st petersburg - day 2 - yusupov palace

After lunch we visited the Yusupov Palace, better known for supposedly being the place where Rasputin was murdered in 1916. We didn't get to see the Rasputin exhibition since it could only be visited with a tour, but we went in to see the palace rooms anyway, which are beautiful and worth the visit (especially on a rainy day).

















After leaving the palace we decided to walk back towards Nevsky Prospekt ...




... and have tea at the Café Singer, which is located on the second floor of the huge bookstore on Nevsky Prospekt (which formerly belonged to the Singer Company), and with a wonderful view of Kazaan Cathedral. We went into the bookstore looking for a nice photo book of the city (managed to find two actually) and a Cyrillic version of Pride and Prejudice (for a friend who is a Jane Austen fan and collects her works in several languages). We were lucky to grab a table by the window and spent an hour or so enjoying the view. The cakes and pastries are to die for, and the hot chocolate was thick enough to eat with a spoon, just as hot chocolates should be...






Later that night, after walking most of Nevsky Prospekt and a quick sushi dinner, we came back to the same spot, which was perfect for some night shots of the monuments (by then it had finally stopped raining ...)




More photos of the Yusupov Palace here