Hi!
Visited also the Amber Room in July! For somebody from Finland where one is used to some sort of an order and "decorum", I felt quite embarassed....we were told already in Helsinki that no "stray" visitors were admitted. However, some things never change. The Museum director - so we were tld - was also on the Board of the travel agency we used in ST. Petersburg...so our guide had some sort of a document, large as a sheet for a double bed with stamps and signatures. She dragged us rather resolutely to the Palace gates, past a long queue.Could feel angry eyes at the back of my head...up to the gate which was opened just wide enough for us to get in. And past the next queue in the palace courtyard! More mumbling and angry looks...It didn´t help very much that the guide had told us just some moments earlier that there had been a fight betweek an Italian and a French tourist a week earlier, a fight so violent that they had had to call the police!
But the Amber Room was simply MAGNIFICENT! I have never seen anything quite like it! The luster, we were told, had been achieved by placing gold foil behind the amber....It was a dream! Too bad we never had time to see the Alexander Palace, and the drive back to "Piter" went - so we felt - over a potato field, at least in part. The Prince of Wales was in the area and many of the roads had been closed! Such is life!
I don´t have much time to spend on the forum but what little I have seen have enjoyed.
akjfin