The prospect of visiting St. Petersburg was very exciting and tense. We choose to book tours with the ship for both days of our stopover, as visa would then not be required; but would our Barbadian passports be accepted? Yes, they were and we cleared immigration very quickly.Situated on the River Neva and the Baltic Sea, St. Petersburd is the second largest city in Russia. It is a sprawling city with over a million inhabitants. Our tour consisted of a one hour coach ride and three hours of exploration on our own. As with large cities, there several brilliant architectural gems among a lot of 'regular' buildings. Many of the regular building would have benefitted from a new paintjob. Nevertheless, It was beautiful with the river flowing through it and its large boulevards. The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood(in photo) alone was worth the visit.
Lunch was pricey (in a tourist area) even though our guide said the salaries were low, and that salaries in the Civil Service were generally half of those in the private sector. A typical home consist of two bedroom and a kitchen. Life was hard.
There are on average 62 sunnys days a year in St. Petersburg. We were lucky to enjoy one.
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