Day 9 – A Full Day in St Petersburg--From the Hermitage to Giselle

Our wakeup call came too early, but we made it to our private breakfast in the ballroom of the hotel’s Winter Garden Restaurant. Charles presented his lecture: Russian Riches: Scythian Gold, Imberial Collections and Fabrege Eggs. He wanted to give us a preview as to what we were about to see in the treasure of the Hermitage. We began our private tour of the Hermitage Museum earlier than the museum normally opens to the public, thus avoiding crowds. The tour took us through the winter palace of Catherine the Great—the Russian ruler who never wore the same dress twice. She had over 15,000 dresses when she died at age 62. Paintings from Rembrandt, Da Vinci, along with Monet and Van Gogh are in the museum among countless other great artists. Our guide through the treasury was a petite, perky young Russian woman who recited details about the exquisite items in the display cases while using a pointer that reminded me of a chop stick. Made us all wonder how many shots of espresso she had this morning.
We bargained with the vendors outside the Hermitage and collected wooden dolls, magnets for my refrigerator, and a Russian hat made of fox.
We stopped at the Bellini Restaurant for lunch. The Bellini is a new restaurant whose décor is plain with chandelier replicas of the first type used by Peter the Great. The partridge was delightful and the view spectacular. Back on the bus Galina, our local guide let us know that dinner entrees there begin at $200 per plate. We dropped a few off at the hotel and continued with a bus tour of the city stopping occasionally for photos. Nap time followed at the hotel as we had two hours before dinner. We dressed for the ballet and met our group for dinner, before boarding the bus for the St Petersburg Mussorgsky State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater. Giselle, the ballet-fantasy was performed in two acts. The orchestra was grand and the dance superb. All those that attended were impressed.