Saturday 12 July

We docked in St Petersburg just before 8am & soon after we were on the buses to do a tour of the city. This is a great way to get an overview & to see the main sights. We stopped at a number of places to get out & take photos. As with Moscow, St Petersburg is very clean with many parks & gardens. In parts it looks like Paris with similar style of buildings & none higher than 3 stories. There are a multitude of palaces as many royals & nobles had at least one if not more. Following the bus tour we did an hour long canal cruise on many of the waterways that flow through the city (often called the Venice of the north).

Again it was a beautiful sunny day & during our free time we walked around the Main Street area discovering interesting arcades & enjoying lunch (after waiting 45 minutes for it) in a street cafe.we were back on board the ship at 3.30pm to have an early dinner & rest up for our evening at the ballet!

We went to see Swan Lake performed in a small theatre (250 people) in the Hermitage which was formerly Catherine the Greats palace - the theatre was her own private one. The ballet was a wonderful experience - the principals were marvellous but maybe some of the corps de ballet could have been more polished. It was certainly exciting to see Tchaikovsky's Russian ballet performed here where it originated.