St. Petersburg or the One where Jeff goes to the Hermitage Museum

Have you ever just been blown away by the beauty of art? Well, a visit to the Hermitage museum will do that. It's one of the most famous collections of art in the world. It's HUGE. It's housed in the winter palace of Peter the Great and the subsequent tsars/ tsarinas of Russia (and a few other buildings). The collection is phenomenal. Everything from a peacock clock made of gold that moves, to paintings, to statues, to glass, to tapestries… they have some of everything. And such famous works of art.

Strong points of the Hermitage collection of Western art include Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens, van Dyck, Rembrandt, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Watteau, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Canova, Rodin, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Cezanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, and Matisse. (from Wikipedia.org)

My favorite was certainly the Rembrandt room. It blew my mind. The Return of the Prodigal Son is one of the most incredible manmade things I've ever seen. It's truly brought about a feeling a reverence and an understanding that G0d will always receive us back, no matter what we do. The thought of that kind of forgiveness was awe inspiring.

I got to spend a good chunk of the day with V, a friend of a friend of Amy (thanks Angie!) She's there studying Russian to be deployed to the interior of Central Asia. And … she has a degree in fine art! Have you ever been to a museum with someone who actually knows about art? It was really cool!

After the museum we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then crossed the Neva River to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Random aside: did I already tell you that St. Petersburg has the deepest subway system in the world? It's because the whole city is built on swamps. You ride the escalator for 4 minutes before you get down…