Day 18 - Peter and Paul Fortress and Leningradsky Zoo
So I'm back at work today, but still 4 days behind in writeups. I just edited all of my pictures though and there should be over 40 new ones coming at you within the next 3-4 posts before I wrap it all up. Hope you enjoy!
We got up the next morning and headed back to the very cold park that we got lost in the day before, thankfully this time we had a pretty good understanding of how to get where we wanted to since we'd seen all around the icy place previously and thus made our way over to the bridge that connects to the island that the Peter and Paul Fortress sits on.
On the way we spotted this monument which we suspect was about the floods that happened in 1824
This was directly across the road from this very pretty mosque, this is a terrible shot of it, but we couldn't get a look inside as it was still in use.
A shot of the park we got lost in, it was very pretty in a winter wonderland kind of way
And then there was this strange fort thing in the middle of it that people were sledding off that had a sale sign for seemingly no reason as it didn't appear to be a store
One thing I loved about Russia was the crests and insignia on everything, this was just a fence in the park, and this kind of thing was everywhere
Peter and Paul Fortress from a distance across the bridge
So we walked across the bridge into Peter and Paul Fortress and bought a ticket. It seems you can wander around the grounds for free, but you need a ticket to go inside any of the buildings. For some bizarre reason though you need to buy a completely separate ticket to go up onto the walls. You'd think it'd be included with the pass for everything, but apparently not, as such we just ignored that part and first checked out a little mini museum area where they'd detailed the building of the fortress as well as showcased a lot of relics from it's inhabitants.
I don't have heaps of photos of the place though as Mon was mostly taking the shots, I recommend checking out her journal here for more pics - http://kawaii-mon.livejournal.com/617241.html
This is a replica of the huge angel that's on top of the spire of the church, you can see it in the last picture, the spire is huge, I think something like 70m tall, and the angel is a few meters tall herself.
After spending quite a lot of time there and defrosting our poor toes we headed off to see the church, definitely one of the major attractions, but sadly under restoration at the time, so a lot of the icons had been removed and things were covered in sheets of plastic.
The altar was still very impressive, though I couldn't get a shot without someone getting in the way
There were large tombs for many famous people, but they were all written in old Russian and I just stared at them blankly for a minute before giving up. I believe Peter the Great and Catherine of similar greatness were there though.
The other sections of the fortress didn't excite us too much, from the signs there seemed to be areas where you could pay to dress up in bad period costumes and have your picture taken, and some kind of horror show thing, but we ended up just checking out the Prison and moving on. The Prison was interesting for a while, but they suffered from having not a lot to really show, all the cells were the same and while there were a lot of plaques listing people who had been imprisoned there, including famous writers and revolutionaries, it all got a bit repetitive and we decided to head off to the Zoo.
The Leningradsky Zoo is sadly underfunded, and seems a bit backwards when you compare it to Australian Zoos in their current state. Hopefully in time they'll be able to improve, we're told the Moscow Zoo is a lot better, but this was mostly just cages and some mostly concrete enclosures where the animals looked cold and fairly bored. The main reason we went though was because I wanted to see polar bears and Mon wanted to see wolves, both of which this Zoo definitely delivered on.
This polar bear was very cute, she seemed a lot more laid back than the other, which I think might have been her son
He seemed a bit more excitable, especially given when we got there it seemed to be around feeding time
She did decide to get up while we were there though and have a little wander around
Which involved adorably sliding down this section of ice to get down into the rest of the enclosure
They had a quick sniff and greet
And then the son bounded off up the slippery slope to claim the top area again, and seemed rather proud of his victory
We also spotted these Ravens, which were very very big, and just the way I imagine Byrne to look in crow form
They seemed very interested by our presence and very happy to play
Even trying to work his way out of the cage to get closer to us
But then dejectedly accepting his fate
There were 3 wolves in total, but of the first 2, one seemed a little distracted and paced the length of their enclosure the whole time we were there, we weren't sure if this was because of feeding time, or if he was actually upset.
This guy was in another area though, and seemed a lot happier, even to the point of jumping up against the glass like a dog. Perhaps the first wolf was missing him, we're not sure, but he was adorable and we spent a lot of time watching him before dragging our way quickly around the rest of the animals and hurrying back inside before we froze to death.
After that we decided we'd had enough walking around in -18c temperatures for the day and decided to head back to the hotel, though not before stopping at a little Georgian Restaurant nearby which turned out to be some of the best food we had all trip. I had a lamb stew in ratatouille thing that was very rich but also very fresh, and Mon had something similar involving just the meat with a separate ratatouille. We also had this really nice cheese bread that is like a pide filled with this sweet gooey cheese. We had a version with spinach too but it overpowered the cheese and wasn't as nice. I had a Russian beer to top it all off and we plodded back to the hotel full and very happy.
More soon! Now I'm off to lunch.
We got up the next morning and headed back to the very cold park that we got lost in the day before, thankfully this time we had a pretty good understanding of how to get where we wanted to since we'd seen all around the icy place previously and thus made our way over to the bridge that connects to the island that the Peter and Paul Fortress sits on.
On the way we spotted this monument which we suspect was about the floods that happened in 1824
This was directly across the road from this very pretty mosque, this is a terrible shot of it, but we couldn't get a look inside as it was still in use.
A shot of the park we got lost in, it was very pretty in a winter wonderland kind of way
And then there was this strange fort thing in the middle of it that people were sledding off that had a sale sign for seemingly no reason as it didn't appear to be a store
One thing I loved about Russia was the crests and insignia on everything, this was just a fence in the park, and this kind of thing was everywhere
Peter and Paul Fortress from a distance across the bridge
So we walked across the bridge into Peter and Paul Fortress and bought a ticket. It seems you can wander around the grounds for free, but you need a ticket to go inside any of the buildings. For some bizarre reason though you need to buy a completely separate ticket to go up onto the walls. You'd think it'd be included with the pass for everything, but apparently not, as such we just ignored that part and first checked out a little mini museum area where they'd detailed the building of the fortress as well as showcased a lot of relics from it's inhabitants.
I don't have heaps of photos of the place though as Mon was mostly taking the shots, I recommend checking out her journal here for more pics - http://kawaii-mon.livejournal.com/617241.html
This is a replica of the huge angel that's on top of the spire of the church, you can see it in the last picture, the spire is huge, I think something like 70m tall, and the angel is a few meters tall herself.
After spending quite a lot of time there and defrosting our poor toes we headed off to see the church, definitely one of the major attractions, but sadly under restoration at the time, so a lot of the icons had been removed and things were covered in sheets of plastic.
The altar was still very impressive, though I couldn't get a shot without someone getting in the way
There were large tombs for many famous people, but they were all written in old Russian and I just stared at them blankly for a minute before giving up. I believe Peter the Great and Catherine of similar greatness were there though.
The other sections of the fortress didn't excite us too much, from the signs there seemed to be areas where you could pay to dress up in bad period costumes and have your picture taken, and some kind of horror show thing, but we ended up just checking out the Prison and moving on. The Prison was interesting for a while, but they suffered from having not a lot to really show, all the cells were the same and while there were a lot of plaques listing people who had been imprisoned there, including famous writers and revolutionaries, it all got a bit repetitive and we decided to head off to the Zoo.
The Leningradsky Zoo is sadly underfunded, and seems a bit backwards when you compare it to Australian Zoos in their current state. Hopefully in time they'll be able to improve, we're told the Moscow Zoo is a lot better, but this was mostly just cages and some mostly concrete enclosures where the animals looked cold and fairly bored. The main reason we went though was because I wanted to see polar bears and Mon wanted to see wolves, both of which this Zoo definitely delivered on.
This polar bear was very cute, she seemed a lot more laid back than the other, which I think might have been her son
He seemed a bit more excitable, especially given when we got there it seemed to be around feeding time
She did decide to get up while we were there though and have a little wander around
Which involved adorably sliding down this section of ice to get down into the rest of the enclosure
They had a quick sniff and greet
And then the son bounded off up the slippery slope to claim the top area again, and seemed rather proud of his victory
We also spotted these Ravens, which were very very big, and just the way I imagine Byrne to look in crow form
They seemed very interested by our presence and very happy to play
Even trying to work his way out of the cage to get closer to us
But then dejectedly accepting his fate
There were 3 wolves in total, but of the first 2, one seemed a little distracted and paced the length of their enclosure the whole time we were there, we weren't sure if this was because of feeding time, or if he was actually upset.
This guy was in another area though, and seemed a lot happier, even to the point of jumping up against the glass like a dog. Perhaps the first wolf was missing him, we're not sure, but he was adorable and we spent a lot of time watching him before dragging our way quickly around the rest of the animals and hurrying back inside before we froze to death.
After that we decided we'd had enough walking around in -18c temperatures for the day and decided to head back to the hotel, though not before stopping at a little Georgian Restaurant nearby which turned out to be some of the best food we had all trip. I had a lamb stew in ratatouille thing that was very rich but also very fresh, and Mon had something similar involving just the meat with a separate ratatouille. We also had this really nice cheese bread that is like a pide filled with this sweet gooey cheese. We had a version with spinach too but it overpowered the cheese and wasn't as nice. I had a Russian beer to top it all off and we plodded back to the hotel full and very happy.
More soon! Now I'm off to lunch.