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Peter the Great founded his famous city on swampland in 1703. 

It was Catherine the Great’s passion for art and beauty that transformed the Winter Palace into one of the world’s most splendid museums.  More than a thousand rooms house nearly three million exhibits and displays featuring some of the world’s greatest art. 

We only visited a fraction of what is available – and here are some of the highlights that we saw:

The Ballroom is vast, 3 times longer than this part of the photo! Imagine you are in one of those 17th Century balls dancing in your expensive ballgown with jewels and a handsome suitor!

Crystal  Chandelliers and gold plating everywhere is sumptuous, quite overwhelming in fact!

I’m not going to put any photos of the famous paintings in here that we saw, works by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rapael,  Rembrandt, Rubens, the Titians, the Velazquez,the Goyas, so many famous artists collected by Catherine, when she purchased 255 paintings from the city of Berlin.  Since then, the museum has collect almost 3 million works of art and artifacts from all over the world from the Stone Age to the present.   Experts say that if you were to spend a minute looking at each item on display, you would need 11 years to see them all!    The impressionists include Renoir, Cezanne, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Van Gough, Matisse, Gaugin and Rodin among them.   The enlarging of the palace to show off the collection was created by celebrated architects of the 18th and 19th centures after a design of Bartolommeo Rastrelli. 

We took the Behind Closed Doors tour hoping to see even more paintings, but mainly got to see the fabulous gold collection of antiquities unearthed from Burial Chambers found close to the Red Sea, dating from 7 BC – which were absolutely gorgeous... it is amazing how infitinely delicate works of art were produced in gold for the important people of that time, even Faberge could not work out how some of the pieces of jewellery were made!

You can take a look at a few of them in their website:

www.hermitagemuseum.org

Like this Canaletto of the festival at the Doge’s Palace in Venice

It gives one a better idea of why all the helmet dome architecture was used in Russian Orthodox churches emulating those of the Byzantine era.

This is the lady who was a Prussian princess, married Peter III  and took over the power of ruling Russia upon the assassination of her husband (probably organised by her, as she grew to despise him).  She continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines.  Increasing demands of the state and private landowners led to higher levels of reliance on serfs.  That of course became the chief reason for several rebellions.  Meanwhile, the Manifestation on Freedom of the Nobility from compulsory military or state service, meant that many mansions in the classical style changed the face of the country.   

She also instigated the formation of the ‘ the Smolny Institute as the first state financed institution for women in Europe.

She settled her son Paul and his wife in a palace near the Peterhof Palace in Phushkin and trained her Grandson, Alexander 1st to take over the Monarchy.   (Sounds familiar doesn’t it?) .  Catherine died aged 67, and her son Paul took over, but only for 6 years, before he was also murdered (his son may have been partly in on the scheme, giving him a huge sense of remorse and shame) He was ruler during the chaotic period of the Napoleonic Wars. 

The Hermitage sits on the River ‘Neva’ in St Petersburgh, often called ‘the Venice of the North’  view of the reflections of St Petersburgh’s classical buildings, bridges, arches and trees as we glided past the many islands and magnificent palaces on the boat gave us a relaxing vantage point.

Statue of Peter the Great in the main square with the St Petersburgh Cathedral

The suspension bridge close to where our ‘Viking’ Cruise ship was moored

The height resctrictions on all building in St Petersburgh gives a very pleasant look to the landscape.

2nd from Right, is Angela David’s cousin who organised the trip, and went along with three more of her girl friends, Barbara (LHS), Marie, next to David, and Pat (far RHS). David had his Harem of 5 women for lunch and dinner every day!

Tatanya, our delightful Russian waitress, taking the dessert order