Day 12.       St.Petersburg

Thursday night we went to a Russian Folk Show .( we could have chosen the Ballet)This proved to be a great show with lots of dancing, singing and music. The costumes were really colorful and the agility of the dancers was a pure delight.This was held in yet another palace with sweeping marble staircase etc.The tickets don't show a specific seat preference so talk about push and shove up the stairs! The drive back to the ship looking at all the magnificent buildings lit up to show their assets was special too.It was after midnight to bed so another late night.

Then this morning up bright and early and on the coach for a 30min drive to Peterhof Palace passing Vladamir Putin's well fortified castle on the way, set in beautiful park grounds - and why not I guess.Peterhopf Palace was another sight to behold with lots of blues and whites and gold, gold gold!The Great Palace rises like a golden curtain at the far end of Marine Canal (lots of canals in city )  and from where yachts once entered with important visitors.Leading down from the hill is the Grand Cascade with some of the 176 fountains with a golden Samson as the focal  one shooting water 21meters in the air. It truly is a magnificent sight and especially as all fountains are gravity  fed- what wonderful architects and artists they must have been. It sure makes you wonder why Brisbane can't have at least one fountain.Back to the ship by Hydrofoil (30mins) to escape the ???? Traffic, gobble down our lunch, before taking off to city again to visit Yusupov Palace, the site of death of Rasputin.This was not as opulent as others and very different in design but still another wonder.Unfortunately most,of the significant items are now in The Hermitage Museum but I did enjoy the different style and decor.To escape the horrendous traffic we luckily were able to return to ship by Hydrofoil arriving at 7pm just in time for our last dinner on board with lots of goodbyes to be made and to get busy packing for our 3.30ama wake up to get taxi to the airport for our am flight .Most of the passengers on this Russian cruise are from Australia and New Zealand plus a few English .

                            Day 13  - St.Petersberg - Berlin-Rome

Off in taxi at 4.30am with Bob and Venesia Bailosaw(?) for airport. Well what a schmoozle that place is - terribly small and overcrowded and inefficient.Eventually we found our gate hidden behind a pillar like some afterthought(which I guess it is)  and stood in a queue for nearly an hour then in another queue for customs, ( Eric had to take shoes and belt off )just making it through 5 mins before boarding.But that wasn't the end of it as we  then got wet catching shuttle out to plane and sat on board in very stuffy air for yet another hour as a passenger didn't show and his luggage had to be offloaded! One and half hours later we landed in Berlin and another wet shuttle to terminal and huge slow moving ( dare I mention )queue again before running now half hour after we were supposed to board through another Customs check where I even had to remove a chiffon scarf (?) before another dash to our supposed Gate with Eric trying to replace his belt shoes etc and needing a comfort stop. Then the Gate No had changed and it was a further quick move to get on the tail end of our boarding queue before another wet dash to get yet another shuttle bus out to our flight to Rome where we sat all strapped in for a further 30mins.People used to say Brisbane was backward when we had to walk out onto Tarmac to board, well!

Another smooth flight here to Rome to be met by our cruise hostess and eventually walked the 10mins to our Rome Airport Hilton and check-in.The first thing I did was take a nap while Eric went for a snack and a bit of a look see. We could take a shuttle to city but it all seems a bit tiring just now.

Have I mentioned about queues today? It sure makes you wonder why travel is so difficult. Luckily we weren't with Lufthansa though as they have been on strike for a week or so only returning today.

Note: St.Petersberg has plans for a huge new airport - not before time!!!

Had a short rest this  afternoon then went for a short walk back to the airport and had a light pasta dinner  and Magnum before returning to the Airport Hilton. 

                              Day 14   Rome

Still dark when we woke up so showered and got dressed .We then noticed the mobile phone clock had not changed and was 2 hours ahead of the local time so instead of getting up at 7am it turned out it was only 5am. We then went for a short walk outside the hotel then walked to the airport (10 mins) and watched the coming and goings of passengers. Back to the hotel for a scrumptious buffet brecky and then to the room to read and pack our ports and have them down to the lobby by 10.15am. What a cacophony of sound met us as 400 people are arriving for a national tennis conference . They seem to be all men with very trendy clothes and tans and not a tennis racquet in sight but plenty of loud noisy conversation with much kissing of cheeks etc. The coach arrived at midday to take us to the ship which took just on one hour.

Unlike previous Princess Cruise, the embarkation was very well organized with lots of staff directing us where to go and I guess it only took about 15 minutes to get on board and to our stateroom. The "Crown Princess" is 952 ft. long, 113,000 tons and for this voyage has 3,500 passengers - 1,000of which are Americans, 700 From Canada, 400 from England and the rest from all over the place incl. Australia. I'm guessing but there would have to be at least 1,000 crew- they are absolutely everywhere. Unfortunately our brand new suitcase arrived on board in a somewhat damaged condition so we had to empty everything out of it and take it to the reception counter . They will let us know in a couple of days if it can be repaired on board otherwise we will have to get another before we disembark .Its now 10.30pm and Monica has been in bed asleep for about an hour. I better get to bed now as there is a big day of activities tomorrow. I got the iPad fixed up for Wi-Fi today so hopefully I can send my Blogs off tomorrow. We are sailing all day ( Monday ) so should have time to get this off.