Another passport line, although it seemed to go faster this time, and another bus, this one number 19. We had some of the same people on the bus as Friday's excursion, but a different guide. Alla was even shorter than Natalia, if that's possible, but she didn't lack for stamina, despite the low-heeled shoes. We nicknamed her Field Marshall Alla, because she led the group as if directing soldiers. She also had the habit of ending a statement with the interrogative inflection "mm?," as if saying "what do you think about that?"

The traffic in the city was noticeably lighter, as everyone heads to the countryside on the weekends. Our first stop was the elaborately detailed Church of the Saviour on Blood, commonly called the Church of Spilled Blood. It's building commemorates the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, who was attacked by a revolutionary as he rode along the canal on this spot, and who subsequently died of his injuries. The grounds of the church actually stick out into the canal somewhat, to make sure the church actually stands upon that 'holy ground.' We were able to walk around the church, but did not go inside. The church is one of those challenging photo subjects where one wants to zoom in to capture the detail work, but also needs a shot of the structure as a whole to put it all in context. It looks different from every angle, and with the canal and street on two sides and a curving wrought-iron wall surrounding the remainder of the site, it's difficult to take a picture that accommodates the entire church.

The Church of the Savior on Blood

The church foundation juts into the canal to make sure it sits on the very spot where Alexander II spilled his blood.

The church looks different from every angle. The back side features a mosaic of Christ sitting in judgement.

Away from the street, the church is surrounded by an ornate wrought-iron fence erected between large brick columns.

Jill stops for a YAT photo in front of the church.

Zooming in slightly captures some of the detail of the front of the church.

We had a pre-appointed time for our entrance into the Hermitage Museum. It wasn't that time yet, so Alla had the bus driver thread our way along various streets to look at other landmarks as a way of killing time, including another drive-by of Peter and the Horse. Eventually, we disembussed in front of the Winter Palace, which itself is one of the 5 buildings that comprise the Hermitage. We were still early, apparently, as five groups from the Princess Cruise ship were ushered in ahead of us. Finally, it was our turn, and we entered into a bustling hall that served as the staging area (and bathrooms) for the tour groups. Once assembled into our troop, Alla led us up the stairs and our tour began.

This 'moving-bus photo' captures the expanse of parking lot at the front of the Winter Palace, opposite the river side where we later entered.

There's probably no way to see the entire Hermitage in one day, but we covered a lot, including parts of the Winter Palace, the Old Hermitage, and the New Hermitage. We viewed the Rembrandt Gallery--more Rembrandts in one place than you'll likely see anywhere--plus a couple of original Da Vincis and a painting by Rafael. If anything, the Hermitage is more ornate and detailed than Catherine's Palace. Huge halls, long galleries, domed skylights, countless paintings, monumental vessels of carved marble, elaborate mosaics. It seemed that every inch of every surface was decorated in some way. One gallery commemorated Russia's victory over Napoleon, the dark red walls arrayed with portraits of every field marshall who participated in the battle.

We ascended the red-carpeted grand staircase to begin our tour.

One of the rooms featured a Roman-style mosaic tile floor.

White and gold dominate this long hall bedecked with chandeliers.

The Rembrandt Hall displayed a number of works by the Dutch Master. Flash bounce off the dark oils made it difficult to photograph the paintings; this was our best effort of the day.

The museum boasts artworks in a variety of media, like this colorful high-relief of the Nativity.

An original Da Vinci was a popular photo stop for many of the patrons. The placard to the right of the frame provides information in Russian and English, and the smaller card identifies the track number for those taking the iPod tour.

The Da Vinci was only one of several masterworks displayed in the crowded hall.

Another gallery featured Correggio's "Portrait of a Woman."

The Hermitage features a number of Italian galleriers, like this colorful hallway.

Upper levels take advantage of natural lighting. The skylight shown here is more detailed than most.

Massive oil paintings commemorate historical events. I suspect this one captures the arrival of the important personage in the red and gold boats in the foreground, although there appears to be a lot of activity going on in the background.

What looks like a garden walkway is actually on the second floor, built on the roof of the lower level. It is said that Catherine the Great did not like staircases, so had places like this installed so that she didn't have to walk down and then back up again.

In what Mark jokingly referred to as the "yearbook" gallery, portraits of Field Marshalls from the Napoleonic War are precisely arrayed on dark red walls.

Partway through our tour, we had a short break to use the bathrooms and peruse the gift shop. Lots of nice things there, and educational, like books, calendars, and crafts; not your typical cheap tourist trinkets. Mark picked up a photo guide of the Hermitage for Lauri since she'd missed the tour. We continued on, through more galleries and two different throne rooms. One throne sat under a box canopy in a vast white and gold space, which was perhaps a ballroom. The other occupied an elevated position in a curved red niche below a giant painting of Peter the Great. Toward the end of the tour, we visited a display of personal effects, with mannekins dressed in the actual garments belonging to Catherine the Great, et al. Outside, we took some shots of the green-and-white Winter Palace as we waited on the banks of the Neva for our bus.

A throne under a red canopy highlights one end of this large ballroom, looking much like the ballroom at Catherine's Palace from the previous day.

Another throne sits raised in a red alcove. So why all the red? It's Russia's favorite color, and not just for socialist reasons. In the Russian language, red is beautiful, literally. Both words are from the same root, krasni.

Our tour finished, we wait across the street from the Winter Palace for our bus to pick us up.

Our driver dropped us off on a side street for some shopping. A souvenir store occupied the lower level of the corner building (a few steps down from sidewalk level) and promised free vodka samples. Na zdorovaya! The store was smaller than the previous day's shop, a bit more crowded with merchandise, and sporting dangerously low ceilings, at least from the perspective of us tall westerners. Watch your head! There was a church across the canal from the store that just begged to be photographed, so we obliged.

A picturesque church sits across the canal from the souvenir store.

From there to lunch: another food court, another mall. After looking at the available options, we selected a cafeteria-style purveyor of what appeared to be traditional Russian mixed with south-eastern-European cuisine. Jill asked for kasha chicken, with a beet-and-potato salad. Mark plated up some braised lamb shank over mashed potatoes, plus a cabbage salad. The food was tasty and hearty, although the lamb was tough. Lunch also had the benefit of using up all the remaining rubles that we had between us, down to the last kopek.

Back aboard our bus, we drove southwest out of St. Petersburg, encountering more traffic as we got farther from the city. Stepped off the bus at the entrance to Pederhof, another palace on the southern shore of the Baltic. The bus continued on, as there was no place for it to park, and apparently, this was a popular destination for tourists. We strolled along broad walkways of crushed rock, past immaculate flower beds, toward the long, low, yellow-and-white palace in the distance. Eventually, we reached the fountains, wide pools with fish darting between lilies in the dark waters, ducks paddling lazily on the surface, arcs of water spouting from myriad nozzles worked into the statuary of sea and land creatures crafted from concrete, copper and bronze. Alla directed us to the left when we reached the front of the palace, and we walked around the west end of the building to the back, where the real waterworks were.

From the street entrance, it's a long walk to Peterhof Palace.

As we get closer to the main palace, manicured gardens give way to fountains and large pools.

A large fountain dominates the front grounds of the palace.

Per Alla's direction, we circle around to the left of the palace.

The ground drops dramatically away from the north face of the palace to sculpted gardens and white outbuildings. In the center of this 'back yard,' the grassy slopes on either side give way to a checkboard terrace that overlooks rows of gold statues and towering jets of spray that stair-step down to the circular pond, in the center of which is the largest fountain of all, the apex of its plume even with where we were standing, at the highest point of the grounds. On the far side of the fountain, the pond extends into a long canal that runs arrow-straight through piney woods to the Baltic sea, smaller fountains dotting its flanks and crossed by several bridges along its length.

Rounding the building, a scene of fountains, gardens, walkways and people opens up before us.

The tall plume is the focal point of the central fountains.

The checkerboard patio overlooking the fountains is a popular spot for pictures, with the canal extending off through wooded grounds toward the Baltic, crossed by three bridges along its length.

The cameras got a workout, but we couldn't tarry too long in any one place. Alla led us past the central fountain, down the steps, and through the gardens on the east side before turning us loose. However, we needed to be at the west end of the farthest bridge in 30 minutes, so we had to hoof it. That didn't stop us from getting pictures of more fountains, statues, gardens, walkways, people. And more fountains. The weather was (again) perfect, but we had a bit of a breeze coming off the water, as evidenced by the spray from the larger fountains, especially those not sheltered by the trees.

A close-up view from the lower level shows gilded statues flanking the "steps," plumes of water backlit by the afternoon sun.

A slightly different view includes topiaries in the foreground and one of the outbuildings behind the central fountain, with tourists lining the encircling hedge.

On the lower walkway, we look back up at Peterhof Palace and the fountains, almost the exact reverse view of the scene from 5 photos ago.

The central fount spouts from a sculpture of--I'm guessing--Hercules fighting the Nemean Lion.

Further on, another fountain features a a merman wresting some strange sea creature.

Mark pauses in front of the fountain as we wind our way through the gardens.

The weather was sunny but breezy, as evidenced by the spray coming off this large, square fountain near the trees.

Futher into the woods toward the boathouse, we found another large fountain set in a rock-lined pool.

We reached the far bridge within the alloted time, and took this picture looking back along the length of the canal toward the palace in the distance.

At the end of the canal was a hydrofoil pier and our 'ride' back to town. We boarded our boat, finding seats at the very back, as the hydrofoil filled up quickly. Our seats were surrounded on three sides by curving glass, and thought we'd have the better view from there. That was true, but we didn't realize there was no air circulation, and with the sun shining through the windows, the area quickly became warm and stagnant. No problem; once underway we just opened the small door behind us, but that pulled in the fumes and the noise from the engine. Having to choose between stifling and choking, we chose the latter and left the door open, despite some dirty looks from others in the rear seating area. Some air was better than none, and the circultation helped. After a while, we got used to the smell and enjoyed the ride. The 40-minute trip back to St. Petersburg was choppy and noisy, but mostly fun. We had time to get up and walk around the hydrofoil a little, even poking our heads up above the passageway between the middle and rear sections to enjoy some 'real' fresh air. We passed not 1000 yards from the Eurodam on our right as we made our way into the main branch of the Neva river. It would have been quicker getting back to our cruise ship had we but jumped ship there and swam to the pier, but of course our belongings were still on the bus. Cut our speed for the river, and motored under numerous bridges to the hydrofoil dock directly in front of the Winter Palace. We had to double park, and returning to dry land required us to first clamber aboard the adjacent boat and climb the gangway to the street from there. We took a few pictures while waiting for good ol' #19 to show up, then boarded and headed back to our ship. Spent some time in the pier shops when we returned, finding it a nice change of pace that we could take our time without being urged on to the next stop.

Hydrofoils lie docked at the pier, ready to speed us back to St. Petersburg.

Jill finds a seat at the rear of the boat, curved windows providing a good view of the surroundings.

Back in the city, the view from our hydrofoil dock looks over at the park, the site of yesterday's excursion stop, while various boats ply the waters of the Neva River.

Meanwhile, back at the ship . . .
Lauri got up to discover she was out of ibuprofen, so shuffled out to the elevator and down to deck 2 to the medical center to get that and an ice pack. They had the "vitamin I" on hand, but didn't have ice packs. However, they said the concierge could hook her up with some ziploc bags of ice through housekeeping. She found a comfortable chair in the Explorations Cafe with a cup of coffee and worked on a puzzle until housekeeping was through with the room, then back to take a nap on Mark's bed with the ice pack and a towel. She slept for about an hour, then headed to the spa to take advantage of the heated mineral pool, and made an appointment for a back massage later in the day. Feeling better and more limber, she decided to do some shopping on the pier, determined to get her money's worth from the visa, even if not seeing the sights. The customs officials in the passport line were a bit puzzled, as all the exursion busses had left long ago, but she patiently explained her situation, and they stamped her through. She managed to snag the very last set of Seahawks matryoshka dolls, along with a basketful of other things. She also checked the offerings in the "foreign" shop, after coming back through the passport booth, but didn't find anything else to buy. She carefully wrapped and stowed those purchases destined for Christmas presents, then headed up to the Lido to grab a late lunch near the pool.

Which is where she was when Jill and Mark got back to the ship, but it wasn't long before she returned to the room as well. We all watched from the veranda as the Eurodam pulled out of St. Petersburg and motored carefully through the narrow channel next to the walled navy harbor that reminded us of the fortified entrance to Cartagena. Lauri headed back to the spa for her mini-massage, while Jill and Mark checked out the aft Lido, but there was no sail-away party going on; everyone must have been in the Crow's Nest for Ian's "Highlights of Helsinki" talk. So we hit the Explorer's Lounge and had a couple drinks while listening to a piano-violin duo play classical favorites. Lauri found us there later. Hung around for the end of the "Carmen" suite, then headed back to the room to shower and change for dinner.

We dined in the Pinnacle Grill that night, instead of the dining room, thanks to a special promotion that was in effect when we booked the cruise. Had appetizers, followed by entrees of halibut, filet, and ribeye, each with side dishes, and finished by splitting one dessert with coffee. I managed somehow to land the steak on my shirt during dinner while cutting. Not that it was tough, I was just klutzy.

Back in the suite, we downloaded pictures from the previous two days and viewed them on the laptop. That's a lot of pictures, so it took a while, and it was late when we finally went to bed. Lauri opted to sleep with the hide-a-bed unfurled, meaning on the sofa, and found she preferred that configuration. The room stewards made her bed up that way for the rest of the cruise.