Day 14 July 25th St Petersburg

Day 14 July 25th St Petersburg.
We were alongside the pier when we woke at 5:50am. We had missed the trip up the Kronshtadtskiy Korabelfarvater; a 150m wide fairway swept to a depth of 14 metres which leads 10 miles East/Southeast to Sankt Petersburgskiy Morskoy Kanal which is the main channel of Sankt Petersburg Port. Our berth was at the edge of a large reclamation from the sea. Our tour guide said there will be large apartments built on this site. The atmosphere was hazy which blocked the sun slightly. The temperature was already warm and the day was forecast to be very hot. Nearby our ship there were five other big cruise ships. I later saw another two in another part of the city. The haze prevented the whole city from being seen and it was not until late afternoon when the haze lifted that I was able to see its full extent around the vast harbour.
The city is built on 14 low lying muddy islands at the mouth of the Neva River. Peter the Great Czar of all Russia decided to build a city here in 1703. He did so because the Neva flowed into the Baltic Sea and Russia would then be opened to the west for trade. He recruited thousands of peasants to clear forests and to drain the swamps with their bare hands. Millions of wooden pilings were driven into the mud to provide firmer foundations for the new city. I obtained this information from the ships daily information sheet.
Fay and I were booked in for a canal boat tour at 1:45pm; this tour could not proceed earlier because it required the tide to be low to enable the boats to travel under the many bridges. A bus took us to the city to join the canal boat. The bus was old and the transmission ground away and the air condition only just managed to give out a little air slightly cooler than the ambient temperature. On the way we drove past large blocks of apartments. They were all of concrete or brick construction; some of the concrete block buildings looked rough and unfinished as if the builder had been short of finance and left the finish coat of plaster until sometime in the future; or maybe they were meant to be that way. They looked drab although to be fair there were some nice ones as well. We only saw a small part of the city so there could well be better apartments elsewhere.
As we walked to the boats, the edge of the foot path was littered drink bottles and food wrappings. The boats are not as good looking as the Copenhagen boats. They were very busy and appeared to suffer from a lack of maintenance. There were many canal boats and just like we see traffic jams with cars, here we had canal boat jams. The sun beat down on us and although we were on water we became hot. My wrist watch measured my arms temperature at 36.5° whereas I am normally between 28° and 31°. There were some privately owned boats but nothing like the numbers in Copenhagen or Stockholm. We passed several fine buildings with golden domes. I saw only one green grass park with trees. We also travelled along the very wide river Neva; on it were many tourist boats, speed boats and one large cruise ship. In the canals were cafe boats which served both customers from the pavements and from the private launches.
After I returned Fay and I spent time in the Piazza on deck 5 amidships listening to a string quartet with piano accompaniment playing light classics before dining. At 8:30 pm we watched a lively Russian group singing and dancing traditional Russian music and dances.
Sun rise was Sunset was