's and his name was Mikhail. There were 10 of us on this tour. We all introduced ourselves and no I can not remember anyone's name after that.
We were given a bottle of water to start with and it was looking like we would be needing it as it was very warm. One of our first stops before we headed out of town was by the river to take photos of an unusual Sphinx like statue and our first glimpse of the river which was drench in the morning sunshine. The first building we were taken to was the St.Nicholas' Naval Cathedral which was in a beautiful turquoise and gold colour. We were allowed to go and it was equally beautiful. While travelling to our next destination we passed a palace like building which we were informed was the residence of President Putin when he was in St.Petersburg and he is in town for 3 days along with other heads of state/governments for a conference. We were not sure how much of this was going to disrupt our two day tour. Today's tour was concentrated with places on the outskirts of St.Peterburgs. Our first main visit of the day on our actual itinerary was to the Peterhof Palace, we were not going inside the palace but were to have a guided tour of the Fountain Park, a walk in the Peterhof Lower Fountain park and the upper gardens. The first thing to see was the spectacular fountain display that happens everyday. When it starts up there is music playing which adds to the experience of this wonderful display in front of the Great Palace. The various fountains here are built on a cascade of steps & levels giving an impression of looking like a waterfall of fountains leading to the the Grand Canal that is otherwise known as the sea or Samson Canal. The huge fountain at the bottom is of Samson holding open wide a lions mouth of which the very tall fountain comes out of its mouth making it one of the highest fountain spray. We were led through the huge gardens and saw a number of other impressive fountains all of which have a story attached to it. The flowers here were equally as impressive, tulips of all different colours adorn the beautiful gardens here. Our guide Irina told us that they have not really had a winter, a bit like us and they too had a lot of rain this winter. Because of the mildness of the winter and into spring everything is out for longer.
Having had a really relaxed time on this tour so far it was time for our Traditional Russian lunch which wasn't that far away. It was in a very old building and very nicely decorated. There seemed to be another group that was also on a tour. We were led to our tables for the ten of us and no sooner had we sat down we were given what looked like a soup with a large dollop of Mayo in a minestrone type soup. But whatever it was, it was absolutely delicious. Then our main came. It was three wrapped pancakes with mincemeat inside it. Again this tasted delicious and very filling. Finally our dessert, ice cream with a slice of strawberry and sauce on top. Very refreshing. Tea & coffee to round it off. Tea was surprisingly nice too. All seemed to go by very quickly and at no time did we feel pressured to eat up. Where I have been on P&O tours that provided lunch it has always been in a hurried fashion. I think this time because the tour company knows that their reputation is key to their success and especially if they want a tip at the end, this is not something I do when on a P&O tour. Lunch finished and we were off to our next part of our tour, Catherine's Palace & the Amber room. Well what an incredible palace this was and even more so when one considers how is was almost complete obliterated by the Germans as they left St.Petersburg in 1943. The photos of what is was like is truly incredible the sheer destruction was tragic. The restoration of this amazing place is astonishing. It is hard to believe they created what they did out of the ashes of destruction. It still has however restoration in progress in some areas. We shown many magnificent room, some were put together using photographs to replicate what was there before, they were lucky to find some aspects had survived mostly because pieces of what was kept had been moved to somewhere else before the Germans descended and other things were move because of the impending revolutions that went before. One thing I was not expecting was the Amber room. I thought it was going to be a room of display cabinets with collections of Amber. No, it is quite literally a decorated room on the walls with Amber, very little of it was from the original. This was the only room in the whole palace that you could not photograph, I could not work out why.
The various places we have seen so far have been pretty impressive. It was now time to head back into town, the plan was to make visits to the subway, an inside guided tour of St Isaac cathedral and finally an inside guided tour of the Church on Spilt blood and be back by 6.30.
We were making very good time and got back to town on schedule. Then we hit traffic and diversions of some streets due to the visit of Putin and the conference that was in progress. It was soon apparent that a our tour had to be changed around. We were taken to the St Isaac Cathedral which our driver very skilfully & with local knowledge got us closer than a larger vehicle could have done. As we got out of the small bus we heard singing of a large choir, as we were making our way to the Cathedral the sound was coming from outside the front of the Cathedral, it was absolutely beautiful. Our guide Irina said it was a rehearsal of a concert that was happening in a couple of days. There had to have been a couple of thousand people in this choir. As we arrived at where the choir was, it stopped.
Apart from the sheer numbers of people who were there to visit the cathedral, the large structure that was there to seat the choir was blocking the the route to get to the Cathedral but our guide knowing the area well managed to take us a different way and with us being a small group were ushered through quickly. The cathedral was extremely impressive as have all the other buildings we have seen today.
Because of the delays this afternoon we were unable to visit the metro & the Church on Spilt blood but our Irina had a plan. As I said when we started our day that there were 10 of us but what we found out during the day that 4 of our party were on a day tour and what wasn't clear and I didn't really get into it, was what was actually on their itinerary. As these four only had an excursion visa for just one day our guide took us to the place where you would pay for your tours and it doubles up as a souvenir shop but it was a much nicer souvenir than you usually see. While the four paid for their 1 day tour the company was negotiating a fee for them to do part of a tour tomorrow. We were to visit the two things we missed today, the metro & the Spilt blood church.
As we were making our way back to the ship we were feeling rather tired as much for the reason of a long day but for the sheer heat we had been enduring all day. Temperatures here reached in their high 20's which is not something you expect when visiting St.Petersburg in May! We finally got back to the ship at 7pm. Thank goodness I wasn't doing an evening tour and I don't think anyone else was either. We had made arrangements with our guide and driver to meet that at 7.45 the next morning so as to start the daily slightly earlier than we would have done.
Getting back on ship was interesting as when I followed the signs to board Arcadia and to go through the immigration booths we went through this morning, none of the booths were occupied except those that were operation for those coming off the ship for the evening tours. One of our own crew members of the security dept saw our problem and managed to sort it out. The first booth I queued at got held up because a couple did not have in their passport the loose piece of paper that you had to hand in when you got back, why it wasn't left in their passport is anyone's guess. In the meantime having been on my own in this area I made move to another booth when the remaining people from my tour were suddenly ahead of me and I ended up getting through way behind them and 10 minutes later than I would have been had the booths been open. I was not best pleased, sorry but I have no patience.
In the evening even though I was very tired I decided to go down to the restaurant for dinner which I am pleased I did as I was able to wine down from the day as it was a really lovely day and it wasn't to end there I had tomorrow to look forward to and yes I was to get up early again but not as early as today.
So I hope my report hasn't worn you out. The next instalment will continue of the wonders that are St.Petersburg Day 2.

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david63
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of 3 Boats & a Baltic heatwave. Part

#2

Post by david63 »

The reason why the tour company had those notes about disembarking the ship is that a few years ago there were reports that some cruise lines were deliberately preventing passengers from disembarking until all of their own tour passengers had disembarked.

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melsea
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of 3 Boats & a Baltic heatwave. Part

#3

Post by melsea »

I had wondered that from the tone it was written. It was reassuring though that I had this document just in case anything had arisen but I have not heard such an incident happening on P&O which I didn't think I would encounter anyway.


Quizzical Bob
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of 3 Boats & a Baltic heatwave. Part

#4

Post by Quizzical Bob »

'Wine down from the day'. What a lovely expression, was that deliberate?

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melsea
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of 3 Boats & a Baltic heatwave. Part

#5

Post by melsea »

QB

I do believe I made a Freudian slip there..

M

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oldbluefox
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of 3 Boats & a Baltic heatwave. Part

#6

Post by oldbluefox »

I do enjoy the detail you put into your cruise reports. Thanks melsea. Looking forward to the second dayof your tours in St Petersburg.

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