i mentioned we had an amazing tour guide in st. petersburg, which meant we pretty much covered every "point of interest" i'm sure any guide book has listed. if i wrote a post about each attraction, you'd basically be reading blog entries that rival the length of war and peace. that being said though, it doesn't feel fair that i write twice about estonia and only one post for russia, so i'll see how well i can sum this up. pretty sure my paraphrasing is already poor given the length of this introductory paragraph.
i'll be honest. i know going to see palaces in different cities can be kind of a drag. they all sort of blend together at some point - there's some kind of ornate chair, probably a few crown jewels, and definitely velvet. it's all impressive of course because most likely your home isn't dressed in these same ornate tapestries, but all the oohing and aahing over chairs and plates can get a bit exhausting.
in russia, it's definitely as exhausting, but mostly because that initial impressiveness is lasting. as in the entire 23 hours we were touring the city (spread over two days - i'm not THAT ambitious, people), i was throughly shocked and impressed with every room of every building we saw. i'd venture to say that the number of times i said either "whoa" or "wow" out loud cannot be counted on two hands.
not only were the rooms impressive, but the history behind them was enthralling. i mentioned i have a russian history reading list now, and i was also able to indulge in a little rekindling of my childhood fascination with the family of czar nicholas ii (mostly spurred from the disney movie anastasia, though i was a pretty weird kid).
the photos don't do it justice really, but hopefully you can get the gist from these.
i'll be honest. i know going to see palaces in different cities can be kind of a drag. they all sort of blend together at some point - there's some kind of ornate chair, probably a few crown jewels, and definitely velvet. it's all impressive of course because most likely your home isn't dressed in these same ornate tapestries, but all the oohing and aahing over chairs and plates can get a bit exhausting.
in russia, it's definitely as exhausting, but mostly because that initial impressiveness is lasting. as in the entire 23 hours we were touring the city (spread over two days - i'm not THAT ambitious, people), i was throughly shocked and impressed with every room of every building we saw. i'd venture to say that the number of times i said either "whoa" or "wow" out loud cannot be counted on two hands.
not only were the rooms impressive, but the history behind them was enthralling. i mentioned i have a russian history reading list now, and i was also able to indulge in a little rekindling of my childhood fascination with the family of czar nicholas ii (mostly spurred from the disney movie anastasia, though i was a pretty weird kid).
the photos don't do it justice really, but hopefully you can get the gist from these.
where the royal family had their domino's delivered.
out of about 400 photos, i'd say around 234 are of ceilings of places we visited.
paper mache chandelier. no joke.
one of many thrones that we saw. one of the few that my mom didn't try to get me to take a photo of her sitting on.
This looks amazing. I totally want to visit Russia now. However I'm going to fact check you back to your childhood. Do you remember how SCARY Anastasia was? Or that she's not a Disney princess? That's because that whale of a tale was one of the Fox animation flicks and not a true Disney story. Hence all of the black magic and gruesome death that is mysteriously absent from your run of the mill Cinderella and whatnot. Haha I really have some time on my hands, huh? I hope whenever your travels take you back home we can catch up again over guac and cocktails!!!
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