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Trip to St. Petersburg
Trip to St. Petersburg launched from the Olympic Terminal on Thursday evening with M/S Princess. The port was greeted by a cheerful and partly excited group waiting for the boat access. Travel time to St Petersburg took overnight, which went smoothly by exploring the ship. Many different kind of activities were available: A casino, a la carte restaurant, duty-free shop and a nightclub with its variety performances. In addition to all this was definitely the most interesting to get to know your new cabin mates.
At dawn and the receipt of a marching band we arrived to the port of St. Petersburg, which continued to travel by bus to downtown and a couple of hours-long city tour, during which we had time to visit several different locations in the very center. The tour ended to the Cathedral on the Spilled blood, which is enough to see and photograph!
After the tour, we headed to the hotel, where we had a little break while signing in. After we received our rooms, we headed back to the center for a canal tour. In the small boats were magnificent atmosphere of St. Petersburg and its thousands of lights glow, with nice new friends while listening to good music. During the cruise was great to see the city just for another perspective. Cruise, like everything else lovely time, ended and after the cruise we headed straight to enjoy dinner with traditional Russian style. Dining included many appetizer, main course and dessert and, in addition, habits from Russian culture, and ended up to the boisterous singing- and playing competitions. Surely each diner’s hungry and possible fatigue vanished during the dinner and the dining room was all the time filled with continuing gabble, loud laughter and boisterous atmosphere! It was already almost midnight at the end of the dining when the choices were to go explore St. Petersburg's nightlife or return to the hotel to sleep. After all, there was still a lot to see and to do and a long day behind.
After the night in the hotel, there was again enthusiastic students at the breakfast. The bus left right in front of the building and the direction was the Catherine’s Palace in Pushkin, about 30 km from the city center. The palace was impressive and more and more impressive rooms, paintings, ornaments, gilded details after each other and so much history to tell. Guides were able to make the great rooms to live in a different way than just individual travelers would have understood. after the palace tour we engorged in to buses and drove back to downtown to St. Isaac's Cathedral, where we visited in the afternoon.
Early evening program included a ballet in the Hermitage theater, a spectacle was “The Nutcracker” by Tchaikowsky. The performance was great, as it was expected, and surely charmed everyone in the audience. Full house also brought its share for the experience. The ballet was followed by a different culture experience, limousine tour in the city center. Several limousines had been ordered to the hotel so everyone, who wanted, could participate and then we started a nightly round in St. Petersburg sightseeing and enjoying the unique experience. Nearly two-hour tour ended at the door of the nightclub, where we spent the rest of the evening, some of us even to early morning.
On Sunday morning there was a very tired-looking bunch in the lobby of the hotel, all didn’t even wake up by 11 o'clock, when it was time to check out the hotel. Fortunately, everyone were at the port at 19 o’clock, at which time the M/S Princess Mary left towards Helsinki. Before entering the port, however, we spent the day in the world's third largest art museum, The State Hermitage Museum. 2-hour guided tour came in need, otherwise we would have got lost immediately in the big, big museum. Guide showed us the most important exhibitions and parts of the museum. After the guided tour, we had the opportunity to either remain and discover the museum by ourselves or to go to enjoy the sights of St. Petersburg for the last couple of hours. Some of us also wanted to make last-minute souvenir shopping. At 17 o’clock it was time to go to the port, where through passport control we said goodbye to St. Petersburg and got in to the ship.
A trip back to Helsinki went more peacefully than the outward journey, probably three days in St. Petersburg full of activities got each one of us exhausted. However, the program offered a lot of activities in the ship, like in the outward journey.
Monday morning at 8:30 we arrived to Helsinki, where after long queuing for the passport control, every one went their separate ways, some directly to the school and others to sleep J.
We can heartily recommend the St. Petersburg –trip to everyone, St. Petersburg is worth of seeing and experiencing as well we got a lot of new friends during the trip!
