Day 11 – 9/6–St. Petersburg (Canal Tour)
Our second day in St. Petersburg we took the morning off and then went on a canal tour in the afternoon. Since the city was originally designed as a canal city, like Venice or Amsterdam, it makes sense that touring by canal would be efficient. Plus given the traffic in the city, canal boats are very practical.
Our guide, Alla, picked us up at about 2pm and we loaded on our bus and headed into the city, and to the canal where our boat awaited.
Some of the bridges were very low.
The boat moved out into the Neva River, the main waterway of St. Petersburg.
The Hermitage as seen from the river.
This is a shot of a wing of the Admiralty, built by Peter the Great, as his navy administration and ship construction facility. Peter actually disguised himself and worked as a carpenter in the shipyards because of his love of manual labor and carpentry.
This is the Peter and Paul fortress which is where the city was originally founded.
As we headed back into the canal, we were served champagne – classy boat ride.
We finished this tour, as the one yesterday, with the mandatory stop at the shopping store – you must have a Soviet era military fur cap or a Russian nested doll!!