Russia and China

 I walked 4 km to visit the Botanical Gardens of Peter the Great, which was disappointingly small (especially after my visit to the impressive Grand Peterhof Palace gardens). This Botanical Garden was founded in 1714 by order of Peter the Great as the Apothecary's Garden.  I then walked with two new friends to a shopping warehouse Mark (like Costco) and a shopping mall. They are flying back to China so need to get gifts. I only got some chocolate and cookies to eat here.  I stopped by Eliseyev Emporium a shop opened by an immensely wealthy family of merchants who dominated the market for fine wines in Russia. The ground floor of the building was divided into three retail halls, all featuring sumptuous glass and bronze decoration, while the first floor housed a restaurant and a theatre. It is now a specialty store for meat and fish delicacies, hand-made chocolate, cheese, local homemade bakery, desserts, alcohol and nice gifts.

 I got a subway card to ride the subway to met up with my new friends at the local bus transit station to ride to the grand Peterhof Palace夏宮 Петергоф （Большой Петергофский дворец）.  The lower park was created by J.-B. Le Blond, a talented student of the creator of the Versailles gardens, A. Le Nostre, thus often referred to as the “Russian Versailles.” The Lower Park is divided into three connecting parts: central ("Grand"), western ("Marly") and eastern ("Monplaisir"). It has 150 fountains within an area of 102,5 hectares, Including the trick fountains: the "Little Oak", the "Umbrella", "Little firs", the "Water road" and "Benches". We spent 4-5 hours there, then took a speed boat back to town (behind the Winter Palace.  Our last sight of the day was 書之家 House Of Books, which is recognized as a historical landmark and has official status as an object of Russian cultural heritage. The building was construc...

 I spent 6 hours visiting the Hermitage Museum/The Winter Palace, a massive palace-museum showing the highlights of a collection of over 3,000,000 pieces of international art, primarily western European art. The Winter Palace is the former main residence of the Russian tsars. Hermitage is relatively modest in terms of interior decoration in comparison with the Royal Palace of Madrid and the Palace of Versailles, although they all have huge collections. Hermitage doesn’t have enough WC for the amount of visitors, and the air conditioning was uneven. Yet it charged the lowest among the top renown palace museums, only $5.5 ( less than my new Russian debit card fee). Hermitage displays priceless works by Rembrandt, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rubens and more, including many pieces that were looted from Central and Eastern Europe by the Red Army during World War II. I ran into two Chinese tamale travelers when waiting in line via the security check.  They rent Chinese Audio guide with ...