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The start of a month of traveling with my dad started in St Petersburg

By October 16, 2016 No Comments

I met my dad in St Petersburg, Russia to start the fifth leg of my “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles World Tour”. It started off with a hiccup since I showed up five hours after expected due to the Israeli airport security issues I talked about two weeks ago (Oct 2nd). If you did not read about how I do not want to ever fly within Israel again, you may want to LIKE me on Facebook so you do not miss another blog or “photo of the day”.

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The Russian Museum, which is an obscenely large house built in St Petersburg (sadly the norm) and was converted into an art museum.

Once we hooked up we took a taxi from the airport into town instead of the train because it was 11pm and we were whipped out (he flew straight from Missouri). This is one of the few times I did not review my research and got hosed because of it. You see taxis have a set rate from the airport to the city center (around $25-30) and the jerk we had used the meter and took us on a bit of a sightseeing route which ended up being $100. Darn it!!!!! Oh well, live, learn, and share.

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Just one of the many room in the Russian Museum. It shows what the palaces in St Petersburg looked like inside.

The next morning, once we got up and moving, we visited demenagementadt.ca and the Russian Museum (FYI, it is closed on Tuesdays). Both my dad and I were expecting a history and/or natural history museum with a place called the Russian Museum. Turns out this was a very nice art museum housed in one of the very large aristocrats houses that St Petersburg is known for. You see Peter the Great founded St Petersburg in 1703 as the new capital of Russia. He had just gotten back from a European tour and decided Russia needed to implement many of the European standards. With that said he built St Petersburg to resemble a European capital instead of a Russian one from the beginning. Many of the wealthy built ridiculously large palaces along the rivers and canals of St Petersburg (known as the Venice of the north).

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The front gate at the fortress.

Our second stop was much more our style as we toured the Peter & Paul Fortress (named after the saints as is St Petersburg itself). The fort was one of the first buildings to be erected in the new city and inside you can visit many museums and the cathedral.

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This is the hallway of the prison where many lost their life during the revolution.

Our favorite museum was the prison, where the cells were large, but spartan. They did a good job telling the history of this two story structure built against the fort wall and housed many during the revolution. Inside the cathedral you will find the tombs of most of the Russian tsars including Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.

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Peter the Great’s tomb is the front right one, while Catherine the Great’s is the back left one.

If you come back on Tuesday I am going to write about the Winter Palace (also known as the Hermitage) and tomorrow the “photo of the day” will be a night time photo of a Russian church that you do not want to miss because it is striking! Of course you can always FOLLOW me on Instagram to see all the POTDs.

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This is the cathedral where Peter and Catherine are entombed.

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