Packing up in St Petersburg

It's our final day in St Petersburg, so I thought I'd better quickly throw the rest of the photos up before the train to Moscow tonight - we leave at midnight and get into Moscow at 8am.  

Yesterday we took the Hydrofoil across the Gulf of Finland to the Peterhof Palace.  Hydrofoils are pretty cool - I'd never seen one before, but the idea is awesome and it was pretty fast :)

The palace and ground were beautiful - it was the Summer Palace built to Peter the Great's designs and inspired by Versailles, and it's full of beautiful statues and gardens with fountains everywhere.  Apparently during World War II (which Russians call "The Great Patriotic War"), the Germans occupied it - some of the statues were hidden but most of them were destroyed, so most things have been rebuilt.  

There's that gold obsession again.  They should really do something about that.

This fountain had a bench next to it that looked like a nice place to sit for some quiet reflection and contemplation... but when you went near it, it sprayed water at you.  Tricksy hobbitses!

There were some beautiful red squirrels running around as well - one of them even climbed up Stephen's Mum's leg!  We Aussies are still entranced by them - they're so cute :)  


Today we're hitting up the Hermitage Museum which is in the Winter Palace building - I'm not so keen on art, but I'm hoping that the building will be cool enough to make up for it.  And then on to the train station - we're a bit concerned by some of the reports in the guidebook of police, especially at train stations, asking to see passports and then demanding bribes to give them back.  The idea of police being the bad guys and not the people that will help you if you get stuck doesn't sit very well with me.  Apparently this sort of thing has declined recently though, so I'm hoping we won't have any problems in our wait at the train station tonight.  


And after that, on to Moscow!