Picture Perfect Day

The weather today was Fabulous!  And I spent most of the day inside......looking at fabulous pictures....or should I say paintings?

Today was my one opportunity to see the Hermitage, also known as the Winter Castle. The place was unbelievable.

In fact, it literally took me an hour to get to the exit because I kept getting lost. Once again, the floor layout numbers would change randomly, and I'd find myself in yet another fascinating room worth investigating.

The state rooms were definitely the largest and most ornate that I've ever seen.

As if the rooms weren't enough in of themselves, the place is filled with original paintings of the Masters: Picasso, Monet, Matisse, Ruben, just to name a few.

I spotted many of my favorites.

And some with unfamiliar names that caught my eye.

I was a bit confused to see Murillo's Assumption in this museum, supposedly from 1779, since I'm pretty sure I saw it in the Prado in Madrid several years ago. If you figure that one out, I'd be interested in knowing.

I spent nearly 6 hours exploring the rooms in the Hermitage and am fairly certain that there were many that I missed. But with my tour book, I'm sure that I saw most of the higlights, and I really did have my fill of paintings and glitz and my feet were screaming when I walked out the door.

This evening found us in Peter Paul fortress for a banquet. It really was a very nice affair, which featured a lot of Russian specialities: salmon, pike, herring, caviar and vodka, none of which I felt the need to partake. Actually, I tried the caviar but didn't care for it.

I was a bit surprised to see some tables finish off an entire bottle of vodka as if it were water. Come to think of it, there were quite a few happy people when we left the place.

I captured a photo of the cathedral lit up at night with the moon just above the horizon.

 A perfect evening to a lovely day.