This is a continuation of the first day that we spent in St. Petersburg, Russia
It is lunch time and this is where we had our lunch at.
They had some sort of butter balls on the table. They were green in color.
Desert was pretty decent but the rest of the meal was forgettable. So much so that I did not even bother taking any photos of it.
This open air market carried a lot of souvenirs and other items. The vendors were willing to negotiate the prices on their items. We got a good price on one of those wood carved Santa pieces.
Below is a photo of the outside of the Hermitage. A person could spend a month inside trying to see everything that they had in there. There was art work and sculptures by all of the well known masters.
It was absolutely decadent the amount of gold and gold leaf that was used in the museums and palaces here in Russia
There were many rooms where we were not allowed to take any type of photography and then there were rooms where you could photograph but could not use any flash.
In both the museums and palaces, I took quite a number of chandelier photos because in each room the chandeliers were different and they were all so ornate in design
As we were leaving the Hermitage, we found this cat sleeping on a couch in the main lobby area, right near the font doors. This cat was oblivious to the fact that there were hundreds of people walking in and out and were talking loudly and hanging out in the lobby area, where this couch was at.
Below are some of the souvenirs that were sold in many of the shops. The quality of the items differed between shop to shop
These are Matryoshka Dolls, also known as Russian nesting dolls or Bubushka dolls, which are a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one inside the other and some of these sets are absolutely beautiful and very ornate...all of the good ones are hand painted. You can spend into the thousands of dollars for a top of the line hand painted set. The had a really big set that had a total of 30 dolls in it. This set retailed for around $3,000.00 Personally, I am not really into the dolls but what I am into are the wood carved Santas that are shown a few photos down below
I find these wood carved and hand painted Sants really beautiful. They are usually signed by the artist and you can spend a little money for a real small one and up into the hundreds, if not more for the much larger ones. It one is ornate and as distinct as the artist that made it. Another big item In Russia are the laquered boxes. I saw some really beautiful ones but the were very costly.
After the day was done, we were treated to this beautiful Russian sunset.
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