The Hermitage Seen as a Building

I have chosen just two of the many pictures that I took of the interiors in the Hermitage.  It is the most impressive museum I have ever been in for many reasons, but one of them is the building itself.  It is just so stunning, and so different from room to room.  My trip to Russia was the first time that I really appreciated having a guide in a museum, and I think the Hermitage is a museum that one should not attempt without a guide.  And I am a woman who likes to travel on her own by and large.
The room that looks like a Wedgwood vase is in the style that Catherine the Great favored, and the painted hallway is unusual as well, but most of the 400 rooms are baroque.  Over the top baroque, and no two seem even remotely similar.  The palace has been added on to and burned to the ground in places over the years.  Each of it's inhabitants has wanted to leave their mark on it, although once again, the Empress Elizabeth was probably the most successful.  I think her father, Peter the Great, must have been very proud of her.  She really took his European dream and ran with it in a big architectural way.  The place is truly magnificent and it should be on everyone's bucket list. St. Petersburg is a 40 euro train ride from Helsinki (well, that and the cost of the Russian visa will get you there) and this is a very special place.