Russian Around the Baltic on Silhouette

[Mulege]

Most preferred by whom? The people that own the street kiosk exchange?

 

Why wouldn't someone just bring USD from home if they were going to do this method? This seems very convoluted. It was much easier just to withdraw Rubles from an ATM.

 

I wouldn't recommend the HOHO bus either. The traffic can be awful. Walking or Metro is the way to go. I was disappointed we didn't have time to do the riverboat tour though.

 

Preferred by Americans that live here as street exchanges give the best rate.

 

Getting rubles from the ATM you get a very poor exchange rate. So, if you are changing a large amount (Social Security) as I do each month it adds up substantially if you get dollars and then go on the street.

 

Just trying to give you some local insight. Hope you had a good experience.

 

A good restaurant in St Petersburg is Stroganoff. Near St. Isaacs. I don't recommend the beef. Not equal to US cuts. Mussels are great.

[Mulege]

I am impressed with your ability to get around. The Metro is the way to go. Agree with White Rabbit, once is enough.

 

As a pensioner, we get free transportation on the Metro, buses, trolleys, and street cars.

 

The ugly Columbus statue was originally for Columbus, Ohio but when they saw it they said no thank you. Then they tried to sell it to St Petersburg calling it Peter the Great. Then a friend of the Moscow mayor talked him into taking it. We hate it too!

[pjs678]

Preferred by Americans that live here as street exchanges give the best rate.

 

 

 

Getting rubles from the ATM you get a very poor exchange rate. So, if you are changing a large amount (Social Security) as I do each month it adds up substantially if you get dollars and then go on the street.

 

 

 

Just trying to give you some local insight. Hope you had a good experience.

 

 

 

A good restaurant in St Petersburg is Stroganoff. Near St. Isaacs. I don't recommend the beef. Not equal to US cuts. Mussels are great.

 

 

It seemed like I got good rates from the ATM (close to the xe.com rate anyway). Your way makes more sense for ex-pats like you said. Ha - we went to Stroganoff! You'll see our review later on.

[pjs678]

I am impressed with your ability to get around. The Metro is the way to go. Agree with White Rabbit, once is enough.

 

As a pensioner, we get free transportation on the Metro, buses, trolleys, and street cars.

 

The ugly Columbus statue was originally for Columbus, Ohio but when they saw it they said no thank you. Then they tried to sell it to St Petersburg calling it Peter the Great. Then a friend of the Moscow mayor talked him into taking it. We hate it too!

 

 

That's interesting. I didn't realize it was supposed to be a statue of Columbus. Pretty funny.

 

Google maps makes it so easy to get around almost anywhere these days.

[JudyjudyjudyS]

Doing a similar trip 8/17. Thanks for sharing.

[pjs678]

6/19 – Moscow to Stockholm OR Cars, Buses, Planes, Cars, Buses, and a Big Ship

 

Sunday 4am – woke up. Already light outside. J is playing solitaire on her iPad. “How long have you been up?” “1/2 hour.” “Wanna get breakfast?” “OK”

 

We decided to head back to Cook’kareku again as we had enjoyed it so much the first time. Once we got there, however, it was packed. They seated us upstairs, where it must have been 110 degrees. We couldn’t sit there, so the hostess tried to seat us at the bar, but it was still way too hot. We said thanks anyway and decided to go to a place nearer our hotel. It was about 4:30am now and we walked back down towards the Courtyard.

 

The place right near the hotel said they don’t serve breakfast until 5am. It was 4:50am, but by this point we were starving and we saw a place called Coffee Mania across the street. We went there and the menu looked good. We asked some other folks what they were eating as it looked good and ordered it – some sort of salmon and egg dish. The coffee was also excellent, but nothing was better than the people watching. Most of the people there (except for us) had just come back from a night on the town so they were all dressed up and fairly drunk.

 

After a leisurely breakfast, we walked back to the Courtyard and gathered up our things to meet the rest of the group in the lobby for our 7:15am transfer with Lingo Taxi. As we were packing up, J accidentally sat on her glasses and they broke. She was not happy, but I told her we could get them fixed in Stockholm. We checked out of the hotel and waited for our driver. He arrived right on time and we headed to the airport.

 

There was no traffic at that time on a Sunday morning, but it was slow getting into the airport as every car receives a security check before driving to the terminal. He dropped us off and we all went to check in for the Aeroflot flight. As were flying economy this time, we stood in a long line. Luckily, they opened a new line and took several of us to that line. Luggage was fine – I had expected them to make us check and pay for J’s extra rollaboard.

 

We went through immigration and security (very efficient) and then looked for our gate. Ugh – a bus gate. We were glad we had eaten as there was only a Burger King near our gate. We tried to find a place to fix J’s glasses, but no one had one of those kits. We boarded our bus about 30 minutes prior to departure and drove out to the plane. The weather was nice so it wasn’t bad.

 

 

The flight to Stockholm took about 2 hours, but we gained an hour on the way. They did serve a snack on the flight, but it was just a dry sandwich of some sort. There were quite a few cruisers on this flight who had flown from JFK or DC to Moscow overnight and connected to this flight. They said Aeroflot was a good deal on the airfare.

[pjs678]

When we reached Stockholm, immigration was quick and easy (with a smile – welcome to Sweden!) Luggage took quite some time though. We finally made it out through customs and our driver from Taxi Stockholm was waiting for the 5 of us. We went quickly to the SL desk and bought 24 hour transit tickets for 115kr each. These don’t activate until first use so we figured they would be good from about 2pm that day until 2pm the next day (when we had to be aboard for sailing).

 

We made it to the ship in about 30 minutes, so by this time it was around 1pm. We gave our luggage to the porters and walked into the terminal.

 

 

This was the first time that the suite benefits kicked in and we were able to skip a long line and go straight through security and check in. The security staff got a little too friendly with J in her opinion, but we made it through and got our sail pass cards.

 

We went to Michael’s club first as we wanted to figure out the internet package and combine the Qsine reservations for 8 of us that we had the following night (they made us make the reservations individually and then I used the concierge to combine us into one table). Anca, the MC concierge was great. However, she first told me that we had no perks! No premium package, no internet, etc. I showed her my receipt from my TA listing all of them and she made a call to Miami. It was fixed within about 5 minutes and she fixed the sail pass cards for us to show the PALL for premium alcohol package. She also adjusted our Qsine reservations with a quick call to the maitre'd.

 

From there, we went to the cabin and quickly dropped off our stuff (luggage had not arrived yet).

 

This was taken later in the cruise, but you can see our roommate, Mr. Pole.

 

Here is the Celebrity Today:

 

[pjs678]

J was raring to go back into Stockholm and check out Old Town, but we needed to eat lunch first. We went to Luminae and had lunch fairly quickly. We both had the smoked salmon appetizer, which was really good and then I had the duck club sandwich which was excellent. It was much better than fighting over scraps at the buffet on the first day.

 

At that point, we disembarked and walked to the bus stop. It was about a 10 minute walk as we were at the farthest slip. We had cruise ship behind the Silhouette which looked like it barely fit into its slip (hang on to that thought for later).

 

We took bus 76 to Old Town and walked past the palace. Here’s a picture of the bus stop:

 

 

By the way, the ticket machine here was no good for tourists. It was only for reloading the monthly passes that Swedes use. Buy a 24 hour pass at the airport or at the cruise terminal.

 

I had booked an Old Town Walking Tour for 4pm, but J saw all of the antique stores and decided she would rather just hang out and explore. By this time, it was around 3pm. We decided to meet back up at 5:30pm as we had booked the Ice Bar for 6:45pm.

 

I walked over to central Stockholm where the tour was to start and took some pictures on the way.

 

 

The tour was filled with folks who had just got off the Silhouette. They told me that they had been supposed to get to Stockholm at 9am the day before, but bad weather had kept them outside the archipelago until late afternoon. They didn’t dock until 7pm. The weather on this day was fairly nice. Cool with some clouds but the sun was poking through as well.

 

The walking tour was led by an English ex-pat who had moved to Stockholm a few years earlier. We walked to Gustav Adolfs Torg and then over the bridge past the Parliament.

 

Edited July 7, 2016 by pjs678

[pjs678]

It seems like almost every Swedish king was called Gustav or Adolf or both. We walked past the Palace and into old town. We saw the Prime Minister’s house.

 

 

We ended up at the smallest statue. Very cute.

 

 

At this point, it was approaching 5:30pm and I quietly left the tour to meet J. We purposely did not withdraw any money out in Sweden as credit cards are accepted everywhere. I felt bad as I had left my Euros in the safe in the cabin so I had nothing to tip the guide with. She was doing a really good job too.

 

J and I met up at the assigned store. She had looked for a place to fix her glasses, but the optician was closed. She planned to go back the next day when they were open and try again. At this point, her ankle was really bothering her as well. She had stopped in a pharmacy and bought a wrap/brace thing for it which helped a little.

 

We slowly walked back from Old Town to the center of town where the Ice Bar was located. We got there a little early so we had to wait about 20 minutes, but there were free bathrooms in the adjacent hotel.

We were given the OK once some folks had exited the Ice Bar. We put on our overcoats and gloves (I was wearing shorts too, what a dummy) and went in. It was cold, but not unbearable. We got our included drinks, which were good, and posed for a few dumb photos.

 

 

After about 10 minutes, we were ready to go. We slid our “glasses” down the recycle chute (they are also made of ice) and headed out. I had already researched that the #1 bus stopped a couple of blocks behind the Ice Bar so we walked up to that stop and waited. While we waited, we called home. I had activated the 24 hour Verizon Travel Pass for our time in Stockholm so that we could call and text, etc. to stay in touch with home while ashore. It’s $10 for 24 hours and uses your home data, texting and calling plan.

 

The bus eventually came and we took it all the way to the Frihamnen terminal stop. We had to walk the 10 minutes to the ship and J’s ankle was on fire at this point. When we got to the terminal, the ship was moving!

[pjs678]

Remember the other ship that was docked behind us? Well, they were leaving and the Silhouette had to move out of the way for the other ship to leave. The gangway had already been closed for an hour when we got there and we had to wait another 40 minutes to board.

 

Finally, we got on board. It was around 8pm by this time and we were starving. We went to our cabin and quickly changed (luggage was there by this time obviously). We met our stewards, who were very nice and learned our names after the first time meeting us. We also met our butler briefly, but I told him we would chat with him after we sailed as we were headed to dinner.

 

J hobbled down the hallway (at this point already regretting the aft suite) and we went to Luminae. It was frankly rather disappointing. There was a large loud group sitting near us and the fish we ordered for our main course came out dry and overcooked. J’s cocktail order was also screwed up. We were so hungry by this point we just ate the dry fish. The waiter saw J fiddling with her glasses and tried to help but the kit we had borrowed from one of our Moscow friends did not have a screw that fit her glasses.

 

We walked around the ship a little bit after dinner and stopped by the World Class Bar. While the menu wasn’t as good as we remembered from the Molecular Bar on Equinox, I managed to find a drink I liked – the Bulleit Infusion. J liked the Ketel One Strawberry something or other, although she found it a little too sweet after a while.

 

We went to watch a little bit of the show, two brothers impersonating John & Paul from the Beatles. They were talented, but we were getting pretty tired by this point and we had an early start. Before turning in, we stopped at Michael’s Club for a nightcap and met the lovely bartender there. We grabbed some bottled water for the next day and went up to the suite to turn in. Up next: Que pasa, Vasa?

[nekzaadvakil]

The suite looks awesome.

 

I see a bag of the Maleras store, that was one of our favorite stores in Gamla Stan, Stockholm. Wasn't the stuff there great? We loved this store. We bought this flask and shot glasses which now sit on our shelf at home.

 

 

 

Really enjoying your review and pictures. Thanks for doing this, we know how much time and effort this takes.

 

Cheers!

 

Nick

[pjs678]

The suite looks awesome.

 

I see a bag of the Maleras store, that was one of our favorite stores in Gamla Stan, Stockholm. Wasn't the stuff there great? We loved this store.

 

I have no idea :)

 

My wife does most of the shopping on these trips and I avoid it as much as I can. I'm sure she hit most of the good stores in Gamla Stan.

[pjs678]

6/20 – Stockholm Day 2 OR Vasa Es Su Casa Permanente

 

We had an early start on this day as we wanted to be at the Vasa Museum when it opened at 8:30am. We had room service breakfast ordered for 7-7:30 and our butler, Alex, called at 6:55am to say he was on the way. Unfortunately, the eggs had dried out by the time the breakfast arrived, but we enjoyed sitting on the balcony looking at the peaceful shore of the island opposite the port.

 

We left the ship around 7:30am and walked to the bus stop (or hobbled in J’s case). Bus 76 arrived at 7:45am and we took it to the stop at the bridge to Djurgarden. We walked over the bridge and past the Nordic Museum to the Vasa. We were still about 20 minutes early so we chatted with a nice family from Indiana who were also on the cruise. Our Moscow friends had the same idea and arrived a few minutes after we did.

 

At 8:30 on the dot, the doors opened and we entered the museum. Now, as I said earlier, J does not really like museums, but I had told her that this was the most popular tourist attraction in Scandinavia and that she would like it. I was right. She really enjoyed it, as did I.

 

 

We thought the exhibit about the lives lost on the Vasa was especially interesting as they had reconstructed some of the faces of the people.

 

 

The video was informative so definitely try and watch it when you are there. We spent about an hour there and it was fairly empty until the tour groups showed up around 9am. As it started to get crowded, we headed down to the ferry stop which would take us to Slussen at the foot of Gamla Stan. Our Moscow friends joined us as we found the ferry and used our 24 hour passes to get on board.

[pjs678]

The ferry also gave us some opportunities for viewing Stockholm from the water.

 

 

 

 

Once we got to Slussen, we walked further into Old Town and found the optician that J needed to fix her glasses. At this point, we had about 2-3 hours before we had to head back for all aboard by 1:45pm. I wanted to visit the Royal Palace and J wanted to explore the antique shops that had been closed the day before (plus her ankle was still bothering her).

 

We split up and agreed to meet back at the same spot as the day before at noon. I headed over to the Palace and bought a ticket which included the Royal Apartments, the Treasury and the Tre Kronor Museum. I skipped the church as I figured there would be lots more of those on this cruise. I spent about 90 minutes going through the Palace, the Treasury, the Armory and the Tre Kronor Museum (which means Three Crowns, which is the name of the original palace that burned down in the 1600s). I actually found the Tre Kronor the most interesting of the bunch as it has some artifacts from the original palace and is located in the basement of the new palace.

 

 

Dining Room

 

 

Model of the Old Palace

 

 

Royal Carriage

[pjs678]

I still had some time before meeting J so I went to see the narrowest street in Old Town.

 

 

We met back up at the appointed time and caught bus 76 at Slottsbacken, near the Palace. We had to wait about 20 minutes for the bus, but we always allow plenty of time to get back to the ship in these situations. When we arrived, Luminae was closed for lunch so we went to the buffet. We grabbed some food but it was so crowded that we took our plates down to our cabin and ate on the balcony.

 

Then it was time for the safety drill. Our muster station was Blu. J’s ankle was on fire at this point where we almost went to the ship’s doctor before the drill, but she decided to ice and rest it for the rest of the afternoon and see how it felt the next day. The muster drill was fine as we were able to find seats in Blu.

 

Afterwards, we had been invited to the helipad for sailaway, but J went back to the cabin to sit on the balcony and rest her ankle. I went up to the helipad for a little while and took some archipelago pictures until my camera battery ran out.

 

 

 

 

 

[pjs678]

J took a nap in the late afternoon, but I decided to be social and go up to the CC sail away party at the Sunset Bar. I met some of the CC members there and chatted for a while over a few drinks.

 

Here is the Celebrity Today for this day:

 

 

 

 

 

I joined J for a quick nap and then we had the Connections Party at 8pm at Qasar. We met some more nice CC folks and then headed to Qsine for our 8:30 reservation. We were looking forward to Qsine as we did not get to try this particular specialty restaurant on the Equinox (it has Silk Harvest instead).

 

We had a table for 8, including the 6 of us that were going to Berlin (the others were from Florida and California) and another couple from Toronto. We had a great time and we ended up closing the place down around midnight. We missed the show and all the other evening entertainment, but had a blast trying all the unique menu items. I highly recommend Qsine, especially if you can get a larger group together and try more things on the menu.

 

 

We went up to the suite and J’s ankle was feeling better (probably due to the strong drinks with dinner). We could sleep in as we were not getting to Helsinki until 10am. Up next: Trams, Ferries and Reindeer.

[pjs678]

6/21 – Helsinki OR Shopping vs. Beer

 

Quick aside about this cruise: We’ve never previously been on a cruise that started with an overnight in port and while I appreciated the convenience of having that extra time in Stockholm to see more of the sights, I really didn’t love the scheduling. We’re used to the idea of getting onboard, having lunch, getting unpacked, exploring the ship, etc. This cruise, it was: get onboard, quick lunch and disembark again. It made the first couple of days feel very hotel-like and less cruise-like.

 

Also, just wanted to give our final thoughts on Stockholm. We very much enjoyed it, despite rushing around a little too much to fit everything in. We missed City Hall, which I hear is very interesting, and some of the better museums (Nordic, Historical, Photography). We liked the Vasa museum and Gamla Stan the best. Central Stockholm is a bit grimy, but the Kungstradgarden and Ostermalm areas looked very nice (albeit from a bus window). The Rick Steves book has good info, but double-check the bus schedules online as the information was somewhat dated. The 24 hour transit ticket was the perfect timing for our stay and we got 4 bus rides and a ferry ride out of it, so it was a good value.

 

On to our day in Helsinki. We had breakfast at Luminae and it was quite good. The dulce de leche croissant quickly became my go to pastry. The smoked salmon and omelets were consistently good and they always ran to get us cappuccinos from Bacio.

 

We stopped at Michael’s to grab bottled water and headed off the ship (with most of the other passengers) at 10am. I had read that the tram stopped right near the ship, but there was a ton of construction at the port so we had to walk quit a long way to the tram stop. We bought day passes from the driver for 8 Euros each. (By the way, I had leftover Euros from our recent trip to Italy, but I believe the driver did not take credit cards).

 

Our first sight:

 

 

Our first stop was a flea market that J had found online, so we took Tram 9 from the port to the railway station then switched to Tram 6 back toward the port to the flea market. It turned out to be a dud, although there was an interesting food hall adjacent to the flea market. We weren’t hungry so we decided to walk towards Market Square through the Esplanade. J’s ankle was holding up OK although she was still in some pain.

 

 

Did I mention the weather? It could not have been more perfect. It was about 75 with not a single cloud in the sky. While we generally had good weather throughout the trip, this was the best day of them all.

 

The esplanade was very pleasant to walk through as it was shaded with lots of green space and shops on both sides that J enjoyed browsing. When we reached Market Square, J had gone into a shop that told her where the best antique places were in the city. I wanted to take the ferry to Suomenlinna Fortress because the weather was so great. We decided to split up and she would meet me back on board later. I made sure she knew which tram to take to the port.

 

I went to the ferry stop and found out that my day ticket included my fare on the ferry so I waited for the next one and took some pictures.

 

 

[pjs678]

I boarded and quickly went to the back of the ferry so I could get some pictures of the city as we motored over to the fort.

 

 

 

When we reached the fort, I noticed a sign that piqued my interest.

 

 

I explored the first island, passing the church and walking over the bridge to the second island.

 

 

 

At this point, I was getting hungry and thirsty. I decided to head back to the brewery for lunch.

 

I had a great lunch of reindeer three ways, salami, smoked and pate and a locally brewed IPA. The restaurant also had wifi so I caught up on email and Facebook.

 

After lunch, I saw the ferry was coming in so I got on and headed back to Market Square. This time I was on the front (although the ferry looks like it’s basically reversible) and got some more pictures of the skyline and the bay.

 

[pjs678]

At Market Square, I looked through some stalls and found an amber necklace for my younger daughter. Then I walked past the Orthodox Cathedral:

 

 

And the Lutheran Cathedral:

 

 

At this point, I was getting tired and knew we still had three busy days in St. Petersburg to come. I would have liked to have checked out the Rock Church, but my legs were aching. I headed back to the railway station and got on Tram 9 back to the ship. I got back on board around 3pm and J had just got back herself. She had enjoyed the shops and bought a few small things.

 

Here's the Celebrity Today for 6/21:

 

 

 

 

 

We took a nap and then went up to the art auction at the Sky Lounge for a little while. We changed into our nicest clothes for elegant chic night and went to Luminae for dinner. We ordered fish and again it was dry and overcooked. This time, we complained to the maitre’d. The whole point of Luminae is that the kitchen is right there so there should be no excuse for overcooked and dry fish. J was getting turned off by Luminae at this point.

 

After dinner, we went to the casino for a little while and then watched some Euro 2016 at the casino bar. We met some nice folks from Florida who I ended up hanging out with watching soccer quite often over the rest of the cruise.

 

We stopped by karaoke in Qasar, but not many people were there. We decided to check out the Not So Newlywed Game and of course, J decided to enter our names in the pot to be chosen. As it turned out only 4 couples entered, so we all got to participate. It was fun, but pretty embarrassing. They kept showing it on TV for the next few days so folks around the ship would often recognize us. The cruise director, Rich, did a good job as host. We didn't win, but we received Celebrity T-Shirts for participating.

 

Afterwards, karaoke was much busier so we watched a few folks sing. Last cruise we participated, but we just didn’t have the bug to do it this time. We went to bed excited knowing we had St. Petersburg to look forward to.

[joannanna]

I read somewhere that tram #8 will take you to the city center.........would that be correct?

[pjs678]

I read somewhere that tram #8 will take you to the city center.........would that be correct?

 

 

No it's tram 9 or 6T (which didn't appear to be running the day we were there).

 

https://www.hsl.fi/en/timetables-and-routes/routemaps

[pjs678]

6/22 – St. Petersburg Day 1 OR Where’s Your Tour Ticket?

Just to recap Helsinki: We both really enjoyed it, but the weather probably had a lot to do with it. I’m not sure it would have been as much fun on a rainy day. The trams and ferries are easy to use and the people were friendly.

 

Also, the internet so far has been pretty fast. Not really fast enough to stream anything, but fine for email, Facebook, iMessage, WhatsApp, etc. Of course, as we head to St. Petersburg, I’m switching my SIM card back to the Russian one for a few days.

 

On to St. Petersburg, the crown jewel of the cruise. We arrived before 7am and the crowds gathered by the aft stairs near the gangplank. The ship was cleared at 7:40am and everyone rushed to meet their tour guides.

 

J and I had a leisurely breakfast at Luminae and then relaxed until 8:30 when we headed down, thinking the line would be shorter by this time. Well, we were wrong. It still took about 40 minutes to get through the line, but we did meet a nice family from Duluth, GA about 10 minutes from us. There is no separate line for those with visas. Everyone goes through the same line.

 

When I finally reached the border control agent, they asked me for my tour ticket. I told them I didn’t have one and they could see my visa in the passport. It took a quick call to a supervisor and then we were given migration cards and let through.

 

Our tour guide was waiting for us so I said, “Hi Irina.” She replied, “Sorry, Irina couldn’t make it due to a family issue, but my name is Adel and I will be your replacement.” Ha ha, same thing that happened in Moscow. Well, if that was anything to go by, we would be fine.

 

Adel called a cab for us because the taxi desk at the port wanted 50 Euros to get to Catherine Palace. We waited about 20 minutes for the taxi and then hit some traffic getting out of the port due to all the tour buses and vans. We then got on the new toll high speed road which will eventually connect the new World Cup Stadium and port to the airport. The weather was great again - warm and sunny.

 

We got to Catherine Palace around 10am and Adel got us right inside the gate with no wait. The cab cost 1500 Rubles (about $24)

 

 

 

We were given a great tour of the inside of the palace and some of the grounds. J and I both thought it was beautiful. Pictures were allowed everywhere except the Amber Room. Loved the Delft stoves.

 

 

 

 

After the inside tour, we strolled around the gardens for a little while for some more great picture opportunities.

 

[pjs678]

Around noon, Adel called us another cab and we took it to Palace Square (1400 Rubles or $22). We made a quick picture stop at the Holocaust Memorial in Pushkin.

 

 

We looked for a Stolle location, but Adel said that it had closed or moved. We ended up eating at Coffee House which was quite good for a quick Russian lunch – soup, salad and blinis for approximately $5. J had a great cappuccino as well.

 

We walked over to the Hermitage. Again, Adel whisked us through the long line and into the museum. We got a 2 hour whistle-stop tour of the highlights – Italian, Spanish and Dutch Masters, the copy of the Raphael Loggias, and some of her other favorite rooms that had fewer crowds. My personal favorites were probably the Rembrandts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adel did a great job. Not only that, but she set us up for the following day by setting a time for us to tour the Vodka Museum and telling us to visit Stroganoff Steak House after that. She also ordered a cab for us for 9am the next morning at the port.

 

After we settled up with Adel (the entire day, including cabs, admissions, and lunch was less than $200 total), we walked down Nevsky Prospekt toward the Moika River and the Faberge Museum. As it was not yet 5pm and we wanted to tour the Faberge Museum after 6pm (when no guide is needed), we stopped for a snack and a beer at a restaurant.

 

As we were eating and drinking, a homeless guy came around begging (we were sitting outside), so J handed him her beer (which she didn’t much like anyway) and he chugged the whole thing in about 5 seconds. I just stared at her incredulous. She shrugged and said he needed it more than she did – LOL.

[pjs678]

We got to the Faberge Museum around 5:25pm and I saw that there was a canal boat tour that leaves across the street. I asked what time the next boat leaves and they said 5 minutes. Perfect. We grabbed tickets and seats on the boat.

 

 

 

 

We were given English audio headsets and enjoyed the tour. It went all the way around and out into the Neva with some great views.

 

 

 

[pjs678]

When we got back to the Faberge Museum, we went in, bought tickets and audioguides and self-toured the museum. To be honest, we could have done without the audio guides. The palace and the exhibits are impressive enough and I don’t really need to know which year or which tsarina the egg was made for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We toured for around 45 minutes and that was enough. It was our 3rd palace/museum of the day and we were physically and mentally exhausted. I ordered an Uber, which took about 5-6 minutes to arrive and we headed back to the ship. The uber was all of 410 Rubles or about $6 for a 40 minute ride.

 

We showered and changed quickly and decided to try Sushi on 5 as it was fairly empty (given that most people were either going to the ballet or crashed by this time). It was great. We enjoyed both the pork and lobster ramen and other appetizers. The sushi rolls and sashimi were also excellent. They have some interesting specialty drinks there as well. We knew we would be back as we had a bunch of non-refundable OBC to spend.

 

After dinner, J went to bed. I watched the Euro match at the casino bar and then around midnight, I FaceTimed with my daughter and showed her that it still wasn’t fully dark even at midnight. Great first day in St. Petersburg and looking forward to Day 2. Up next: Vodka and Dead Babies.