Wednesday, 22 June 2016

A trip to the Baltics (Part I)

A few days ago I returned from an incredible 2 weeks cruise around the Baltics with Jamie and my Mum and Dad. We visited so many amazing places, saw so many beautiful things and of course ate far too much brilliant food!
Between the 4 of us we took just over 3000 pictures! I've selected a few favourites of some of the things we saw, and I'll be sharing them here on the blog over 3 instalments.
First up are a few from Helsinki and St Petersburg.

Helsinki, Finland
We spent the day in Helsinki wondering around the town, exploring the market and and a lovely (but very cold!) boat trip around some islands.

Peterhof Palace
St Petersburg, Russia
On our first morning in St Petersburg we visited Peterhof Palace and walked around the fountain gardens.

Church of the Saviour on Blood (Spilt blood Cathedral)
St. Petersburg, Russia
In the afternoon, we went to what was one of my favourite places of the whole trip. This beautiful church is covered from floor to ceiling (and right up into the domes) on the inside with wonderfully colourful mosaics. I took hundreds of pictures in here and I'll definitely be using these as inspiration for some new work.

St Isaac's Cathedral
St. Petersburg, Russia
Our final stop on our first day in St Petersburg was to St Isaac's Cathedral, filled with ornate gold decoration and colourful paintings. 

Catherine Palace
St Petersburg, Russia
The second day in St Petersburg was spent at the beautiful Catherine Palace. We ran an hour over time here and didn't get time to look around the gardens because there was just so much to look at inside. Room after room of ornate gold decoration, patterned floors and gorgeous blue tiles. This is another one that'll definitely be inspiring my work!

While we were in Russia I got two lovely books of Russian fairytales (one from Jamie and one from Mum and Dad, thank you!). Later today I'll be making a start on reading them and I'll be producing some illustrations inspired by the stories very soon (If you couldn't tell, I have lots of projects planned inspired by this trip!)

I'll be sharing some pictures from Tallinn and Stockholm later in the week in part II!

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