St. Petersburg, Russia
The Hermitage
This is a view of the back of the Hermitage (Winter Palace).
The front is on the Neva River. Here, in Palace Square, is a statue of Alexander I,
or maybe an angel or a Roman emperor.
The statue weighs 600 tons, and it's held in place atop the column
by its weight alone, not by fasteners.
The Hermitage is everything we expected it to be. We had very limited time to see
it, but our guide managed to take us to most of the "great works" shown in the
guidebook. The biggest surprise? The Armory inside the Kremlin has neater stuff.
Of course, that's the opinion of an engineer, not an artist.