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August 20, 2015

Holiday Day Seven - St Petersburg

Hi Everybody,

St Petersburg is such a fabulous city and everywhere you look there is gold.

On the buildings .. on the furniture ... on the paintings ... on the statues in fact almost everywhere you look

This photo is of Catherine Palace and it is in a place called Pushkin

To visit here you go through large ornate gates and on the way a Russian band was waiting to greet us.
It is awesome and was built by Peter for his beloved wife Catherine.

It is reputed to have had over 100 kilograms of gold to cover the front and the domes of the palace

A lot of the palaces are painted in bright colors.  Green, Pink, Blue, Orange and it gives a really pretty effect as you look around. This one is a kind of Sky Blue and White

The gardens in front are also beautiful and it would take you hours to walk around all of it.

When Catherine died this beautiful Palace was abandoned and it has been destroyed and rebuilt many times in its history

But let me take you inside to see some of the wealth that was around in Catherines day.

 This white staircase has gold in the panelling on the walls and the doors have perspex panelling over them so that you don't brush against them

Everywhere you look there is grandeur and finery and it must have been a magnificent place to live.

You would need a map to get round it it's so big
Walking into this room you are immediately attracted to the walls as they are covered in gold leaf ... but let me tell you what the large blue objects are.

They are wood burners and they are in many of the rooms ... several placed at intervals around the sides of the rooms as Russia gets very very cold

They are huge and the picture does not indicate their size ... but I bet it took a lot of wood to keep them going

This is one of the dining rooms laid out as it would have been for a banquet.

The table was set with lovely ornaments and of course the gold is on them and on the chairs too.
The floors throughout the palace are gorgeous and a different pattern in each room.



Catherine Palace was well documented as it was built and it became invaluable when the whole building was intentionally destroyed during the war.

An empty shell was all that was left but a large amount of the restoration has been completed.

The Grand Hall has been used to hold concerts to attract funding and Elton John appeared there in 2001 to a private audience

In one of the rooms we were not allowed to take photos and so we had to stand in the doorway and get what we could around the crowds.

This is the copy of the Amber room and the walls are covered in Amber and gold. It is beautiful and very ornate

During the war the original  mysteriously disappeared and has never been found and so this copy has been painstakingly reproduced.

The final part of our visit to Catherine Palace was a visit to the Amber workshops.

Here we could watch the craftsmen at work with the amber as they created pieces to fit this beautiful frame.

Amber is very light and is a fossilised tree resin that can be carved with really small tools.

The process of getting the different shades was explained and as we left we all received a piece of amber as a gift.

I hope you have enjoyed this trip to Russia with me and we have a few more stops along the way yet.

More tomorrow ...

Hugs xx









15 comments:

  1. Hi Christina, I look forward to my daily travels, am really enjoying your trip thank you so much for bringing us along with you !!!!!!!
    cheers Kaye

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  2. Wow-St Petersburg looks amazing. Loved all the photos yesterday and the same today. It's now in my list of places to visit.

    Michele

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  3. Hi Christina, beautiful photos. I always imaging Russia as a cold dark place so it's certainly a surprise seeing the pale colours of the buildings.
    Love Val in Spain x

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  4. Yes it is unbelievably beautiful,and to think that at the time they did not have the technology of today. Your pictures are giving us a real treat Christina,thank you for sharing. Jane B.

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  5. Morning Christina,
    Thanks for sharing your photos it's been nice following your trip.
    Lydia
    X

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  6. Fascinating Christina. How opulent some of the buildings are - it must have taken a canny few pots of gilding flakes to do those walls!! Pat x

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  7. Hi Christina
    Thanks for the tour round St Petersburg with you. It looks fabulous.

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  8. Good Morning Christina :) Wow! Wow! and Wow! OMG...I have never seen such grandeur. I'm am amazed and in awe! Thank you Dear Lady for sharing your wonderful journey with us. I have sooooooo enjoyed. Looking forward to tomorrow's stop. If I've calculated right, your show should be coming on in about twenty minutes, 7:00 a.m. Michigan time, and I always look forward to a look/see. Enjoy a glorious day. Big Hugs.

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  9. Absolutely stunning - thank you, Christina. xx

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  10. Hi Christina looks truly amazing, I bet you will remember that holiday for a long time.
    Kind regards
    Anne Owens

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  11. What an amazing trip that must have been???? Just STUNNING!

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  12. Hi Christina, wow! What stunning buildings, these photo's are fabulous, I am amazed how the colours of the buildings withstand the weather and stay so glorious, as for the insides well words fail me! Thanks for the tour.
    Regards Liz

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  13. Breathtakingly Beautiful Christina...thank you so much! I almost feel like I have been to Russia now....enjoyed the visit!
    Paper Hugs,
    Jan

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  14. Your trip looked fab, today's shows were a big hit with my granddaughter an we got her the sapphire. Take Care Melody xxx

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  15. How beautiful, thank you for sharing your travels with us....luv Ursula xx

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