St. Petersburg was the last stop of the river cruise. The first day was the city tour of St. Petersburg, including a 2-hour visit to the Hermitage Museum. It was a speedy tour through the crowded rooms. No one from my group got lost or ended up mixing with another tour group. That was incredible. Some of the rooms are not that big, with one group at the exit, one group in the middle listening to the guide's narration, another group was already at the entrance ready to step in.

Realizing that I didn't have a chance to take a picture of the exterior of the Hermitage, I decided to join the midnight tour on the second day, which really departed at midnight because it doesn't get dark in St. Petersburg until that time in the summer. Perhaps because of the same reason, all the buildings in St. Petersburg are not well-lit. I didn't have a chance to witness the spectacular scene of the raising of Palace Bridge, because each photo stop was 15 minutes or even less. I chose to walk to photograph the Winter Palace and the General Staff Building, leaving myself no time to walk to the river bank which was already lined up with 2 rows of tourists. At the next and last photo stop I captured the raising of Trinity Bridge, which was designed to lift and open only the first section instead of the centre part of the bridge (photo #56).

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