July 18, 2007

The Alice in Wonderland Fountain at Peterhoff (that’s what I call it).

The fountains (the Grand Cascade) at Peterhoff.

The fountains at Peterhoff.

We left early in the morning on the bus for Peterhoff.  The palace is located on the Gulf of Finland.  The palace was built for Peter the Great and is so spectacular and grand!   We walked around the grounds and saw amazing fountains and landscaping.  The fountains were pretty but I prefer the fountains at Versailles.  One of the fountains looked like something from Alice in Wonderland – the fountain was black and white checkered board (see photo above).  We didn’t go inside the palace.

Our next stop was the Russian Museum.  We had a fabulous tour guide!  He kept everything short and sweet!  You want to see Russian art – this is THE place to go! 

We then went back to the hotel to eat dinner and get ready for the ballet.  Some of us would be seeing Swan Lake.  I’ve never been to the ballet so I really wanted to go.  I only paid $70.00 – I figured that if I saw a ballet in New York City, I’d probably pay a heck of a lot more than that price.  We went to the Mussorgsky (Maly) ballet theatre.  We had second row center seats for the performance – let’s just say that you could see EVERYTHING up close and personal!  I really enjoyed my first ballet and plan on attending more performances. 

After the ballet, we returned to our hotel.  A group of us went upstairs to the 8th floor restaurant/bar “Panorama” with wonderful panoramic views that overlooks St. Petersburg for some drinks.