St Petersburg - Day 3 cont/d

After lunch we walked back along Nevsky Prospekt.

Past the bust of poet Vasily Zhukovsky in the Alexandrovsky Gardens.

And on to St Isaac's Cathedral.

After climbing 262 steps of the tower you go up a short flight of metal steps (luckily for Ian encased in glass).

Then you can walk around the colonnade for a 360° view of the city rooftops.

The blue domed  building is Trinity Cathedral which we never found (probably would have been closed anyway!)

The inside of the cathedral was stunning, especially the ceiling.

Not a true shot, I blew out the white clouds so decided to play around with a new sky.

We then headed for a boat ride, via our hotel and Nevsky Prospekt.

I thought this decoration on a wedding car was lovely and had to chase it down the street and hope the traffic lights turned red so I could catch a shot.

Again it was a Hop On/Off but the weather was a bit iffy and we were tired, so we just sat back and looked at the passing scenery which wasn't overly inspiring.

A wedding celebration on what looked like a pontoon.

Unfortunately we'd missed the only English commentary trip of the day but the Russian one was amazing, it was live and the woman did not stop to draw breath once during the whole hour.

My dismissal of StP's canals is probably unfair, there are loads of bridges so there must be a lot more waterways we didn't see.

We've found Trinity Cathedral but fatigue stopped us getting off to explore.

Goodness knows that this hideous building was designed for.

A Department Store.

By now it was Blue Hour (generally the hour after the sun has set).

There are special night cruises which focus on the 12 draw bridges which are raised in sequence from about 12 midnight to 5am to allow larger commercial traffic through.  An amazing sight during the White Nights (June/July) when the sun barely sets but certainly too dark and chilly end September for us to do.  Besides we didn't fancy the walk back to our hotel at dead of night, especially as you have to make sure the bridge you want to cross hasn't opened and left you stranded on the wrong side of the river.

This car was so low profile it was unbelievable - especially as somehow it had managed to drive up a 6" kerb to park on the pavement.

Back to our little supermarket to get Ian a bottle of wine and then a nice meal in the bistro of our hotel.