The Church of the Spilt Blood

Today we booked a shore trip for the afternoon.
We sat and read for a short time, but then i suddenly developed really bad pains in the back and ribs, and so went back to the cabin to lie down. I slept for. 2 hours, and luckily, when I woke up felt fit enough to go out.

We wanted the freedom to look around on our own, so had booked a trip called "The Nevsky Prospekt". This is the name of the main street running through St Petersburg, named after the river Neva.

We left the ship at about 13:15 and took the coach to St Petersburg, having gone through the stony faced stare of the miserable immigration official just as before. We drove to the Square of Fine Arts, where we had been to the ballet yesterday.
After a short guided orientation walk we escaped the group
And went into a fabulous food emporium, nearby. It was decorated in an Art Nouveau style and had lots of dark wood, metal and stained glass. In the centre was a round café area topped with a huge pineapple. Around the edge were dark, wooden food displays, selling all sorts of delicious things from chocolates to caviar. There was a small musicians' gallery where a live jazz band was playing unobtrusively. It was a lovely place.

After that we wandered up and down Nevsky Prospekt. We went into a blue and white Armenian church, where a child and a baby were being baptised. Our guide had told us that the church had been an ice rink during the soviet era!!
Apparently many churches had been used for non-religious purposes during this time, but had now been returned to their proper purpose, and many people were now returning to religion.

We passed a market area where there were lots of pictures for sale. i spotted a beautiful one of a ballerina. We then walked down a side street, along side a canal towards the Church of the Resurrection of Christ - also known as Our-Saviour-of-the-Spilt-Blood, as it was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881.
As you can see, it is a very ornate and colourful Russian style onion-domed church. There was quite a crowd around the church and we decided not to go inside, but to walk back along the other side of the canal to the Nevsky Prospekt.

By this time it was quite cool and we decided to go into a shop in the hope of getting warm. We went into a fine building, originally built for the Singer Sewing Machine company, and which is now the biggest book shop in the city. It was a souvenir shop cum café, so we thought it would be warm. On our way there, we passed the market with pictures. I decided we should have the picture of the ballerina. I asked the stall owner if he had painted the picture and he said he had. We knew that Euros were readily accepted, so I asked him how much it was.
"60 Euros".
Will you do 40?".
No - "50".
OK ...45?",
Handshake and picture bought!
She is lovely! We asked the artist his name and asked him to write it on the back. He said his name with Mikhail.

We walked back to the Square of Fine Arts and the shop - Onegin - to meet the rest of the group
There were lots of souvenirs - Matrushka dolls by the thosand of all colours and sizes, christmas decorations, jewellery, fur clothing, etc. It was obviously mass-made tat, but quite expensive. It would have been nice to take some Russian christmas decorations home as pressies, but they were too expensive for what they were.

At 16:45 we piled on the coach to go back to the ship.

Our stay in St Petersburg was interesting. The centre of the city is impressive and grand, with lots of beautiful buildings, but the people seemed dour and unfriendly. Maybe this is a hangover from earlier times, but the whole place did not feel very welcoming, and is unlikely to be one we'll rush back to.

However, we have come away with a beautiful, original piece of art, so it can't be too bad.

We left harbour at 18:00 to travel north west for Helsinki.