With our guide for our first morning in St. Petersburg, Marina, at the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.  One of the newest churches in St. P., finished in 1907.  The name refers to its site, where tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. Notice the Seattle-like weather, normal, we hear for St. Petersburg.  Marina has recently married an American she met on a tour she led.  He lives in Houston, and she quizzed about it.  She is going to miss St. Petersburg.

St. Nicholas Cathedral, a church in the Russian baroque style.  Not the most famous church in St. Petersburg, but the interior decorations and the chanted liturgy made it one of our favorite stops.

The Winter Palace from Palace Square.  This is the back entrance, and the long line is the group line to enter the Hermitage Museum, the mammoth gallery of European art housed in the Winter Palace and the adjoining Hermitage.