Hermitage

Our first day in St. Petersburg was spent traversing Nevsky Prospekt (a major and famous street); looking around; arranging visa registration; cashing money orders; all that travel stuff. I snapped some pictures as we walked about.

The following day, with poor weather, was better spent in a museum; The Hermitage.

Pictures: Craig's

The Hermitage Museum (Эрмитаж) in St. Petersburg, Russia is one of the largest, oldest and most important art galleries in the world. The vast Hermitage collections are displayed in six buildings, the main one being the Winter Palace which used to be the official residence of the Russian Tsars.
- Wikipedia

We ripped the Hermitage pages from our Russia Lonely Planet guide, rented an audio guide, and set about exploring this massive building. The building itself has a long history and the art inside was just as old. It took us all day to work our way through the maze of halls filled with artwork, grand architecture, and antiques. You can take a virtual tour of the Hermitage from the comfort of your home!
It was awesome to see the paintings of artists I studied in OAC art class; I even remembered seeing some of the paintings on slides. Many of them had an audio number to punch into our little audio-guide-cell-phone which we put near both of our ears to listen to some history.
The rooms themselves were architectural pieces of art; grandiose in scale, detail and design.