St Petersburg and Tallinn, Estonia, Aug 27th and 28th

Another sunny day in St Petersburg.  Our first stop was the subway, What a unique experience.  This is the worlds deepest metro, the station we started at is 330 feet deep,  What a ride on the escalator.  They are so clean and a train was arriving every 5 minutes (weekdays the train is every 2 min).  Out of the metro to St Petersburg shopping area.  We were there too early and the shops weren't open.  Then on to St Nicholas Cathedral and also a visit to the Synagogue.  Finally we on to the Hermitage, a wealth of art and history.  You can spend days just touring the Hermitage but we squeezed as much as possible in 4 hours.  Starting at the gold room to view some of the most impressive architecture such as the Small Throne Room, the gilded-column Armorial Hall and the Malachite Room, which features more that 2 tons of ornamental stone.  On to art work by Van Gogh, Renior, Monet, Leonardo da Vinci and more.  There were lots of wows.  We lunched at the Vodka Museum, excellent food.  The last stop was the Spilt Blood Church that is decorated completely in mosaics.  It is hard to believe we have seen so many sites and there are still more to discover.  We were tired and a little sad that we were leaving such an amazing city.

On to Tallinn, Estonia were you step back in time as we toured the beautifully preserved medieval town.  The streets in old town are cobble stones, narrow and windy.  We had a very enthusiastic tour guide who was very proud of her heritage and the way Estonia received its independence from Russia.  At one point 14 of us joined hands and she explained that thru joining hands and singing in peaceful protest is how they accomplished there goal of freedom. Our time in Tallinn was too short as we only had 5 hours.