Our first day on tour started in earnest – we were woken with music at 6 .45am (wasn't this supposed to be a holiday?)  After breakfast we were met onshore by our local tour guide before boarding the buses to take in the sights of St. Petersburg. Our list for sight-seeing seemed a little excessive however as we were only in St. Petersburg for one day we had a lot to fit in. Smolny Cathedral was the first on the list followed by the very impressive Russian Orthodox Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood. This is one of the churches that adorn the Russian travel brochures - its eye catching colourful domes are hard to resist. I have to say we were all impressed. It is an architectural marvel and its domes magnificent - so well worth the visit.

This was followed by a visit to St. Isaac’s Cathedral and Vasilievsky (St Basil’s Island) and last but not least before lunch was St. Peter and Pauls Fortress and Cathedral built on Zayachy Island on the Neva River.   The cathedral is Russian Orthodox having been built between 1712 & 1733 under Peter the Great and is the first and oldest landmark in St . Petersburg. The cathedral is now the burial place of most of the Russian Emperors and Empresses from Peter the Great to Nicholas II (and his family) who were finally laid to rest in 1998. Also buried there is Catherine the Great – Empress of Russia for 34 years. It is only Peter II and Ivan VI who are not buried there.

After our visit to the fortress it was time to head to the Hotel Moscow for some much needed lunch as it was 2pm and I think many in the group were just a little "churched out". Lunch was a buffet affair and very nice! With full stomachs we boarded the bus to arrive at “The Hermitage” Museum (or Winter Palace or Catherine’s Palace – as it is known by many) to take in its well documented grandeur. The Museum was created in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great purchased a collection of 225 Flemish and Dutch paintings and needed a place to house them. Over the years the collection grew and it now takes 10 buildings to house the amazing collection .

The Hermitage contains almost three million pieces of art and artefacts and is so large it would be impossible to cover even a third of it in any given day. Our tour covered mainly the household treasures and artwork by the masters so we were fortunate to see many Van Dyck, Rubens and Rembrandts. Tired but happy we clambered aboard the bus for our return trip to the boat just in time to shower and be ready for the Captains “Welcome Cocktails” at 6.30pm after which we would set sail.

Setting sail was a fun affair with everyone on deck enjoying the atmosphere (and their cocktails). We all watched as we left our mooring and cruised slowly along the Neva River leaving St. Petersburg in our wake.

We were then invited to attend the “Welcome aboard” dinner where we were served course after course of beautiful food – I think Trevor and Sylvia gave up after the second course (Trev has met a kindred spirit in Sylvia when it comes to food), but the rest of us kept going as we didn’t want to insult our hosts. (Well, that was our excuse for eating so much!) We hadn’t known what to expect as far as food was concerned so were all pleasantly surprised with everything we were served. It was modern, well presented and extremely tasty - so it was hats off to the Chefs.

After dinner there was plenty of entertainment planned for us to enjoy however I could feel a cold coming on so after a stroll around the deck to watch the beautiful sunset - which by the way was after 10.30pm – we retired to our cabins to get some much needed rest as we would need to be fit to tackle the program planned for tomorrow.