Just like yesterday we were up nice and early as we had to be on the bus by 7am. Again we were lucky for another one of St Petersburg’s sunny days, the weather was beautiful.
One lady slept in so the tour bus left without her, about 15 minutes later Alexandra received a phone call from Carnival telling them that they had to pull over and wait for the lady they left behind. At 7:40am everyone was on board the bus and we continued our journey to Catherine Palace.
I was really tired so slept the hour drive to Catherine Palace and awoke feeling nice and refreshed 🙂
Catherine Palace was huge! Again we were one of the first groups to arrive, so when we got inside it wasn’t very busy at all, which was great.
Because of the flooring everyone had to wear sexy shoe protectors – squishy boots.
We went through lots of rooms whilst we were here, taking in the artwork, ballrooms and dining room set ups.
The gardens were just as lovely. We spent about 2.5 hours at Catherine Palace in total, we didn’t get to see the entire palace or gardens, but we felt that we saw plenty.
Wearing the very sexy looking audio headpiece
The never ending gardens
Once we had finished exploring the grounds of Catherine Palace we got back on the bus and headed to the river for our river cruise.
The river cruise went for an hour, it was nice to see St Petersburg by water. When we got off of the cruise it was time for lunch. This time we were eating at an old girls boarding school that had be transformed into a restaurant. On the menu today was salad, soup, beef stroganoff, ice cream, water, wine and yes vodka.
The last stop for us on our Russian adventure was Peter and Paul’s Fortress, Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul was really pretty. Inside the fortress you will find the places where the royal family were  buried after they were tragically murdered.
The cathedral’s inside was quite small, so we didn’t stay inside for very long, 15 minutes maximum.
We thoroughly enjoyed seeing St Petersburg, our only criticism would be that we were never given any free time to see the ‘real’ Russia, to explore at our own pace, see what the locals pay for vodka as the prices in the shops we were taken too was ridiculously expensive. Otherwise we were happy with everything that we were able to see.
When we got back on board Tim and I both had a nap and woke up 15 minutes before food was ready to be served. Getting ready we joined Ivan, Jen, Ron and Lisa for dinner and ate spinach and walnut salad, thai curry soup, fried chicken and ice cream.
