Baltic Boating Part 5: More St Petersburg

Despite feeling slightly weary from the previous day's activities, we were both looking forward to our second day in St Petersburg. We'd signed up for two more excursions - a morning walking tour and a 'panoramic' bus tour in the afternoon - in the hope that these would give us ample time to explore the beautiful city centre, having only glimpsed it briefly the day before.

Once we'd been processed through the port border control rigmarole (Russia was the only country that required this and they certainly weren't friendly about it, not even once cracking a smile), we met our guide for the walking tour, Polina. Another native St Petersburgian, she was pleasant and spoke excellent English, but lacked the enthusiasm of our previous guide. In fact, she seemed to us to be rather bored and just going through the motions. But, nevertheless, we hung on her every word as she marched us along past monument after impressive monument.

Highlights were the iconic Bronze Horseman statue of Peter the Great, the vast and imposing Palace Square, St Isaac's Cathedral with its gleaming golden dome and the fascinating Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. Notable for being the only building in St Pete's designed in the traditional Russian style, complete with onion domes and mosaics, it was built as a memorial to Tsar Alexander II who was assassinated on that spot. Hence the slightly gruesome name.

Polina let us loose in the conveniently situated souvenir market across the road from the church. The explosion of crapinski was surely a sight to behold. Thousands of painted Matryoshka dolls of all shapes and sizes stared back at us, making Johnny very nervous on a number of levels. Thankfully, Bec satisfied herself with just a few small purchases, and took only 43 of our allotted 45 minutes to make her selections from the vast choice available.

We returned to the ship for a well deserved buffet lunch, before heading out again (more grumpy passport scrutinising) for our afternoon bus tour. We were slightly disappointed to discover that our guide was again the disinterested Polina, and even more disappointed when it quickly became clear that this was basically the same tour. Same monuments, same stories told with the same tone of voice, same crapinski market. We consoled ourselves by spending as much time as possible away from the group, exploring this lovely city on our own, and even managing to sample a local brewski.