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.

St. Petersburg - Day One

We've arrived safely in St. Petersburg and are on the Viking Ingvar docked on the shore of the Neva River.  Our room was ready when we arrived about 2:30 pm, after a long flight from Newark to Frankfurt.  The flight had been delayed in leaving Newark and we had resigned ourselves to missing the connection with only 15 minutes to spare.  But high marks go to Lufthansa which arranged to meet us and about 10 others who were also heading to St. Petersburg whisking us around customs and directly to the waiting plane, on which our baggage had already been loaded.

Now that we are on the Viking Ingvar, our vacation really begins.  Tonight we dined on Beef Stroganoff (we're in Russia, right?), joined by new friends from Reading, England.  Tomorrow we start with a trip to the Hermitage, the huge museum housed in the magnificent Winter Palace of the Tsars, when St. Petersburg was the center of the Russian monarchy.

Our room is comfortable, modern and well equipped.  And it will be our home for the next 12 days.

More to come...