Yesterday we went to the State Hermitage Museum. We got there just before 10:30 which is opening time, to be greeted by a line about 75m long! Luckily it moved reasonably quickly and we were inside the museum within about 1/2 an hour.
The museum is largely housed in the old Winter Palace of the tsars which makes opulent seem like an understatement. Some of the rooms were works of art in themselves, if somewhat unsubtle !!! Massive staircases, columns lining the walls, gilt ceilings, massive chandeliers - you name it.
We spent about 4 hours wandering through room after room with paintings lining the walls and sculptures providing obstacles in the middle of the rooms for the huge crowds. Out of the window I counted about 30 tour buses parked outside!! Trying to go against the flow of the tour groups lining up for a DaVinci painiting was quite an onerous task!
The collection was impressive but unfortunately I'm not the biggest appreciator of art so most of the artists/periods/styles etc elude me. There were a lot of Monets, Picassos, Matisses, Van Goghs, Cezanne, Gauguins - a lot of which were plundered from private collections during world war II.
St Petersburg has been a completely different experience to Moscow. Very scenic and a bit more relaxed. That said, I am willing to start up a fund for another Metro station at the end of Nevskii Prospect (the main drag). I walked that stretch a little too often in the few days we have been here.
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