St Petersburg, Russia - Part 3

I told my travel agent I wanted to see the Olgas and she sent me to St Petersburg.
(Is Australian joke, Da? Is very funny. We laughink very much. Ho Ho Ho.)

Oh well, I thought it was funny so nyeh!

During our guided tour with Alex we got to sample the local tipple at a couple of galleries/souvenir shops. Alex being a guide does the usual thing of taking people to shops where he gets a little kickback from any sales. Nothing wrong with that - its the way these places get additional business. Anyway, the custom at these shops is to ply the potential customers with small samples of alcohol. At one of the shops they served vodka which I declined but Mike and Sandra gave it a try. At the other shop they served a liqueur made from cloud berries. I'd had a similar thing from Pia, a Finnish friend, a few years ago and it is quite pleasant to slurp. The small draughts of alcohol were insufficient to loosen our grip on our money however, although there was quite alot of good quality jewelry, china, and souvenirs of various kinds to tempt. The only thing purchased was at one of the shops where a small drinks/cafe is attached to it and Mike bought a bar of Russian chocolate.

Alex gave us about three hours of good sightseeing with a continuous narrative patter which probably was some stuff that the usual tourist may not get.

During our walking tour on Saturday morning we had passed a restaurant on Nevsky Pr which looked like it would be worth a visit for the evening meal. After freshening up we stepped out again into the now raining evening to walk the estimated block-and-a-half to the restaurant. It turned out to be most of the way down Nevsky towards the river and was full when we got there. Ho hum. But still, after all it was a good day and we certainly had seen a lot.