St Petersburg
South Island
John and Elspeth Perryman
Sat 26 Jul 2014 07:19
We had a great sail to start with but unfortunately not in the right direction so had to do quite a lot of motoring until the wind changed. We had to stop at an Island called Kronshtadt to check in to Russia and a customs chap practically took our boat apart looking for illegal substances or people. It was another 3 hours to the marina and we had to keep in the designated channels.
The first day we went I to town on our own to look around. WOW!! It is absolutely unbelievable with beautiful buildings wherever you look. We took a boat tour round the canals which was brilliant. Then we just walked and walked to try and see as much as we could. The next day we had a guided tour which showed us different ares and in the evening went to see Swan Lake in the Hermitage Theatre which was also great. Yesterday we went on a guided tour of the Hermitage and our guide was excellent. After the tour we stayed to look at more stuff, all of it amazing. In the evening we went to see the opera Eugene Onegin, a Russian opera by Tchaikovsky based on a poem by Pushkin - what culture. Even though we're not really opera fans we thoroughly enjoyed it.
This morning I've been to a supermarket which was surprisingly good, later we will go back into town, this evening is a crew dinner and tomorrow we leave to make our way leisurely to Helsinki through the islands.