We started planning this trip back when we were in Egypt for the winter. Getting a visa to enter Russia is relatively easy for cruise ship passengers. As long as one has a tour with an official agency, the visa is automatic. We did NOT want to go with the Princess tour groups as they pack their buses with forty people. We shopped on viator.com and selected a full two days as we overnight tonight here. We decided not to skimp and chose this one described in this PDF.
It was an amazing day.
We had only about 30 minutes to grab something at lunch time. Having cappuccino and tiramisu was probably not all that Russian, but the Rubles went through on the Mastercard just fine.
At first I was skeptical about spending much time in The Hermitage, one of the world’s prime museums. Given that it was housed in a series of palaces facing the river. It was quite blustery today. The river boat trip was a little rough and the wind cool. Our group had just 14 tourists which was a perfect size as we were able to zip into crowded areas between tour groups of forty.
When we got back to the ship at nearly 5:00 PM and were pretty tired. After dinner there was a Russian Folkloric show in the main theatre. After some sleep, we'll be ready to re-enter the country a little later at 8:00 AM. We're looking forward to our second day.
