To get there I had to go on a bit of an adventure. I took the Metro from Vosstaniya to Baltiskaya, then I walked out of the station and took a маршрутка or mini bus. It was the cheapest of all the options to get to Peterhof. Sure, I could have taken the hydrofoil but it was a ton of money and I wanted to take public transport for the thrill of it! Apparently, on a маршрутка the bus driver is the guy you pay and he gives you change while he drives. . . scary huh? At any rate, I made it and it only cost me about 70 rubles or the equivalent of about $2.50 or something like that. The bus dropped me off right out side of the Upper Garden at about 11:00am and I bought a ticket to Lower Garden (to see the fountains and the palace grounds) and then immediately started queuing to get a ticket for the Grand Palace. I waited in line for an about an hour. Then it started raining.
Peterhof
Side Story Time! Yesterday, at Tsarskoe Selo, it started raining before I got off the bus. I panicked and bought a poncho for like $8 thinking we would be outside a lot and I did not have my North Face jacket with me. Turned out that I only needed it for like 5 minutes as we walked to Catherine's palace and not afterwards in the surrounding gardens the so I felt like a total dummy. Today, I got my money's worth.
Back to Peterhof. After I got inside the ticket office I thought I would immediately get to go inside the palace. Not so! I had to queue outside with ticket holders to get in. In the second line, I waited another hour in the rain but luckily I had my poncho and stayed dry. When I got inside we put on shoe covers to protect the parquet flooring and were ushered through in groups. Included in the price was a tour guide and a headset to hear the tour guide, only it was in Russian. Thinking back now, I should have gotten it anyway. Thankfully, my Rough Guide had a walk through. Seriously, this book has gotten me through so much. I hate to give a shameless plug for a tour book, but honestly it covers so much.
Rough Guide to St. Petersburg
After the palace, the rain stopped and for the rest of my time there it was a beautiful day with blue skies and big puffy white clouds. I checked out the grounds and made sure to see at least every major fountain. I think my favorite was pyramid fountain, but really they were all excellent.
Pyramid Fountain
Next to the palace grounds is Alexandria Park--a huge, mostly depopulated park with the Cottage Palace where Nicholas I and successive generations of Romanov's lived in a normal sized (by American standards) house. To visit it I had to exit Peterhof and buy a ticket for that park. Once at the cottage I had to buy a ticket there as well. Are you getting this? Everything is compartmentalized. I had to buy 4 tickets today! Too see everything, which is crazy, would cost thousands of rubles. At the ticket office the I thought the price was 200 rubles but it turned out to be 400 rubles. My heart sort of sank as I only had a few hundred rubles with me and I needed at least 70 to get back. The girl there asked me if I was a student and I replied that I was not. She said something after that that I quickly realized meant that she wanted me to fake being a student. OK! I gave her my CA drivers license, she looked at it and in a wink-kind-of-way gave it back to me and only charged me 200 rubles. That's Russia for you.
Cottage Palace
The cottage was especially neat as it was more intimate than the palaces I've seen. You could see beds, sinks, and personal belongings on display as they would have been nearly 200 years ago. For my last hour or so in the park I strolled Alexandria park and snapped shots of scenic areas. This place would serve as a great picnic spot and a safe place for kids to run around without worry of creepy types.
The trip back home was relatively easy. I walked back to where the bus dropped me off. When the sign didn't have my bus' number, I asked a local and she helped me. I did have to stand most of the way back though as the bus was packed.
I will miss St. Petersburg. The people here are nice even though they don't smile much, I was able to brush up on my Russian and use it to get by in a few instances, and the stay with Irina and her family has been great. I knew I was taking a risk staying with a Russian family I did not know, but I really think it gave me a more authentic Russian experience than staying in a hotel or hostel. Tomorrow, I leave St. Petersburg on a train for Helsinki where I will spend a day then catch my flight home. I am super excited to see my wife and kids! I'll blog along the way if there is wifi available.
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