Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia

I got up before 6:00 a.m. this morning; early rising was difficult given that we attended Wednesday's late concert and we didn't get to sleep until after midnight. We grabbed a quick breakfast and were ready to depart for our tour at 7:45 a.m. John and Becca joined us on this tour. The theatre was full of people going on shore excursions, and we were among the last groups to leave.

Getting off the boat was a breeze, but we had to wait in a very long, disorganized line outside in the cold, to get through Russian customs. This is the first city on the cruise where we've had to go through customs. Since I read that the temperature would reach 73 degrees today, I didn't take a jacket. I nearly froze to death while waiting in the long line for customs. It took us 2 hours! We were not on the bus until 9:45. This photo tells the tale for our whole day:

Our tour guide was Svetlana.

Once we arrived at the Hermitage Museum, a short drive from the cruise ship, we had to wait in another long, cold, disorganized line full of groups like ours waiting for tickets to get in. We stood in that line on the shady side of the street for at least 30 min. until Svetlana got us our tickets. Again, I was wishing I had brought my jacket! We became separated from our group, and we had to push and shove through the crowd of people to get inside and join our group.

This image accurately depicts Svetlana and the chaos at the entry to the museum:

The Hermitage Museum is a former palace of Peter the Great and his wife, Catherine. It is a work of art in itself, but it also displays many great works of art.

Due to our long delay in leaving the cruise terminal, we were left with only 1-1/2 hours to tour the museum. Svetlana raced us through, showing us the highlights as best she could. We saw pieces by Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Leonardo DaVinci, Raphael, and other famous artists.

Here is an image of the outside of the Hermitage Museum:

Here are some images of the interior of the museum:

Here are John and Becca:

As you can see, the Hermitage Museum is a very opulent palace. The walls, ceiling, floors, chandelier fixtures, and even mosaic tables in the museum are works of art.

Here are some scenes of the waterfront from the Hermitage Museum:

Svetlana claims that if you wanted to view every piece of art in the museum and you came every day to do so, it would take you 8 years to see everything!

We arrived back at the boat by 1:30 p.m. and we were glad; many of the other tours were 10 hours in length!

Getting back through customs and back on the ship was another adventure. There was no line, but my customs agent apparently didn't think that I resembled my passport photo. After much skepticism displayed, she finally let me through. I can't imagine what would have happened if she had concluded that I was not the person pictured on my passport!

While we enjoyed the museum, the disorganization, unnecessary waiting in lines, and general distrust displayed by officials was a real turn-off to us. We're not sure that we would want to return to St. Petersburg.

The entertainment tonight, if we can stay awake for it, features vocalists Freddie Jackson, Javier Colon and Kenny Lattimore, and bass player Chris Walker.

Tomorrow we will be touring Helsinki. This will be the last stop on our cruise until we return to Copenhagen.