Baltic Cruise: Day 8 St Petersburg, Russia

Our second day in St Petersburg was to start at 6.15 am with breakfast in the Horizon restaurant again.We watched through the windows as other tours from the ship were already leaving the cruise terminal.

The Horizon’s freshly prepared omelette were again excellent.

Our Baltic cruise on P&O Aurora would take us to Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Germany, Denmark and Norway.

Saturday 20th May was our second day in St Petersburg. Again we were to be with a private tour provided by TJ Travel.

Second day in St Petersburg

Russian Immigration was again easy with the minimum of effort. My passport was checked over and given straight back. We had timed our exit to be between the ship’s own tours and we didn’t have to queue at all.

The day was so busy that I have had to revert to a selection of images with the occasional comment.

I have used again the TJ Travel itinerary as a guide to where we were and what we were seeing throughout the day.

8:00 am Meeting by the ship

We were joined on our tour by two more passengers. They were the couple we had been talking to about TJ Travel in Klaipėda. They had had a private tour on the day before. They had seen places not visited by them previously and they had even been to to a hypermarket and a pub. The hypermarket was for wine and for bottles of Newcastle Brown beer! Their guide had been studying in the North East and had grown to like the beer there too.

The St Petersburg subway

We went into the city again, past the housing blocks came again to the river.

There we descended into the subway system of St Petersburg. The ticket hall gave us a hint of what was to come .

Here’s the map of the system.

We noticed the X-ray machines alongside the ticket barriers and at least one security guard.

Descending the first escalator gave us another glimpse of the mosaics around the station.

At the bottom of the escalator there was another security guard. This station did not have any adverts on the walls and was so different to the London Underground.

Next we went on a travelator along to another line to catch our train. Once we reached the platforms it was surprisingly spacious. To get there we had walked along corridors that were very wide and tall.

We watched as trains came in and departed before we caught our train. This was to be for just one stop.

We caught the next train and settled down for our brief ride on the subway.

The next station was just as decorated as the first. Our guide explained that each station had a theme and one was the navy – Admiralteyskaya or Admiralty.

We were now at the bottom of the deepest station in the whole system and we had to ride up a short escalator first…

… and then a sort walk past more mosaics.

We were then at the bottom of the longest escalator to get back to the surface.

Looking back at the top of the escalator.

It was now only 8.40 am and here we are out of the station on our way to the mini-bus to catch our boat ride.

8:30-9:30 am Boat Ride along the rivers and canals

St Petersburg not only has its river but has canals. Thanks to TJ Travel we were on a boat with just our party so there was lots of space to wander and to take in the views.

As we passed along the river and the canals through our headphones, we had all the buildings and sites pointed out to us. These are my pictures from the boat ride. Apologies but I didn’t note down all the details of the buildings and sites!

Then we passed out of the canal into the river.

Taking selfies by the river.

As we past along the river we could see some of the places that we’d visited the day before and some new ones.

The Cruiser Aurora

Moored on the River Neva was the cruiser Aurora. A blank shot from one of her guns was the signal for the assault on the Winter Palace.

From Aurora’s listing on Wikipedia she has had a varied career since being built in 1903. Interestingly when she was being renovated some of the ship’s parts, including armour plating were originally from Britain.