Due to some confusion over timing of tickets, we headed for breakfast, yawning, then straight on to the Hermitage Museum.
With 4 million exhibit items and 400+ rooms, this must be the largest, busiest, and most gilded museum in the universe.
Whether display room, staircase or chapel, there was gold everywhere!
Whew!
( Note to self, if I ever get this rich, don't flaunt it so. )
Leaving this grandeur behind, we went for a simple luncheon at Restaurant 1913.
Afterwards we checked into our hotel, marveled at the tiny rooms (what!) and took showers and naps. A few of us wandered about on our own, finding books, jewelry and icons for sale.
Roaring Ferraris outside on the street successfully kept us from visualizing the small port founded by Peter the Great in 1703.
After naps, laundry and a dinner in the hotel, most of us are heading for our beds. Others took a stroll down the busy and unhappily "aromatic" streets.
This is Not a Quiet Neighborhood; the in-room notice book advises earplugs!
