St. Petersburg ~ Day 5

The Hermitage, (1754-1761, Russian Baroque and Rococo). Okay, so I know what I said earlier about only picking one Palace. But now I know, you should PICK TWO! The Hermitage was stunning. Grand, beautiful, ornate, rich, tasteful and simply magnificent. Fortunately, it was not affected in WWII the way Catherine's Palace was. I don't know how or if they protected the artwork but the site itself was not involved in the war. Nonetheless, the Hermitage has had its troubles. In 1830 a section of it barely survived a major fire and in 1917 there were some nasty vandals. As you can imagine there is a lot of interesting history regarding the local individuals who restore, protect and keep it alive and well to this day.

Most of the collection, which reaches almost 3 million pieces, comes from private collections. Unbelievably, only 5-10% is ever on display at one time. We spent about 4.5 hours drooling puddles along the beautiful mosaic wood floors and steaming the art with our dissecting eyes. The Dutch Masters were wonderful and in full vivid presence just as one would expect. From what I've heard, this is one of the biggest collections in the world. I believe it. I have no idea how long I was in those rooms devouring the oils, but I'm pretty sure time stood still. I also stared down some van Gogh, a little Matisse, two Da Vinci's past all the tourist cameras (darn tourists) etc. What a day. Oh, another thing we noticed while passing from one glorious room to the next was that we passed the New Hermitage Entrance (1948, NeoGreek) where Atlantis statues support the Portico. They are so big, powerful, detailed and polished that even the veins in the feet are carved. (Well, that's what was at eye level at least: big toes, feet and veins). They are huge and actually sculpted such that they really look like they are supporting a heavy burden. Very strong Atlanti!

At home we stuffed our faces again! But only after having a totally unhealthy, yet delightfully tasty batch of 'pyshki' beforehand. These are fluffy doughy doughnuts sprinkled with icing sugar. Done Russian style: No, no, no! Not just one! Any normal person has no less than 3 with an average of 6 per serving. And you can't blame them! (or me!) They are great! And you can't forget to accompany them with the best coffee in the world! I loved it! It was the coffee little kids drink. It's like instant coffee, with lots of milk and tons of sugar.