The State Hermitage Museum

We were able to visit the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.  The school we are attending set up a guided tour and we were very thankful for the direction.  The museum is huge!  The collection contains more than 3 million works of art!  The main building of the Hermitage is in St. Petersburg and is called the Winter Palace.  The Winter Palace was a former residence of the Russian emperors and is situated on the Neva Canal.  It was quite impressive.

 Our guide told us that when the palace was a residence, there were 600 servants and 200 of those servants took care of the chandeliers!  I was continuously getting distracted by the beautiful floors.  Here is a photo of my favorite.

 We were able to explore room after room of famous artwork.  We were lucky to go on a Wednesday because the museum stays open late!

 We were able to see one of Michaelangelo's sculptures.........

 And two of DaVinci's paintings..........

 And a large number of Rembrandt's..................

By the end of the day we were pretty pleased but VERY tired.