Spectacular, Spectacular!

In front of The Church on Spilled Blood (of Czar Alexandr II) - As you can see it's wet (and cold).

The St Petersburg Male Voice Choir performed in the glassed-in Atrium of The Commandant's House at the Saint Peter and Paul Fortress, next to the church where most of the Romanoffs are buried, up until 1918 that is!

Today it was wet and cold, but there is no such thing as bad weather for touring - just bad clothing! Fortunately we are well prepared. We began walking down Nevsky-Prospekt to the Moskovya Train station to check out our departure for Moscow 2 nights from now - where is the left-luggage office? will it be open late enough and from which platform does it depart? There are many overnight sleepers - ours leaves at 11:55 pm (Train #1) which means that we will have a lot of time to fill in before we board. Oh well!

We return to the business of sight-seeing starting at the Kazansky Cathedral right around the corner from our hostel. It's undergoing sandblasting (as is half of St Petersburg - Like Mitterand'sParis "Grand Projects" in the 90s) but as we walk in there is a service in progress - a wedding is taking place. In fact since we have been here we have seen many, many weddings with young brides in beautiful gowns, often strapless in pretty cold weather, big American stretch limousines and visiting all the popular spots for post ceremony photo-shoots. The young women here are beautiful - the seniors not so much! We cross over Nevsky Prospekt again along the banks of the Grivoedova Canal to The Church on the Spilled Blood, the outside of which "blows your socks off", but that is nothing compared to the inside - Out of this world! Next we go around the corner to The Russian Museum where we view room after room of beautiful Russian paintings, as exciting to see as similar collections in Norway and Sweden were not. And we haven't even been to The Hermitage State Museum yet! Then we get tickets for a concert at The Saint Peter and Paul fortress across the Neva. In the process of getting there we take a promenade along the east bank of the Neva, cross over to the South bank and thence to our destination. The concert is by the St Petersburg Male voice choir. This was another "blow your socks off" experience - 16 voices that when singing in unison were perhaps a shade too loud, but when supporting the soloist(s) was just right. There were a counter-tenor, regular tenors, baritone and bass baritone and the most incredible double bass whose range was an octave or two below anything I have ever heard - One of the most enjoyable musical events we have ever experienced. It was now 9:00 pm. and we were somewhat peckish so we walked back across the river to "Zoom", a neat restaurant in a cellar filled with a young academic crowd, where we exceed the average age by over 30 years, but it makes us feel young again, where the food is sooo yummy - better get here early before the Beef Stroganoff is gone!

OK so now it's past our bedtime and we pour ourselves home the two blocks to the hostel - A great day. Tomorrow is our first visit to The Hermitage - can it be any better?