Day 2 in St Petersburg

This was our Castle Day - Catherine's Palace and Peterhof.
The day started out well, very clear and sunny. The weather held all through our visit to Catherine' palace. This was a very impressive palace with many very well reconstructed rooms. The palace was destroyed in WWII when it was bombed and blew up - only the walls remained. But over the past 65 years, they have reconstructed about half of the rooms. The cost and workmanship is amazing.
During the drive to Peterhof, the clouds came in and it started raining. We also hit some major traffic jams that put us even further behind schedule. The rain started and stopped a few times as we approached. We had a few minutes to walk the Upper Gardens while our guide waited in line.
Once we got inside I heard that it would take 40 minutes to tour the palace and not leave much time for the fountains so I opted out of the palace tour and spent the time walking the grounds. Mary stayed inside and reported the palace was much better that Catherine's. You got to see the throne room and many other rooms, but no pictures were permitted. While they were inside it stopped raining for a while so I got some good pictures of the Grand Cascade and other fountains.
Remember how I commented on some busses getting back late? Well, all passengers were due back by 5:30 so the ship could leave at 6:00 p.m. We supposed to be back at 5:00 p.m. but at 5:30 we were stuck in traffic and did not get back to the ship until 6:10! Sure glad we were on a Princess sponsored excursion so the ship waited on us! As we got back on the ship they were starting to dismantle the gangplank and close down the customs office. Now that is cutting things a bit too close!