Europe 2019: Saint Petersburg Intro

Europe 2019

Saint Petersburg Intro

Our next stop was a couple of days in Saint Petersburg, Russia. I'll cover some specific places in St Pete in subsequent posts, but I thought I'd just hit a few things about the city and our trip here in general first. 

First off, whenever I travel abroad I have to check in with "the office" for any guidance or direction. Nine times out of ten this is a non-issue, but for St Petersburg I did get some feedback. They put me in touch with a company and we contracted them to be our private guides for the visit. Lots of people do this - in order to leave the ship in Russia you have to either have a visa in advance or be part of a tour group. I just needed to use a "company approved vendor", so to speak.

Every time you get on and off the ship you have to go through customs and show your visa or your tourist visa that was provided to you by your tour company. It's no big deal, and since, as always, we were the only ship in town it was fast as well. 

This is Anya, our guide for our visit. She was great. She was clearly well connected and had tons of knowledge of all things St Petersburg. We had told her before hand that we were very relaxed and just wanted to check things out and throw in some things that Samantha would enjoy. She accommodated perfectly. 

This is Edward, our driver / muscle. He was a man of few words (or none really), but he was always exactly where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there and had the door open and waiting for us to jump in as we exited each stop.

Edward always had the parking spot right next to every door we went in or out of - or created a spot. I'm not sure if Nel noticed this or not, but I appreciated it. Our vehicle was supposed to be armored, but I don't think it actually was. It was a moot point, as our visit was peaceful and without incident.

St Petersburg is a large city - well over 5 million - and it seemed a little tricky to navigate. This wouldn't be a place I would recommend going it alone, but I could be wrong.

We only had lunch a couple of times but to me the food was terrible. I'll admit that I'm the last person that should be commenting on food because I'm super picky. Branelle has been to Moscow before and she warned me that I wasn't going to like the food at all. Everything seemed to have dill in it.

The architecture is stunning and the city does have a sort of cold beauty to it. It's not pretty, but you feel the history in the buildings and on the streets, and boy does this place have some history!

Buying art on the street.

We had a very good time in Saint Petersburg. I felt like I learned a lot and I'm not sure it was at all what I was expecting. I'm glad I went and I'm glad we had at least a couple of days because there's lot's to see (as following posts will show). 

The ever-vigilant Anya. She was constantly observing everyone that got near us.

Samantha is absolutely trying to shove me in the Neva River here.

"Pick me up! Pick me up!"

A Lada Riva! 

Nel wanted to shop for those carved Russian Santa things that she loves so much but they were as much as they are in the US...or on our ship for that matter. Anya hooked us up with this great couple that had a shop in a farmer's market. They were so nice to Samantha!