Welcome to page 2 of our St. Petersburg adventure.

The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia is one of the largest museums in the world with 3 million works of art (not all on display at once), and one of the oldest art galleries and museums of human history and culture in the world. The Hermitage consists of six main buildings: the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the Old Hermitage, the New Hermitage, the Hermitage Theatre and the Reserve House. The outside of the entrance to the Winter Palace is quite unpretentious, but that's where any subtlety ends.

Once in the Winter Palace, we all hustled down a couple of pretty spectacular corridors to the entrance of the Gold Room. We had arranged a private tour through DenRus as the Gold Room is not available through general admission. At the guarded, vault-like entrance, a specialist from the Gold Room met our party. Stepping inside, one small room led into another, each with glass-shelved walls and glass cases showcasing every imaginable use of gold from as early as 4000 B.C. through the 19th century. Forty minutes of glitter and glitz but unfortunately, no pictures allowed inside.

  

From the Gold Room, we entered the Winter Palace Main (Jordan) Staircase, a menagerie of marble, alabaster statues, gilt and mirrors. The main staircase of the palace was used most notably by the royal family on the Epiphany (6 January) when they attended the traditional Russian Orthodox ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters performed on the bank of the Neva. Since the ceremony recalls the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, the name of the great biblical river became attached to the staircase.

    
      

Continuing on through the Winter Palace, we toured through a multitude of halls, each new one more spectacular than the last. As the Winter Palace was the former imperial residence, this is where most of the reception halls, drawing rooms, studies and dining rooms are located.

      

From the Winter Palace, Ksenia led us into the Small Hermitage building that is the link between the Winter Palace and the Great and New Hermitage buildings. Art works are housed in the side galleries and this is also the location of the Pavilion Hall.

    

The Great Hermitage building was next and houses, among other exhibits, a collection of western European art regarded as one of the finest in the world. The hall of Leonardo da Vinci was quite fascinating. Of just ten or twelve original works by Leonardo known in the world today, Russia possesses two, both in the Hermitage. Finally, we moved on into the New Hermitage building and finished off our tour with a walk through Raphael's Loggia. Exiting the Heritage after our whirlwind tour, we regrouped outside in the Palace Square to wait for our tour van.

      

The focal point of the Palace Square outside of the Hermitage in the Palace Square is the Alexander Column. The monument is 155 feet 8 inches tall and is topped with a statue of an angel holding a cross. The body of the column is made of a single monolith of red granite, which stands 83 feet 6 inches high and about 11 feet 5 inches in diameter. It was quite a terrific feat of engineering that this enormous column (600 tons) was erected in less than 2 hours without the aid of modern cranes and engineering machines.

Surrounding the square is the Imperial Army General Staff building that combines a central arch through which you can reach Nevsky Prospect. The Royal Guards' General Staff building, the Admiralty and the New Hermitage building also face the square.

  

As it was now around 2:00 in the afternoon, lunch was in order. We drove over to the restaurant our guide had picked out for us but it was jam-packed. Not to be deterred though, Ksenia and our driver had a brief discussion around alternate lunch spots and away we went. A few minutes later we pulled up in front of the Stolle Nuporu Minosse on a quiet side street where we enjoyed a lunch of Russian meat pies, sweet pies and pepsi. Pretty good for a second choice.

    

When Lee and I finished we went outside for a smoke. Ksenia got awfully nervous when we crossed the street to stand in the shade. I would guess that was because this location was not on the itinerary DenRus had filed with the authorities. Anyway, no harm done and besides, our driver was keeping a close eye on us.

Click on the button below to continue on to page 3 of our St. Petersburg adventure.