The Shields: Have you heard...?

There's a rumor that we went to St. Petersburg, and it is absolutely TRUE! We were in St. Petersburg for two days from May 30-31.

I always joked with Michael that the only way I wanted to see Russia is on a Baltic Sea Cruise. Flash forward three years, and here we are, docking in St. Petersburg! What a city! Russia is one where you either have to have a paid tour or pay a hefty sum for a visa on top of all the entrance fees to the museums. We therefore went with option #1 and had a tour. Which I am so glad we did. Our tour guide was super on the ball and pretty intense. We were going, going, going both days.

I have NEVER seen so many extremely ornate and elaborate buildings. We started out by visiting the summer palace- you read that right-the SUMMER palace of Catherine the Great.

You'll have to forgive my camera, but there was NO possible way to fit the whole palace in one picture. The palace kept going on and on and on! So you get to see parts of it.

I just cannot believe how much details, carvings, paintings, and GOLD there is EVERYWHERE!

We had to wear booties to protect all the pretty wood floors.

Seriously, I felt like I needed to go through all the buildings three times. I wish we could have!
1st time for the walls-

Below is the Amber Room. You are not allowed to take pictures inside so thank you Google Images. Every panel of the wall is made of thousands of Amber stones in different shades!

2nd time through for the ceilings-

and 3rd time for the pretty floors-

It was unbelievable! After Catherine's summer palace we went to Peterhov Palace. We were waiting outside for our tour guide and I asked if we were going in. She quickly replied no. We had just seen Catherine's Palace, there is no need to see the inside of this palace. Haha! That statement sadly sums up much of Russia compared to other cities- it's just so ornate. But the Peterhov is known for its fountains. There are hundreds. It is amazing!

Including this sneaky fountain...

After these two palaces, we stopped for lunch. And I literally mean stopped. We pulled off to the side of freeway and before we could figure out what was going on, our driver hopped out and met up with another man getting out of his car. Seriously shady. Then the guy handed our driver a bag and the driver brought it back to us and started driving again. It was our lunch. It was delicious. But very interesting means of getting it. Oh Russia!

That afternoon, we drove around the city more and of course stopped at some Russian Orthodox Cathedrals. Recognize this architecture?