Monday, 22 July (continued).  The town of Pushkin (formerly called Tsar's Village), 15 miles outside St Petersburg, has a collection of palaces. The impressive baroque Catherine Palace (1756) is the most famous of these. It was commissioned by Empress Elizabeth (daughter of Peter the Great), who named it in honor of her mother, Catherine I. Significant alterations were later made by Catherine II (the Great).

The palace was almost totally destroyed during World War II, but has since been beautifully restored. Each room displays a photo of that particular room as it looked before the restoration began. Most were little more than shattered brick walls. 

The fine furniture, paintings and sculpture, porcelain, amber, and weapons throughout the palace were outstanding. as was the Palace itself.  I could not possibly begin to describe it all here, but the pictures below should give some small idea.

Front of the Catherine Palace

Ballroom

Dining room

The Amber Room Almost everything made of amber

Urn through an archway

Picture gallery with huge porcelain stove

Wedgewood room

Rear of the Catherine Palace

After touring the interior of the Palace, we were given free time to explore the gardens before meeting at the bus at 5:00.

Traffic was terrible, and it took a full hour to get back to the Tolstoy. Most of the delay was at a single intersection where drivers on a street coming in from the right simply ignored their red light and blocked traffic in our direction. Because they could not go forward anyway and our street was wide open beyond that intersection, it would not have delayed them a minute to let us through. When we got to the boat at 6:00, we went right to dinner. We had been on the first bus, and some of the other passengers on other buses didn't get back until 7:30. Consequently, the optional Cossack show we were supposed to see that evening was postponed for a day. It had been a hard day and we retired early.