Viking Star 2015 - Day 12

The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg is one of the largest in the world and is a tourist "must see". Jan and I toured this venerable place three years ago with the Viking River cruise. But we heard at that time of a museum repository where were stored items which could not be displayed for lack of space.

So our first tour today was to this Hermitage Repository, where we saw rooms full of icons, paintings by Russian artists, 18th and 19th century furniture stored in warehouse-style, imperial gifts and royal carriages and sleds -- all in temperature and humidity controlled rooms, ready to be moved to special exhibitions or swapped for present museum holdings.  As impressive as the number of items was the technology and security surrounding them. It was worth the trip.

The afternoon tour was to the Russian Museum, housed in Prince Michael Romanoff's former palace.  Its holdings included a vast collection of icons and works by Russian artists - tracing the history of Russian art from the icons to the 19th century realism. Our guide was very knowledgable and led us through the historical transition by showing us representative works from each period.

Our second day was also marked by warmer weather and a good deal of sunshine.  Tonight our ship is on the way to Helsinki, Finland, and we look forward to tomorrow's adventures.