June 29th – After our exciting evening yesterday, it was a bit hard to rise and shine this morning…but by 8:15 a.m. we were on the bus headed to The Hermitage Museum. The second largest museum in the world, it was founded in 1764 to house Catherine the Great’s large art collection. It has been opened to the public since 1852. There are about three million items, only one-third of which are on display. The displays are arranged throughout six historic buildings on the Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace (pictures below), former residence of Russian Tsars. Many of the rooms are just as ornate as we saw in the palace yesterday. Someone has calculated that it would take 13 years to see all of the artwork on display. Needless to say, we saw only a few of the important items.

Our tour also included a tour of the Gold Room, a collection of rare jewellery and artifacts dating back as far as the 6th century B.C. There was an amazing array of items unearthed from burial mounds of the nomadic people of the Altaic region. This grouping included gold leaf head pieces, bracelets, buttons and other objects considered both precious and necessary to be interred with the bodies. It was quite amazing to see the quality and fine craftsmanship of these pieces.

A small selection of the Romanov family jewels were also on display as were gifts to the family from foreign governments. These displays included snuff boxes, watches, barrettes and combs, gold tea sets, horse tack, swords, etc. Quite awe inspiring!

The rest of the day was spent catching up on sleep, email and writing this blog because one day melds into the other very quickly.