The Opening of the Palace Bridge

One of the highlights in my Russia trip is of course witnessing the opening of the palace bridge at 1am in the morning. :) Palace Bridge is a road traffic and foot bascule bridge spanning the Neva River in Saint Petersburg between Palace Square and Vasilievsky Island. Like every other Neva bridge (except for Big Obukhovsky Bridge), it is drawn by night, making foot travel between various parts of the city virtually impossible.

I was there on a Saturday and it seems that quite a few people are putting up lanterns, otherwise known to the Chinese as 天灯。 Below are a couple of pictures of such a lantern being lighted and it flying away.

Light-up of 天灯

天灯 flying away

There was a number of fireworks being shot before the bridge opened. Not sure of the reason why but as I was caught by surprise, I wasn't well positioned to take photos of the firewalls. Below is a picture of one of the better ones.

Fireworks before the opening of the palace bridge

Below are the pictures of the palace bridge opening from 1.15am. Enjoy...

Palace bridge starting to open

Palace bridge is opened

Close-up of the open palace bridge

Another angle of the open palace bridge

You can find out more information on the opening of the bridges here.