After a lazy start to the day and repacking ready to move on this evening, we eventually headed out for a more relaxing wander through more sites of St. Petersburg. Well, more relaxed until the rain started moving in on us at least...
St. Isaac's cathedral was the first on the list, more for the colonnade walk and views across the city than anything else, that was until we went inside. We think we may have used our superlative quota yesterday but this cathedral, in which Peter the great got married, easily falls into the same category with gold levels, if possible, surpassing those of the Winter Palace. The scale was once again gargantuan - the angels over 260 steps in the air (the steps were numbered, we didn't count) were still twice human height (and gilded, obviously).
The second church of the day, the Church of Our Saviour on the Spilled Blood, which memorialises the spot where Alexander II was mortally wounded,was something else entirely. Well almost. There was gold, and marble , however every wall and spot on the ceiling was adorned with incredible mosaics. It sounds cliche to say it was indescribable, but that's the only word we could come up with. To see a space of that size covered in tiles no bigger than a thumb nail (bar the marble and gold) was truly breathtaking, and everywhere we looked there was another mosaic which would have been a masterpiece on its own, nestled in between the other biblical scenes painstakingly picked out in tiles (and not the kind B&Q dropped). All of this is maintained by and was restored (over a period of 27 years) by the artistic geniuses of the mosaic department of the University's art department.
So now to head to Moscow, all being well we should arrive bright and early tomorrow morning ready to explore the capital.
What we came to St. Isaac's for...
And what we got as well.
And the mosaics
Even the outside is gorgeous
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