SHARING WITH ME

On the second day it was to be The Hermitage. That we did visit on my first trip with Helena and Jorma. Today the building is pristine clean, gold leaf, marble and crystal. Once again we were taken to see the galleries we were supposed to see along with crowds of tourists. I jumped around trying to get a glimpse of some  impressive works but not being very tall, it was virtually impossible. As well we know, the museum is  one of the greatest in the world with enough to see to keep you fascinated for a week. We had a couple of hours. Pierrette was off on another excursion in the afternoon and in fear and trembling, I decided to come back to the Hermitage alone. One of or crew members painstakingly told me - and drew a plan -  where the taxi would leave me - and where the taxi would pick me up. She added how easy it would be and that in case of a problem ask any person in the museum or in the street for that matter. Everyone spoke in English. Extraneous information I assure

I had not intention of writing a chapter on Russia. Too much information and very little that I had retained. Pierrette took notes. A reminder from the Saga cruise outline and my very few photos will have to suffice. There had been a video made of our trip which looked quite good when we viewed it on one of our last evenings. However, when I showed it to my daughter the other evening, she made a few disparaging remarks about our fellow passengers although added some interesting descriptions to what we had seen along the way. I will not be posting it on YouTube. 

 Our trip from the UK to St Petersburg was uneventful. Saga had warned us that there could be a hold up customs, getting out luggage but we sailed through although it took sometime to find our guide. Three buses full of passengers! It was here we would learn that this was the last trip of the MS Surikov before the winter months. I tried to find out what the staff did over this period but without much success. W