Our pace in Russia is a bit more relaxed than the days before in Baku, allowing us ample time to eat and soak up the atmosphere of the city.

It is bitterly cold here at the moment, but, with wool will travel! 🙂

Yesterday, we spent the majority of the day with a guide exploring both St. Petersburg via walking and Pushkin via car. There is snow on the ground, the air brisk and the sky blue… the city could not have greeted us better. Let’s hope it continues!

This map below shows our walking route through the city and, after visiting Peter and Paul’s Fortress (on that small green island there), we were picked up in a car and made our way towards Pushkin after lunch.

St. Isaac’s Cathedral (Patron saint of Peter the Great)

Naval Officer Engineers running while on our walk around the city

Admiral building where they train the engineers above…

Peter and Paul’s Fortress Entrance

Peter the Great statue outside of the Fortress Cathedral. Many people disliked this statue originally due to his disproportionately tiny head!

Inside the Fortress Cathedral, just to the right of this picture is where Peter the Great is buried.

From here we continued on and ate more delicious Georgian food at a restaurant in town.

After this, it was off to Pushkin to see Catherine II’s Palace. It was like something out of a fairytale…

The interior was even more exquisite than the exterior, easily rivaling Versailles!

The exterior was just the primer for the elaborate interior that awaited us within…

Captured some details here and there…

After exploring the interior, we made our way outside to a lovely wintry sky and sunset….

More to come! ❤