We were driven about an hour out of town to the way cool Summer Palace known as Peterhof. The museum is normally closed on Mondays but they opened it just for a few tour groups so we finally had some welcome relief from the insane crowds the previous day. We still waited outside a while as they were staggering the groups.

The inside of the palace was, well, palatial!!! This is what a palace should look like. One comment someone in our group made was that they now know why the peasants revolted against the Czars. It does make perfect sense seeing how they lived.

Our guide told us to be careful what we touched as everything that looks like gold IS gold. Very impressive. One of the first rooms we entered showed what the palace looked like before and after World War II. Much like the other palaces we saw they sustained quite a lot of damage during the war so it's amazing how well they were restored.

If the inside wasn't enough the gardens BEHIND the palace along the Gulf of Finland were even better. This is where the famous Grand Cascade is found and the fountains were running in their full glory. What's interesting about these fountains is that they are completely gravity fed, there are no pumps! Amazing!

We were running late so we didn't linger in the gardens as long as we would have liked and hurried to the pier where a Hydrofoil was waiting for us. That was a pretty cool ride mostly because it's so smooth and quiet compared to a regular boat. We then entered the city from the sea and we got a good look at why St. Petersburg is called the Venice of the North. The name definitely fits.

After our little boat ride we were met by our bus which took us to lunch at a restaurant in a very nice hotel.