The Silver Wind, anchored here in Copenhagen, is one of ten Silversea ships, a fleet that travels to every continent and is often ranked first among small cruise ships. Photo by Gene Korte

Over the centuries one of the stars of this celebrated city has been Catherine the Great.  She ruled as Empress of Russia 250 years ago and were she around today she might be crowned the bad girl star of 24-hour celebrity news, at least among the royals.  She was probably the one who had her husband Peter III killed. During her marriage she had dalliances and children with numerous boyfriends, and palace rumor has it her last lover was 40 years her junior. And over three decades she added glorious architecture to St. Petersburg, expanded Russia’s borders and was a political powerbroker in Europe.

Fortunately for the rest of us, one of her other passions was art. Thanks to her, the Hermitage Museum (http://www.hermitagemuseum.org) exists today in St. Petersburg. Because subsequent czars added on to the collection, the museum is now many times bigger than the original and is housed in six buildings. To the credit of the Russian people, this gigantic monument to art has survived many wars and in both good times and bad.

We visited this historic city from the dock of our ship, the Silversea Silver Wind, http://www.silversea.com.  Our twice-daily excursions from this luxurious floating five-star hotel took us to some of Catherine’s greatest loves — art, music, ballet and a grand hotel.

A ROOM FULL OF MADONNAS & A LITTLE MOZART

One of the largest museums in the world, the Hermitage, has more than 3 million pieces of art, though not all are on display at the same time. It would take weeks, not days, to go through the areas of the Hermitage that are open to the public.    Among the famous Western art are the works of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens, Rembrandt, Rodin, Monet and Matisse. After ascending the Hermitage Grand Staircase on our evening tour and walking at a steady clip, we pass through 15 rooms, admiring the work of all these artists. Imagine what treasures lie in the hundreds of rooms we didn’t visit.

One features only Madonna and Child paintings, another offers an entire wall of Rembrandts. A champagne reception is included and, much like an evening in one of Catherine’s palaces in the 1700s, that is followed by an evening musical presentation. The State Hermitage Orchestra performs mostly Italian music in the Great Skylight Italian Hall, beginning with the rousing “Overture to the Marriage of Figaro.”

SWAN LAKE AT THE PALACE THEATER

In this renovated theater with its comfortable side-by-side chairs and grand acoustics, on another ship excursion we are presented with a performance of one of Tchaikovsky’s most well known ballets, Swan Lake.  Afterward, our small group meets with one of the ballerinas, a slender young woman who stands in front of us in a remarkably graceful pose. In answer to our questions about her daily schedule, through an interpreter, she tells us that she rises at 6 a.m., practices ballet every day for six hours, and doesn’t retire for the evening until nearly midnight. She went on to say that it’s the life she aspires to and one that is led by all the ballerinas in the company.

A GRAND HOTEL

The Grand Hotel Europe (http://www.grandhoteleurope.com) wasn’t around during Catherine’s time, but some of her Romanoff descendants certainly must have stopped by.   Built more than 130 years ago, this renovated luxury hotel is so full of local charm and history that it couldn’t be anywhere else.  In our experience that is a hallmark of Orient-Express hotels around the world.

When we arrived, the Sunday Jazz Brunch in the L’Europe Restaurant was in full swing. Performances on stage vary, for instance, Friday night is ballet night.  On entering the majestic Art Nouveau restaurant, an attendant offered us each a small plate perched with a mound of black caviar.   Just inside the doorway a huge block of ice resting on its own table has captured a large orchid frozen inside with a spigot in place to pull for vodka. Catherine would approve.  Among the many artfully arranged table presentations in this room, some with tiny tureens of soup, others with robust displays of meat including a roasted pig, one end of the seafood table was awash in shades of orange. Salmon eggs, lobster, giant crab, shrimp and red snapper. Yes, of course, there are tiny plates of dessert, too, but who wants to linger for those when the  hotel offers 35 varieties of its own chocolate.  Catherine, a chocoholic herself,  demanded in her 18^th century royal manner that her hot chocolate be served only in  Parisian silver dishes.

SAILING ON SILVERSEA

We spent three days in St. Petersburg’s harbor after docking at several Scandinavian seaports and crossing the Baltic Sea.  Every summer Silversea offers many such departures, as well as voyages to all the other continents as well. Among the many pluses of this all-suite cruise line and its ten ships are bigger cabins, fewer passengers — between 100 and 500 — a no tipping policy and free alcohol that made us feel more like guests than customers running a tab. Silversea has been voted the world’s best small ship cruise line many times by readers of travel magazines and travel agents around the world.

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© 2013-2014 Diana and Gene Korte