St. Petersburg, Russia, is a high recommendation as a vacation spot. There, the Hermitage is pretty much the A Number One attraction. It consists of two adjoining palaces that make up a giant museum. One of the palaces is The Winter Palace, home of the Czars.
Within that are many awesome architectural flourishes that boasted of the Imperial might. The Jordan Staircase gets the most press, and indeed it is suitably breathtaking.
Underrated, though, is the Gold Drawing Room. As we wandered around the private quarters, we got a ramping up sense of opulence. From the Malachite Room to the Boudoir, you got a palpable sense of people who had more money than they knew what to do with.
And then… you enter the Gold Drawing Room, and all those previous rooms look like pre-made mock-ups for a McMansion model home. Because… holy moley there is so much gold. I was whisked away to Imperial Russia, where Czars would take an audience here. Everything about it says, “You are talking with the most powerful person on Earth. Compared to us, you are nothing.”
Rooktopia 