In my last post I showed you Catherine’s Palace, otherwise know as the summer palace. Later that same day we went to the Hermitage, which is in St. Petersburg itself. It was the winter palace. The Hermitage is now one of the most famous art museums in the world. We saw only a tiny smidge of the art on display. The tour guide said it would take something like eight years to see if all, if you came every day of the year for 8 hours a day and spent one minute with each item. Well, that won’t be happening so I guess I will have to be satisfied with the French Impressionists, which is the area we were set lose in. Oh, that and the bathroom. I saw that, too. But there wasn’t any art work in there….
Since we arrived at the Hermitage in the afternoon, it was much more crowded than Catherine’s Palace was in the morning. The wood floors at the Hermitage were even more beautiful than those at Catherine’s Palace. Just one problem…because of all the people I kept getting feet in my floor photos. Here is a flip-flop in my shot:
Here are a pair of leather shoes and one white sneaker. But ignore the shoes and look at that magnificent floor! But I did more than look down, I looked up, too.
Of course, when I looked up I saw gold!
Here is the Tsar’s throne. Note the Russian Eagle behind the throne.
The Hermitage was built on a spectacularly large scale. I hope you can get an idea of this from the photo below.
But the Hermitage is not about being a palace anymore. It is about being a home to magnificent art. Below is a Monet.
We also saw a DaVinci, one of two at the Hermitage.
As the day wore down, we were two tired, warm tourists, but not too tired to get our photo taken in front of a huge urn, one of many we saw that day. It was covered in some type of semi precious stone, but done in such a way as to look like solid stone.
And then it was off to collapse on the ship in blessed air-conditioned comfort!
