We breakfasted at 9.05 AM, looking for potential beetrooters.  Because our two week tour was actually two one week tours, today we’d be getting some new people.  Very exciting.  There didn’t seem to be anyone in the restaurant who looked like a likely candidate, and at 10 when we saw Sasha in the lobby he explained that the newcomers would join the group on the walking tour which Rob and I had done yesterday.  We turned up just long enough to meet the new guys and hitch a ride with them into the city.  There was Charlie, a single brummie in his fifties on a world tour.  Mike And Julia were a middle aged couple from New Zealand, also on a world tour.  Finally there was a trio of flat sharers Matt, Simone and Tanya, also from New Zealand and in their late twenties.

At Nevsky Prospekt, we split from the group and headed for the hermitage.  This enormous museum is one of the largest in the world, with three million works of art, although not all of them are on display at the same time!  The collection originated from Catherine the great when she began purchasing paintings in Europe in 1764.  Russian ambassadors in foreign capitals were commissioned to acquire the best collections, and the archive now occupies the entire Winter Palace.

The first thing we noticed about the building was that it was so amazingly clean.  Like many buildings in Saint Petersburg, it looks newly built and freshly painted.  In a courtyard in the winter palace we queued for tickets for hours, taking turns as it slowly shuffled forwards.  Having finally got our tickets we found a map and tried to plan a route through the five buildings.  Even the archaeological section had over 700,000 exhibits.  Trying not to be overwhelmed, we started on the ground floor.

The archaeological section featured the usual assortment of pottery, jewelry, coins etc.  On the first floor there was more modern stuff; silver, gold, statues, sculpture, books …  But the hermitage itself was the most important feature on this level.  Finally we reached the gallery on the second floor.  The paintings included Picasso, Matisse, Monet – all “acquired by the Hermitage”, a euphemism in many cases for “nicked from the Germans during the Second World War”.

I bought a print of a Monet that I particularly liked, and we returned to the ground floor via a lot of backtracking to make sure we didn’t get lost.  Before we left we discovered a section of the ground floor which we hadn’t seen, featuring a photography exhibition.  There was some fantastic images, including the rather literally named “man looking in refrigerator”, and a time lapse series showing a bombing accident in which an air force bomber accidentally dropped its payload on an aircraft flying underneath.

Via an Internet cafe and the photo developing place, we went for lunch.  In the afternoon we split up to see some more museums – Rob started with the ethnography, while I opted for the naval history.  This place was fascinating, with hundreds of intricately constructed models.  There was also an armored train, a model of a bombed city which I assumed to be Stalingrad, a world map that looked like it belonged in a nuclear command centre, and even some early aircraft carriers carrying seaplanes that would be winched into the water by crane.

I met up with Rob and we moved on to the Zoological museum.  The most impressive exhibit was a woolly mammoth – the only complete one in the world, and a blue whale skeleton.  I remember seeing one of these in the natural history museum at home but I think he’s only a model, whereas this one is the real thing.  Otherwise the museum contains mainly stuffed animals, though their habitats were well modeled.

We walked to the metro via the riverside of the Admiralty, and noticed that new buildings seem to have been constructed where the docks once stood, at least based on the model I saw in the naval museum.  We made a quick detour to the Saint Peter and Paul beach to see some sand sculpture and see if we could spot anyone sunbathing standing up (apparently something they do here), but no joy.

Back at the hotel at 7.00 PM, we met the others and went for dinner in town.  Mike and Julia described themselves as “professional tourists” – they used to run a ferry boat service on new Zealand’s south island, but now they travel the world on cargo ships rather than flying.  No one is interested in staying out so we all go back to the hotel and arrive about 10.30 PM.