As we've now seen a large amount of the city from the streets (many of these streets perhaps not being the ones which we intended to walk down, but even so...) we decided to gain a new perspective today - St. Petersburg from the water. One of St. Petersburg's nicknames is 'The Venice of the North', and so it's rather unsurprising that it has a lot of canals. Our watery adventure started on one of these (the Grybodaev), where it's difficult to move without tripping over someone trying to sell you a boat trip. Sure enough, we found one, and although the commentary was, once again, all in Russian, we spent a very enjoyable hour floating around the city, seeing some of the famous sights such as the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, Winter Palace and the Peter and Paul Fortress. Excellent picture opportunities, when someone else's head isn't in the way, that is!!
After that, we were all a little chilly (all the more reason to do the boat trip now before it gets really cold) so we went to the nearest Кофе Хайс to eat....ice-cream. Perfectly sensible decision of course! I did feel the need for a hot drink though, so I opted for what the menu described as a 'chocolate fondue'. I should not, therefore, have been surprised to be presented with what was essentially a glass of melted chocolate (the two pieces of banana and half a strawberry drowning in it were their concession to the fondue). A straw was provided, but for what purpose I'm not entirely sure, because I certainly wasn't going to be able to suck my drink up through it! 189 roubles thoroughly well spent I'd say - now to spend the rest of the trip budgeting to pay for today!!
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