A short coach ride from our photostop at the Church Of The Saviour On Spilled Blood brought us to another chance to take some photographs of the fabulous architecture present in Saint Petersburg at Palace Square. The immediate draw for the eye was the impressive green and white façade of the Winter Palace (which gives the square its name), associated mostly these days with housing part of the Hermitage Museum‘s collection (and a place we would be visiting later in the day).
As is fairly typical of any large city’s square, Saint Petersburg’s Palace Square has been the scene of its fair share of historical events, most notably the Bloody Sunday massacre of unarmed demonstrators in 1905 that was considered to be one of the key events that eventually triggered the Russian Revolution just over a decade later.
In the centre of the square stands the Alexander Column, raised to celebrate victory over Napoleon in the 1830s.
From the square a number of interesting, nearby landmarks can be seen, including that of the dome of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral which would be our next stop and the first Russian building in which we would enter during our weekend in Saint Petersburg.
There was a bit of scaffolding up in certain areas, not all of it for building work. As it turned out there was a large festival taking place on the weekend we were visiting with stages being set up for art and music performances throughout the city. We spotted a few people in fancy dress around the Palace Square area but couldn’t tell if this was connected to the festival or something for the tourists just in general.
We headed back to the coach in plenty of time to take a quick wander past some of the buildings adjacent to the square and took a short walk to a bridge overlooking the Moyka River where a number of boats were taking turns to head down one of the city’s canals out onto the Neva. This was of particular interest to us as we were booked on a river boat trip for the following day.
