Where to begin? Today we visited the Hermitage, one of the world’s great museums. The collection is so vast that it would take 7 years to view everything if you only spend one minute at each piece and view nonstop 24 hours a day.
The Winter Palace is the entrance to the buildings that make up the Hermitage museum. Originally built (1754-62) as a winter residence for the royal family, the exterior has changed little but over the years each resident has made major and minor changes. Other buildings include the small Hermitage, the large Hermitage -built to house Catherine the Great’s collection of art, the new Hermitage and still there is not enough space to display the entire collection.
This morning our tour focused on the Winter Palace and the architecture, then we went on to view paintings by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Da Vinci, Titian, El Greco and the names go on. The collection spans the centuries as private collections seized by the communists were brought to the Hermitage. They did sell some of the collection, maybe pieces no one liked, but for the most part the collection stayed intact.
This afternoon we toured the antiquities section. We were blessed with a curator who not only is knowledgable, but is passionate about the collection, wants to share her knowledge and speaks very good English. The statues, pottery and other artifacts were well displayed which added to the experience.
The crowds at the museum are overwhelming, with 16,000 people visiting on an average day. If there are several cruise ships with many thousand passengers each in town, seeing anything can be impossible. We were fortunate to be here a bit before high season so maybe only 15,000 people were in the museum. 
The antiquities section is less popular. For many exhibits, our small group had the room to ourselves.
We had a little time at the end of the tour to visit the gift shop or the cafe. We opted for the cafe and I spent my $1 on 30 minutes of Internet time. With everything in Russian, except the keyboard, logging on to Facebook was a bit of a challenge. And the support staff didn’t speak English. We finally figured it out with patience, pointing at the screen and guessing correctly. While I was trying to log in to Facebook, I did receive a text message on my phone from Facebook requiring me to enter a code from the text on the computer as part of my log in. Guess they wanted to make sure it was really me trying to access my account from Russia.
More of St. Petersburg tomorrow.
Waiting to enter the Hermitage
Exterior of the Winter Palace
