Today was another amazing Palace and Church and Eating day.
After an extraordinary buffet breakfast at the Belmond Grand Hotel--rivalling those in Israel (which featured many traditional Russian foods including donuts!):
Blinis with a variety of fillings
Assorted meats (but no horse)
Assorted fishes (salmon, herring, etc.)
ELEVEN kinds of honey!
Buckwheat groats!
Our first stop was in the suburb of Pushkin (yes, named for the author) at Catherine's Palace. This was in many ways similar to yesterday's palace: summer palace, built in the early 1700s (by Catherine I), lots of gold, big blue Delft tile room warmers, almost totally destroyed in WWII (except for pieces buried or removed in advance), carefully reconstructed over many post-war years, and beautiful gardens (but only one fountain! and the incredible Amber Room!).
The famous Amber Room; photo of postcard as
pictures are not allowed in the real room. One of our
group raised his phone to take a pic and was
instantly banished by the "KGB ladies".
Then back on the bus for a short ride to lunch at Podvorye, "Russia's most authentic Russian restaurant" (according to their own web site!). It was a typical Tauck group-meal restaurant: a big log cabin building, lots of local kitschy things (stuffed birds on the walls, a small appropriately-costumed band playing local favorites, and a giant vodka-holding bear up front)…
…and a typical group, family-style meal. This one featured bottes of wine and vodka ("but please do not mix", said Erich; Wendy had three tiny sips of vodka), and a rather large meal featuring a first course of pickled veggies, some sort of rolled-jellied chicken with cucumbers, and tomatoes with some sort of cheese.
Next up was a small cup of mushrooms in mushroom sauce. One of our party said it was like Campbell's condensed soup right out of the can (but it was tasty!):
Followed by sorrel soup (containing potatoes, hard boiled egg whites, and some sort of cheese curd flavored with vinegar or pickle juice)
Then the main course of finely ground chicken wrapped in cabbage:
It sort of tasted like gefilte fish. The final course was vanilla ice cream and a cranberry-filled blintz (this was the tastiest dish of all!):
One other note about Russian food: we all know about their taste for vodka. But apparently, it is best enjoyed with a slice of frozen lard with garlic! Yes!! We have seen this on several menus but even we dare not sample.
Next, we drove back into town to visit the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. This church was built on the site where Emperor Alexander II was fatally wounded by political anarchists in March 1881. So since the Tsar was God's representative on earth, this is a way to honor both in the same building.
One of the most interesting architectural aspects is that part of the floor was built around the actual cobblestones where he fell. After the 1917 Revolution, it was sacked and abandoned until WWII where it was used as a morgue and then a warehouse. Eventually, restoration was done to bring it back to its original glory (um....is any building in this town really as old as it looks? Or have they all been restored?).
The two outstanding features of this church are the onion domes on the roof and the amazing artwork inside. First the domes. This photo is from the internet as, yup, most of the roof is currently covered by scaffolding for refurbishment.
The interior is covered with dozens of scenes depicting Christ, angels, etc., and ALL of them are actually mosaics, with 1,000s of tiny stone pieces. We don't remember seeing anything quite like this before. You can't really appreciate the intricacy and craftsmanship from these photos.
That ended our daytime touring. As the church was only a few blocks from our hotel, we decided to walk back.
Since this is also a tourist Mecca, there was a painted-on-costume-with-holes-for-your-head wall for cutesy picture taking. For only 200 rubles each (about $6 total), we finally got a chance to be Tsar and Tsarina!
Along the way we passed an area of souvenir stalls. In the first one was the treasure we had come to Russia to find. Amber? Gold? Secret tapes of Donald's calls to Vlad? No...something even better: a genuine matryoshka doll of the 2016 World Series Cubs!!!!!!!!! With amazingly lifelike images (not) of Bryant, Rizzo, Zobrist, Fowler, and Russell!
A quick stop at the hotel for our city map, and then off to find the Pyshechnaya (transliterated name) Donut shop! It is actually ranked 109 out of 11,399 restaurants in town on Trip Advisor. You can read the full review on Wendy's blog as soon as it is posted, but here is a teaser pic.
We walked back to our hotel on Nevsky Prospekt, the main street in the city. After resting up a bit, we took a 30 minute walk to the Dom restaurant, described by the concierge as having "modern Russian" food. We did not quite know what to expect, but we had one of our top 10 meals of all time!
It was a very simple yet elegant room. We wished we had brought friends with us as every one of the extensive list of options looked absolutely delicious. One page of the menu listed the sources of their food:
We finally made our selections and were brought a plate of bread and butter that was to die for. And this was just the bread and butter!!!!!
First up were our salads. Wendy had a warm salad of roasted eggplant, tomatoes, and cilantro in a sweet-spicy sauce. Wayne had the Olivier salad (eaten at every Russian holiday according to our server): small chunks of chicken, shrimp, and crayfish tails with cubes of potatoes and squash, hard-boiled quail eggs, two small pieces of lettuce, mixed with a sweet mayonnaise. Both were heavenly!
After such a feast we decided to cab back to the hotel, and were glad we did, as the temp had dropped about 10 degrees! OK...it was still in the upper 60s, but was pretty chilly for the way we were dressed. By the way...we have had almost perfect weather on the trip. The guides here keep remarking how lucky we have been.
One might think that that would be enough activity for one day, but no. Tauck had scheduled a nighttime cruise on the Fountain and Neva rivers! One of us was excited about doing this; the other stayed behind. This is a very popular ride for tourists (some of our group is also doing it in Moscow), as it gives you a chance to see all the beautiful buildings lit up at night.
Meeting time in the lobby was 9:20, and the group returned at 12:30 am! Finally, Day 9 came to a close.
The "ride" was as expected: seeing the beautiful buildings with a non-stop explanation of same . But it was pretty cold on the water (though we had horse-hair blankets), and a little choppy, so one hour probably would have been enough.
Here are some photos:
Tomorrow, our final day in St. Pete will be mostly at the Hermitage.
Hope we have enough energy left!
Again, from Russia with love,
w&w……………...
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