Russia - No Hydrofoil for Us

The ballet, Cinderella, was not what I expected. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy it, I just expected a more-classic version since we were seeing it at the Mariinsky Theater. Instead of the mice, Jaques and Gus, this Cinderella was guided by the four season (not the singing group, but rather winter, spring, summer and fall). The theater itself, was a bit run down, but at least this time we were able to see the prince find his princess at the end.

Ever since my cousin Jason sent me a list of must-sees in Russia, I've been looking forward to taking the hydrofoil to Petrodovets (aka Peterhof) . In fact, I've been wondering exactly what a hydrofoil was. Unfortunately for us, the hydrofoils don't start going to Peterhof until next week. I guess we beat tourist season by a week. We spent the next hour or so trying to find another way to Peterhof. Jenny's guidebook indicated that there are a lot of buses that will take you from the main street for about $20. But all we could find were tours that ran 1,800 rbls. (~$85) in english or 1,300 rbls. (~$60) in Russian. So we continued on to the Baltisky train station to take a suburban train. Turns out the only train wasn't scheduled to leave until 4:00, but there were supposed to be buses and Marshrutkas (mini-vans). After a little searching we found the right marshrutka and it only cost 100 rbls total (~$2 each). A much better deal, although, we were never confident that we were on the right marshrutka until we pulled up in front of the palace.

The palace at Peterhof is quite amazing. It is surronded by golden fountains (unfortunately they don't start running until May 31st) and is situated on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. I looked for Finland, but I couldn't see quite that far. The park surrounding the palace was quite nice as well if it weren't for all the little bugs. I didn't see them, but they saw me and had a feast.

Today we went to Catherine's Palace in the town of Pushkin. This time we were able to find and take a suburban train. The train trip itself, made the day worthwhile. People came on to sell us bandaids, needles and socks and a gentleman sat next to us and played the accordian. Jenny made friends with the Russian woman sitting across from her. She gave Jenny a coin and pointed out sights through the window. Too bad we don't speak Russian and had no idea what she was showing us. She tried to find it in Jenny's tour book, but it wasn't listed so I guess we'll never know what she so badly wanted Jenny to see. At least she was able to tell us when to get off because we never would have figured this out on our own.

We walked to Catherine's Palace from the train station and were pleasantly surpised by how short the line to get in was. That is, until we realized that this was just the line to get into the park. The line for the palace was quite a bit longer. In fact, we had to wait well over an hour and just made it in before the cutoff (they only let individuals in from 12:00 to 2:00, after that it is reserved for tours). The palace was much like all of the others we've seen with the exception of the amber room. This is a room where all of the walls are lined with amber stone. Although it is the only room that you are not allowed to take pictures in, they did nothing to stop Jenny from photographing from just outside.

After making our way through the palace, we meandered through the park for a while. We saw the pyramid where Catherine the Great buried her favorite dogs... what she did with the others is anyones guess.

We made a quick stop at Pavlovsk before returning to St. Petersburg. Pavlovsk is another park & palace about 4 km further south. It is supposedly one of the most exquisitely landscaped parks in all of Russia, but I hope this is not true. There was nothing "landscaped" about it. They seemed to just cut down a bunch of trees to make a path.

In a few hours we will head back to Moscow and then back home. I will try to write one more time, but just in case, thanks for reading.