St. Petersburg Russia Tour: Day Two

Today we have the opportunity to get out of the city and we're looking forward to it, despite the wind and rain. Our first destination is the imperial summer residence, the Catherine Palace at Pushkin, about 30 km south of St. Petersburg. As the link describes, the palace was named after the wife of Peter Great, who ruled Russia for a couple of years after his death. It was eventually expanded into a Russian version of Versailles. Inter-marriage among European royal families was all part of the politics of the day (Marie Antoinette was an Austrian, a contributing factor to her eventually losing her head) and there was also a "keeping-up-with-the-Jones" mentality in which everybody who was anybody had to have a magnificent summer palace set in acres of parklike grounds. We drive by scenic churches with their onion-bulb domes... And not-so-scenic gas stations... We park the bus and walk through the rain to our first queue. We have a group entrance for 10:00 a.m. and it's obvious the employees - it probably would be rude to refer to them as apparatchiks - won't let us in. Besides, there are people lined up in front of us. Then a much larger Japanese tour group led by their guide walks around and through our group to position themselves in front of us. (sorry for the implied stereotyping but that's the way it works in Asia in our experience). Our Anna squeezes up to the official guarding the gate to affirm our appointment time. By now 10:00 a.m. has come and gone and Brian's Oceania umbrella has turned inside-out and lost a couple of ribs in a sudden gust of wind. Finally at about 10:10 a.m. we experience the self-righteous pleasure of marching past the other tour group and into the grounds. We're still wet, and still destined to stand in yet another queue to gain admittance to the actual interior, but victory is still sweet. And now we're inside. Gee, it's still a bit crowded... * The corridors were almost certainly never as crowded as this back when the royals were hanging out here.

And now it's time for a visit to Peterhof and a damp stroll around the grounds. Apparently Peter The Great himself designed (or oversaw the design of) the magnificent fountains, which are fed quite elaborately from the hills above. He liked to point out to his guests how technologically advanced Russians could be. Naturally there are plenty of security guards hanging around to make sure the tourists don't steal the fountains or even splash around in them. They also got to play photo-snapping tourist while on the job.

The fountain designers enjoyed the whimsical as much as the magnificent...

Magnificent vistas...

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And more whimsy and practical jokes for royal visitors...

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Peter would escort dinner-party guests into a room concealed in the structure below while the fountain was turned off. He then left and had the fountains turned back on. If they didn't figure the way out through the top but returned to the dinner party soaking wet the joke was on them.

One last fountain before we depart...