Russia

Dateline May 14, 2016, St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg was the stop we had most looked forward to, and we drew two rare sunny days to see it with our guide Marianna. Peter the Great's city gave us Peterhof, his answer to Versailles; the Hermitage, the third largest art museum on earth, with its Peacock Clock and its Rembrandts; the mosaic-clad Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood; the Romanov tombs in the Peter and Paul Fortress; and a room of imperial Fabergé eggs. Two centuries of Romanov history, a city rebuilt stone by stone after the siege of Leningrad, and a guide who calls Putin a rock star.