Bob and Ann in Russia 2007

Please visit September 4 slideshow.

Entrance to Catherine's Palace in the Rain

We awoke to another day of overcast skies, sprinkles and cool temperatures. Our tour this morning was to Catherine's Palace. This large palace was built by Catherine the Great as her summer palace. It was gutted by the Nazis during WWII and rebuilt afterwards. The before and after pictures revealed how much destruction the war caused. Apparently, the Nazis' planted time bombs in the cellars when they retreated and the Russian soldiers carried them out before they exploded. The main attraction in the palace is the Amber Room. This room is completely covered with panels made out of different colors of amber. The Nazis made off with the original panels and they have never been found. The room was reproduced by looking at old pictures and copying the designs from them. It was finished in 2004.

Old Soviet Emblems on a Factory Wall

After the palace visit, we returned to the boat for lunch. The afternoon was free so we used the time to start packing and to take a walk in the neighborhood near our pier. It wasn't a pleasant walk - we were alongside a busy road - but we saw some local life including factories, apartment buildings and cafes. I took photos of a hammer and cycle plaque on the side of a factory - a relic of the Soviet era.

We finally finished our bottle of vodka which we had nursed all the way from Moscow and had dinner. After dinner, we finished our preliminary packing, sat in the Panorama Bar to read and listen to piano music by G, and retired early.

The map of our route from St Petersburg dock to Catherine's Palace is below. To see it in Google Earth, follow this link.