Grandeur

Spent most of the day at 'the hermitage' and still barely saw a quarter of what it had to offer by my reckoning. If there's anywhere in the world you could call a shrine to excess, it's this building. Consider the room in which there's a clock made of a golden peacock, cockerel and owl which plays musical harmonies, and isn't even nearly the centrepiece of the building and you might begin to get the idea. You need to experience it, if there's one thing I could recommend from the entire city (Although on a minor point, the owl component of the clock is a bit rubbish, seemed like the designer just got a bit bored). There's also a bit of monet, van gogh, cezanne, and some other arty stuff.

Like I said, the scale is mind boggling.

I'll stop harping on about it now because I have to mention the belgian place we stopped at for dinner. Over 100 varieties of beer, good food and service and HALF-DECENT MUSIC. The significance of this cannot be understated. I had some wonderful beer brewed by monks and some less impressive beer purely because it had pink elephants on the advertisement. Rookie error.

A couple of parting notes: it's starting to get rather cold. Should have seen that one coming. Also, I love the fact no one or vey few people here speak English. It's strangely liberating not to have people instantly flick to your wavelength, even if it does make certain scenarios a little bit more difficult (purchasing toilet paper proves a struggle).

Until next time, dasvidaniya! (I can't do Cyrillic alphabet, a multitude of apologies)