Wednesday, 24 July. After breakfast, we left by bus at 9:30 for the optional canal tour. St. Petersburg is situated on 42 islands and has many canals. It is sometimes called the Venice of the North, but there is little resemblance to Venice. Perhaps the Amsterdam of the East would be more accurate. Our tour was in a small, open boat holding about 24 passengers. It was a beautiful day, sunny and mild.

We boarded at the Moyka Canal near Palace Square, but very shortly we went left, past the Hermitage Theater, and entered the Neva River. To the left there was a great view of the Peter and Paul Fortress (with the Cathedral spire covered by scaffolding, of course). We passed a grand old sailing ship and could see a large, blue-domed mosque beyond it. Just as we passed the front of Peter I's Summer Palace, we turned right into the Fontanka Canal along side it, giving us an excellent view of the Palace garden.

Peter and Paul Fortress

Mosque & old ship

Another boat like ours

Engineer's Castle

Continuing down the Fontanka Canal, we passed many buildings that once were minor palaces. The larger Anichkov Palace stands right at the Nevsky Prospect bridge named for it. The next bridge (Lomonosova) was very picturesque, with two towers on each side of its narrow drawbridge. We could see the blue domes of a large cathedral between the towers. A little further on, we turned right into the smaller Kriukov Canal. This took us past beautiful St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral (1762) with its golden spire and domes.

Lomonosova Bridge

Jane & Darrell

St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral

St. Isaac Cathedral Palaces along Moyka Canal

The bus got us back to the Tolstoy for lunch at 11:45. Just over an hour later, we were on the bus, headed for the optional tour to Peterhof (Petrodvorets).