The Hermitage Museum – St Petersburg, Russia

Few cities in the world can compare to the beauty and history of St Petersburg, Russia. The entire city is full of historic and colorful palaces that give this city a one-of-a-kind feel. The most beautiful of these buildings is called the “Winter Palace.” This mint green, white, and gold structure sits right in the heart of the city on Dvortsovaya Plaza. Housed in the Winter Palace is one of the most spectacular museums in the world “The Hermitage.” Lindsay and I dedicated an entire afternoon to this museum. I remember it was cold and rainy as we stood in line to enter. It was quite miserable but luckily the surrounding architecture of the building kept us entertained. However, there were a few times when we considered giving up as it was simply taking too long to get it. We are so glad we didn't as once we entered the museum we had a wonderful time. This Museum is so large that it would literally take days to fit it all in. With the short amount of time that we had we decided to stick to the classic European paintings. We wandered from room to room taking in as many masterpieces as we possibly could. We both ended up loving the classic German paintings as they were almost all of the beautiful Bavarian/Alps landscape. The interior of the winter palace is so spectacular that it is almost easy to get distracted from the paintings hanging on the wall. There were a few rooms that were left with the originally furniture, etc which was fantastic. We wandered around until our feet were about to fall off and then we decided to leave the rest of the Hermitage for another visit (someday). The incredibly architecture of the building itself and the artistic masterpieces inside make The Hermitage/Summer Palace in St Petersburg Russia a “must see.”