Peter and Paul Fortress

The Peter and Paul Fortress (Saint Peter and Saint Paul, that is) sits across the Neva river from the city centre.  It was built as a fortress, has served as a prison, and today is basically a museum.  We walked to it across the Troitskiy bridge.

The cathedral inside the fortress has an extremely tall spire - reaching 123 metres.

Crossing the Neva River to the fortress.

The inner gate, with the Russian double-headed eagle above.

Who's this - Peter rabbit?

A weird bronze of Peter the Great, hands polished by millions of visitors' touch.

The cathedral is extremely ornate inside.

The Peter and Paul Cathedral sits inside the fortress, and that spire on top makes it the world's tallest Orthodox church. It dates from the earliest days of the city, and was built for Peter the Great.  Inside are the tombs of most of the tsars and tsarinas.

The tsars must have liked gold.

We had an interesting day out at the fortress, and decided to take a boat back across the river.  Due to language difficulties, combined with incompetence and a slightly slippery ticket seller we found after we boarded the cross-river ferry that it was actually a scenic canal cruise boat which was going to take over an hour to get to where we wanted to go!  The canal cruise which followed was mildly interesting but marred by the commentary provided over the over-amplified PA system, an unceasing stream of Russian which probably no-one on board understood.

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Saint Petersburg

We had a few days in Saint Petersburg, long enough to start to become familiar with our immediate area.  The hotel was a small establishment on the top floor of a building with no lift, and stairs which still seemed to bear the scars of the siege of the city by the Germans in 1941!  Back then the city was called Leningrad.  The staff spoke good English (well, some of them did) and were very nice.  There was a grand piano in the dining room, and some afternoons someone would come and play it.

The hotel is just of Nevsky Prospekt, the main shopping street which stretches right across the centre of the city.  It is also a short walk from the important Palace Square, Winter Palace, and the Neva River.

Shopping for Russian dolls, available in every possible size and colour.

This is a (dial) telephone, believe it or not.

A coffee entrepreneur operating out of the back of his van. 

Souvenir shops along the canals.

The mind-boggling architecture of the "Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood".

The catchily-named Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood is huge orthodox-style Russian Cathedral, built over the spot where tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded by a bomb-wielding Russian revolutionary in 1881. For centuries Russia was ruled by the tsars (the Romanov royal family) who had absolute power - there was no parliament or constitution - and millions of russians were serfs, which meant they were owned and worked for their noble owners and if required served in the army.  But Russians increasingly became aware of how things were run in western Europe, and eventually overthrew the last tsar in the bloody Russian revolution of 1917.

Inside the Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood.

The dilemma of choosing something delicious for morning coffee.

Yes, Russia has some nice cafes.

Our room in the Art-Hotel Rachmaninof was quite comfortable.

Another nice cafe, where we stopped a couple of times.

My lunch was interesting.  Look, caviar!

Sue had beetroot soup.

St Petersburg buildings have these huge downpipes which empty straight onto the footpath.

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Russia!

We drove from Delft straight to Schipol (Amsterdam) Airport where we successfully linked up with Linda and Kevin at the departure gate for Saint Petersburg.  They had just come from Dublin.  Flying to Russia turned out to be pretty much like flying to anywhere else - including the risk of losing your bags!

Kevin and Linda's bags did not emerge from the system in St Petersburg.  A four-hour wait in a queue followed, and still no bags.  They had even been told to check their carry-on bags because the plane was very full, so they have almost nothing with them!  Not a happy start.

Waiting in vain for those bags at St Petersburg.

St Petersburg has canals too!  Nowhere near as many as Amsterdam, but it is still quite watery.

Saint Petersburg was raised out of a miserable swamp where the Neva River flows into the Baltic sea, constructed by thousands of serf labourers and prisoners of war.  Peter the Great took the area from Sweden during the Great Northern War, and founded the city about 1700.  He badly wanted a port for Russia on the Baltic Sea, and built the city along European lines as a showcase to portray Russia as a modern European country.  Tens of thousands died during its construction due to the harsh working conditions and climate.  It was the capital of Russia until that role was transferred to Moscow during World War I.

A glimpse of the Winter Palace and Palace Square.

We shared Palace Square with thousands of red-shirted marathon runners.  Another beautiful weather day.

Our first outing was to Peterhof, across the Gulf of Finland.  This fast hydrofoil took us there.

Peterhof Palace was built in the 1700's for Tsar Peter the Great, as his response to Versailles Palace in France.  In 1700 this part of Russia was part of the Kingdom of Sweden, which was much larger than modern Sweden.  Peter the Great succeeded in taking this land from Sweden, and then set about creating the city of St Petersburg, giving Russia a port on the Baltic Sea and sea access to Europe.

Peterhof has an over-the-top parade of fountains, with dozens of gilded statues.

The fountains are all fed by natural water pressure from springs above the palace.

The palace sits in extensive wooded parklands.

Gilded onion domes gleaming in the sun.

The view from the top, down to the sea.

Sea gods.

Peterhof is now a UNESCO world heritage site, and a popular tourist destination.

A black-faced Peterhof seagull.

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The sea defences

It's our last full day in The Netherlands, and we spent it mostly on the road travelling around the Rhine river delta, the southern parts of the country.  The city of Rotterdam is one of the largest ports in the world, and all that shipping traffic passes by the "Hook of Holland" which is basically the north side of the main channel to Rotterdam.

We parked and had a coffee, and walked down to where the ships pass by.

Some of the fifty or more rental beach houses on the sand, at the Hook of Holland.

"Holland Zuid" means Holland South.  The "Blauwe Vlag" (Blue Flag) testifies to the water quality.

Dutch is the language closest to English (Sue told me).  It looks quite different but much of it is recognizable when said aloud.  Even "Zuid" does sound a bit like "South" when said.

Beware of being swept off your feet by the wake from ships passing by!

A ship passing through the massive Maeslantkering gates.

One of the 220 metre long, 7,000 tonne gates, parked up on dry land waiting for the next storm.

Some people to help you appreciate how big this is.

A photo (of a poster) showing the gates closed.

The Maeslantkering gates are one of the largest moving structures in the world, and protect the port of Rotterdam from flooding.  The two gates normally rest on dry land, but can be floated out into the channel and then sunk onto the sea floor to provide a seal.  They are operated automatically by a computer system which monitors the sea level and the weather, and only have to be closed about once every five years.

We crossed the channel on a car ferry.

A boat passing through the locks near Stellendam.  The locks separate the sea from the inland waters.

Near Stellendam, and further south, the Dutch have completely sealed off the land from the sea with huge causeways and enormous gates which can be used to manage the water levels and prevent flooding of the land.  They closely monitor water levels throughout the whole country, and have a system of dykes designed to limit flooding to one area if there is a problem.  They have to contend with threats from both sea storm surges and from flood waters coming down the Rhine from Germany and beyond.  The "North Sea Flood" of 1953 in which a storm caused widespread flooding and killed 1836 people is still fresh in many minds and they have built these enormous sea defense systems to prevent it ever happening again.

The sea wall near Stellendam.

There are thousands of these across The Netherlands.

The Netherlands has thousands of wind turbines, including large wind farms in the sea.  However the majority of their energy still comes from coal and gas power stations.  The challenge is that wind farms take perhaps 100 times the area of land that the equivalent gas power plant requires.

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The Hague

Delft is close to The Hague, and in fact you can get a tram all the way from one to the other.  Unlike Amsterdam no trams run through the streets of Delft.  However there is a big modern railway station, and trains, trams, and buses run from there.

A tram from The Hague arriving in Delft.  Buses also use the tramway like a bus lane.

I almost forgot to get a picture of a traditional windmill.  Taken through the window, sorry!

The Hauge CBD.

Vermeer's "Girl with Pearl Earring".  At the Mauritshuis Gallery in The Hague.

Potter's "The Bull", 1647.  Not quite as famous, but much bigger.

The tram to The Hague spent much of the journey running on a special railway, away from any roads.  It seemed like a cross between a train and a tram,  We passed small ships powering along the transport canals which criss-cross this part of the world.  Often you can't see the canal - just a boat speeding along through the suburbs!

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Bicycles

As I think I mentioned, there are a huge number of bikes in this city - over a million.  It is easy to see how our city planners come home from visits to Amsterdam full of ideas about getting everyone onto bikes!  I think that in the city streets around here cyclists would outnumber other road users, and even pedestrians.  As pedestrians we are learning that they are not all our friends.

There are bike lanes all along all roads of any size, even to the point where there is nowhere left to walk!  In many places we have no choice but to walk in the bike lane, as for example in this photo:

Where are we supposed to walk?  The bike lane takes all available space.

Cyclists come up behind at considerable speed, and they don't like finding us in their bike lanes.  They seem to have become the most important road users, and expect us to get out of their way.  Cars must give way to them.  Some even ride on the footpaths even when there are bike lanes!  In Amsterdam the bikes come first.

As New Zealanders we have the additional problem that we are conditioned to look right before stepping onto the road, when it is vital that we actually look LEFT here.

A bike recovered from the canal

They come in all shapes and sizes

One of the more unusual "bicycles" we saw (photo foodlogica.com)

This amazing contraption (above) is an electrically-assisted refrigerated delivery "bike" we saw powering along the cycle lane.

Colourful bike

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