# @kirstenalana on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn3sQqTnEI7
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/2429756-kirstenalana-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/8f78e77533.jpg
- **Posted:** 2018-09-18T14:05:36.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Kirsten Alana (@KirstenAlana) — https://gondola.cc/KirstenAlana

## Caption

I had two extraordinary experiences in St. Petersburg with @vikingcruises, who value the arts as I do. The second, seeing the Russian Ballet perform Swan Lake in Catherine the Great’s private theater, I can’t share photos of because we weren’t allowed to take any. Photos wouldn’t do it justice anyway! The first though, seeing the city’s Impressionist Collection at a recently restored building in the @hermitage_museum collection — one that has a superb view of the Winter Palace, shown in the first photo — I can not recommend highly enough. I’ve been to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, visited all the paintings by Impressionists that I can find in Paris as well as our museums in the United States. I was still BLOWN AWAY by the art I saw in St. Petersburg. Room after room after room is dedicated to Gauguin, Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir, Matisse, Monet, Manet; and there were significant works by Bonnard, Denis, Picasso, Kandinsky, Rodin — that I’d never seen before or only seen in books. You could go back every day for a week and not be able to fully appreciate every single painting, so extensive was the collection. I did try though! Like the little girl in the second photo, I found myself separate from the group at times, content in solitary wonder at the depth of the talent on display in the beautiful works of art before me; a reminder that childlike wonder is always worth taking the time for. 🇷🇺 #MyVikingStory #VikingCruises #hermitage_museum #stpetersburgrussia

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 1,611
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- **Comments:** 127

## Tags

vikingcruises, stpetersburgrussia, hermitage_museum, myvikingstory

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