July 19, 2007 Part I

The front of Catherine Palace.

Me inside Catherine Palace – The Great Hall.

The memorial outside of Alexander Palace.

Our day started with an excursion to Pushkin to see Catherine Palace (also known as Tzarskoje Selo).  The outside of the palace is pretty cool (see photo above).  Very large.  Very bright blue in color – almost like an Easter egg! 🙂  Once you get inside, there is a ton of gold.  Gold is everywhere!  Notice the picture of me in the Great Hall (see photo above).  The glare is from all the mirrors and gold in that hall.  The rooms are lavishly decorated – everything from marble to even a room with walls covered in amber!  Only 29 rooms (out of 57) right now are restored.  They are working on the other rooms.  During World War II, the Germans destroyed most of the Palace. The government is actually paying for the process of restoration of the palace which I thought was nice.  We also walked around the grounds.  The gardens are nice but not maintained so some of the shrubs are grown over.  The property is huge! 

Sorta a cool story about the Amber Room.  The wall vanished in the wake of World War II–an 11-foot-square hall walled with amber and other semiprecious stones and worth $142 million in today’s dollars. One of the only pieces to be found is a small mosaic of jasper and onyx. Fast forward to 2003.  A German company paid/donated the $3.5 million American dollars to restore the room in 2003.   

Ate lunch at the Palace.  We then traveled over to Alexander Palace.  This is the palace where Czar Nicholas II and his family were under house arrest until they were sent in exile to Tobolsk.  There was a newly built memorial for the family (see photo above).

Check back for Part II of my day! 🙂