Railways and Cathedrals

Our first full day in St. Petersburg was ultimately a success, although we had some hiccups along the way. We made our way to the Central Railway Museum and paid our admission - including the extra fee for taking photos - only to discover that I had left my SD card in my netbook back at the hotel. We poked around a bit and determined it wasn't really worth going back to get it. They had some neat displays, but the text was all in Russian, so we had to guess at what a lot of the items were, and for some we truly had no idea. The highlight for me was the model of a train carriage that we could walk through and view a couple compartments (which were surprisingly posh! I hope our compartments are that spiffy). Alas, we have no pictures, but we picked up another SD card while we were out so we don't make the same mistake again.

St. Isaac's Cathedral was absolutely beautiful. We walked in the door, stopped dead in our tracks and just stood there gazing up. Between the paintings, the mosaics, the huge marble columns, the gilded carvings, and the massive chandeliers, it was truly stunning. The lighting was low and I couldn't use the flash, so it was tough to get good pictures, but here are a few decent ones.

Here's Cale in the park in front of St. Isaac's. It snowed for a little bit, but it cleared up enough for us to have a decent view from the colonnade.