Russia – St Petersburg

St Petersburg, Russia

St Petersburg. I arrived here from Moscow on the high speed Sapsan train (an experience in itself). My bottle of sparkling water exploded over me and the unfortunate Russian lady seated next to me when I opened it – so embarrassing but she was so gracious and understanding about it. A Russian city with a strong Scandinavian and affluent western feel to it. St Petersburg carries the name of the famous Tsar that founded it – Peter the Great. Café society abounds everywhere and the amount of canals here will surprise you. Everyone knows the Winter Palace and the world famous Hermitage Museum and when they say it takes a day to go round each it is true. I was exhausted after 5 hours in them and had to skip parts as there is so much to see! Nip across the bridge to the island to see the church where the Tsars are buried, see Peter’s original wooden cabin where he lived in when building St Petersburg and visit the famous battleship that fired the guns to signal the start of the October Revolution that toppled the Govt. Fascinating city

I visited St Petersburg as part of my 2 week tour to Russia and Finland. After staying in Moscow, (click here for link), for 3 days, I caught the Sapsan high speed train, (click here to train link), to arrive here in St Petersburg.

After a 4 day stay in St Petersburg I then travelled onwards across the border to Helsinki, Finland, (click here for link) by international train.

This was actually an easy tour to complete, despite my initial reservations, but does necessitate some pre-planning and familiarisation with visas, currency etc well in advance – like 2 months at least, to get the paperwork completed in time!

Fulfilling a dream

Ever since I was a kid, I had wanted to visit St Petersburg. My head had been filled with the story of the Communists overrunning the Czar’s Winter Palace, in the October Revolution. I’d seen the pictures of the resting place of all past Czars (including those killed in the Revolution) and now wanted to see them for myself.

The reports of the grand palaces, churches and imperial buildings of the city, edged me even more to want to visit.

So, I decided that when I eventually get to visit Russia, St Petersburg is top of the list. But how can I visit Russia without seeing its capital with its infamous Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral, GUM store, Bolshoi Theatre, etc etc.?

Well, that set the scene for a duo city visit – two great cities over a 7 day period. Job done.

How to get from Moscow to St Petersburg

So I needed to get between the two cities after flying into Moscow. Moscow was fabulous and I thoroughly enjoyed my 3 day stay there. Obviously flying would be the quickest way to then get to St Petersburg but yet again I didn’t want to be inside two anonymous airports.

It would also mean I see nothing of the hundreds of miles between these two cities. They are over 700 km apart and around 8 hours by road travel.

Even if it existed, I didn’t want a bus journey that long, it would be tiring and take up too much time of my limited days I had given to this trip.

A flight would about £65, and 1hr 15 mins in time, (or around 5 hours if you add in journey to airport, early arrival for security, check in, airport wait and security on exit and another journey from the airport.  No views of the country and another boring session inside two airports.

What about trains?

I looked them up and there are various daily regular services between the two cities. Journey times vary from 3.5 to 8.5 hours and £45 to £75. Cheaper trains took longer and the most expensive ultra-modern hi-speed train took 3.5 hours. I worked it out that for pretty much the same price as a flight for 5 hours total I could get a hi-speed train for 1.5 hours less.

The train takes me city centre to city centre. My hotels were near Metro stations in both cities and would be easy to get to and from.

There was also the novelty of riding on a modern fairly new ultra-fast train and seeing the countryside between the cities. Onboard was a trolley service for food and drinks along with a café carriage if needed. I could even go 1st Class with leather seats etc but that’s not usually my style or budget.

Moscow to St Petersburg by hi-speed train

So, train it was. I easily booked my tickets online in the UK on the super-efficient Russian Train website, (click here for link). I printed off my tickets and I was set.

They even sent a reminder email of my near future journey with a set of words and phrases in Russian and English pronunciation for eg train, platform, where is the station? etc. A great gesture for when you need certain words to communicate over there.

If you want to read about my booking experience, available trains, and journey experience click the link here to my transport post on my journey.

Needless to say, the journey in a clean, super modern, fast train was effortless. Time whizzed by and I was in St Petersburg in what felt like a lot less than the 4-hour comfy journey.

History of St Petersburg

Let’s have a little info chat first on this great city to give you a bit of perspective on its history and fame.

So, this city, founded by Tsar Peter the Great on mainly boggy land in 1703, on what was an old Swedish fortress, has gone by several names over the course of its history. It started out as Saint Petersburg (named after Peter the Great’s favourite saint).

When Russia went to war with Germany in WW1 that name sounded too Germanic to Russian ears so they changed it to Petrograd (Peter’s City) from 1914.

In 1924 it was changed again to Leningrad in order to honour the Russian hero-leader Lenin who had died in that year.

Then in 1991, after the fall of the Communist ruling system in Russia, the inhabitants voted to change it back to its original name …. and so, St Petersburg it is now!

With over 5 million residents it is Russia’s second biggest city, one of the top 5 biggest cities in Europe and also the most populous in northern Europe.

Tsar Peter the Great founded it as his capital city and it remained so, pretty much all the time until the October Revolution of 1917. This is when the storming of the Winter Palace (photos below) in St Petersburg by Lenin’s Bolshevik communists took place to overthrow the new Socialist Govt. The Socialists had only just overthrown the Tsars family a few months earlier.

The Bolshevik victors in that revolution then moved the capital to Moscow where it has remained ever since.

So back to Peter the great …. he started the construction of his new capital as a mega-vision. Over 100,000 serfs (country slaves) were conscripted (with a high mortality rate also), to build initially the fortress on the island called St Peter and Paul.

The city later spread to the opposite bank as residents moved in, necessitating no stone buildings being built anywhere in Russia, whilst all the stonemasons and artisans in the whole of Russia, were employed on his project.

The network of canals he built still exist today – a mini “Venice of the North”!. In Summer boat ferries reached the island from the mainland but in winter the river froze over and people walked or took horse carriages over the frozen river.

Peter built his first palace several kilometres out of the city at Peterhof – it still exists in all its glory but was not on my list to visit on this trip.

The city grew, massive ducal palaces were built, churches sprung up and by the 1800 the city was a focus of culture, music, poetry, and art. It rivalled many of the established European centres in its fame.

In 1881 the then Tsar was assassinated here (the beautiful Church of the Spilled Blood marks the spot today)

By 1900, St. Petersburg had grown into one of the largest industrial hubs in Europe, an important international centre of power, business and politics, and the 4th largest city in Europe.

Political Revolutions by the masses started here in 1905. After the February Revolution of 1917, Tsar Nicholas II was arrested and the pro-democracy Provisional Govt was installed here in St Petersburg.

As I said, the Communists, led by Lenin then overthrew this Govt in The October Revolution of 1917. Those Russians loved a good revolution!

Today, much of its historical 18th and 19th century grand edifices remain, The Winter Palace and Fortress is still there to see and a trip down its canals is still possible.

To add extra prominence to the city it now also houses the tallest building in Europe, the Lakhta Centre. Its 87 storeys, 426 metre tall structure presiding now over the northwest of the city.

Right, the history lesson is over – that wasn’t too bad was it !

Let’s now get to more on my visit here.

Where I stayed in St Petersburg 

I did my usual marathon search to get the highest class hotel within my budget that was central-ish or near a Metro stop.

High class hotels abound here but most had very high class prices too. Higher than many European cities would charge for similar.

The city has some iconic stylish hotels and most international hotel chains have one of their best hotels in this city. They are usually quite central and thus walkable to plenty of places but that convenience comes with a huge price tag.

I saw the big limousines and ostentatious black windowed Range Rovers speed in and out of several top hotel forecourts.

Usually beefcake, thuggish looking sunglassed security personnel in black suits scamper around the person exiting the car. Maybe Russian oligarchs do need protecting so much – probably from other oligarchs …… I was glad I hadn’t booked there.

So, I looked for something with less stars and maybe a bit further out (but near a Metro stop) to get better value.

After an exhaustive search I found the Park Inn Hotel. Still four stars but 3 star prices.

Park Inn Pulkovskaya St Petersburg

This was a great choice. It’s about 7 mins straight walk via a wide avenue of shops and apartment blocks to Moskovskaya Metro station. Seven stops further and you are in Central St Petersburg – easy!

It’s also opposite the Memorial to the Leningrad Siege and there’s even a big park further along if you need to go jogging or just want extended walks.

Nearby are lots of bars and restaurants and commercial shops from dept stores to florists.

The reception area is huge and the receptionists are very friendly and helpful, with good English. They have a shuttle service to Pulkovo Airport if you need it and there is an airport bus that stops nearby for the public too.

Beware though – this hotel does cater for large tourist groups – in my experience loud, overwhelming Chinese group tours. They tend to hang around the reception atrium in their hundreds waiting for the coach to pick them up in the morning for their trips.

Best thing is to avoid reception first thing in the morning when they literally take over the area. Otherwise, it is relatively normal.

The hotel is huge, taking up one entire side of a busy road junction, and it’s a very 1980’s style of building but well maintained.

Rooms are a little dated – birch wood furniture and plain colours but perfectly clean, functional, cheerful and most importantly for me, quiet.  Bathroom needs updating but to be honest I found it good value for the price I paid.

Wifi was great, bed comfy, air con good, average selection of TV channels  and the room’s quite big ….. what more do you need!

The best part about this hotel is the breakfast, restaurant and bar areas.

Breakfast was really good, a huge spread of variety and a cute set up with baskets and milk bottles invoking a farm feel. There was a Chinese breakfast food section, one typical Arabic and one Russian. There was of course the glorious full English brekkie with bacon, eggs, sausages etc that was very tasty and filling.

They served a buffet lunch and also a buffet evening meal equally varied in the same area. It is quite cheap at £8 for any of the breakfast, lunch or evening meals so I did not need to venture outside searching for eateries after a long hard day of sightseeing. That suited me just fine.

My deal got me breakfast included but you can opt for the non-breakfast deal. Click here for the hotel’s website.

The hotel also has a seperate Restaurant – The Paulaner Brauhaus.

I believe that it is a concession run within the hotel as I couldn’t add my bill to my room. It served great German style food and beer in a friendly environment. I ate here as well as the buffet restaurant for some variety.

The other attraction is the hotel bar which is just off the reception area and is actually quite quiet and plain with a small basket food style food menu and normal bar drinks, Again I just had to try it and it was good, filling cheap food and excellent beers.

It was actually really nice to sit here due to the quietness and use the wifi on my tablet to catch up on some emails.

Would I recommend this hotel?

Yes, definitely. Remember it is out of town on a Metro line nearby so a little walking and being adventurous on using the Metro is needed but the Metro is so easy to use and understand, so it was no problem.

You also get to see a little of normal life in the city as the hotel is in a residential/shopping area which I actually really enjoyed walking through each day.

How I arranged my visits around the city

St Petersburg has so much to see I had to be really organised on this trip. No aimless wanderings hoping to pick up a vibe, no side street meanderings . Time was short (even with an extra day and sights were many and hugely time-consuming).

I had given myself an extra day to see what I wanted to see (I had to compromise or I would be there a week!). I split the city into 4 “zones” and each zone was a day’s worth of visits.

1. The Monuments/Square next to hotel, City Gardens area, St Saviour’s and Kazan Cathedral
2. The Winter Palace, old Palace and Hermitage Museum
3. The north shore, St Peter and Paul Fortress/church and waterside
4. The Riverside, Menshikov Palace and St Isaac’s Cathedral

Day one, zone one

So my first day in St Petersburg will start with a couple of sights that may or may not be on your must see list.

I would understand if they are not, as they are quite a bit out of the central area and probably not of massive interest to everyone. They were on my list as I read up on how St Petersburg survived WW2 and the Nazi onslaught and also have an interest in Stalinist architecture.

They both happen to be a few minutes’ walk from my hotel (in fact I could see the memorial from my hotel). They were thus on my route to catch the Moskovskaya Metro into town and another good reason to locate myself in this hotel for my trip.

Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad

This powerful and impressive monument was built as the focal point of Ploschad Pobedy (Victory Square) in the early 1970s. It commemorates the heroic efforts of the residents of Leningrad and the soldiers on the Leningrad Front to repel the Nazis in the 900-day Siege of Leningrad during World War II.

Remember, St Petersburg was called Leningrad from 1914 to 1924 so don’t get confused with its name. Nearly a third of the residents of St Petersburg died due to conflict and the subsequent famine during the Siege, which saw the city shut off from supplies for nearly two years.

The design is one of a huge, sunken, broken ring listing the events and recognising the huge sacrifice and resistance to the invaders. It is apparently set at the point which was the nearest the Nazis actually got to the centre of the city – near enough but they never managed to capture the city.

On the exterior walls are arranged gas lamps with a naked flame wafting in the breeze. The encircling walls are of a dark stone and metal and reveal gold epitaphs and commemorations in a very sombre setting.

Centrally stands a moving sculpture of several citizens and a defending soldier in various states of distress, symbolizing the struggle. The atmosphere is almost reverent and being the only person there (which I found strange given the enormity and significance of the monument) meant I could study its entirety

There is an underground exhibition showing scenes and photographic shots from the siege that will give you a sense of the desperation the residents experienced. To be honest it’s a wonder anything was left of the city after such a bombardment.

On the outside, up a wide flight of stairs from the entrance to the exhibition area, you can see the sculptures representing soldiers, sailors and civilians who did not surrender to the Nazis despite hunger, cold and constant bombardment.

They are quite evocative in design and clearly want to give the impression of the might and courage of the defenders.

The obelisk is the defining part of the entire memorial. Its huge height and slenderness with two hero citizens standing either side symbolise the resistance of the population.

Five minutes’ walk further north along the busy wide avenue was my next stop. It takes in the shops and residential buildings of this seemingly more affluent area of SP. Judging by the number of decent stores, bars and restaurants along the avenues fringes this would be a good place to eat one eve if I didn’t like what the hotel had to offer food-wise.

House of the (ex) Soviets St Petersburg

The square I was heading for was called Moscow Square – Moskovskaya – and what an architectural gem it is.

Here is a fabulous plain open plaza with a set of multi-level fountains spraying jets of water into the air.

The main fountain forms a large rectangular spray shape in a ginormous pool and has several small angular cascades of water dropping from, effectively, large shelves.

Its back drop in the square is the old House of The Soviets. The building is also typically Stalinist in its huge block shape of symmetrical window and decorated roof edge, in a plain beige stone colour.

It was intended to house the central offices of the city administration, the House of Soviets and was built 1936-1941 The monolithic seven-storey central block is flanked by symmetrical five-storey T-shaped wings, and decorated with friezes depicting muscular Soviet workers and Pioneers, crowned with a large Soviet crest.

At the time it was a real architectural propaganda piece.

The building is now just assorted offices and not so well maintained if it was a govt building.

Sitting centrally in this square, and you are unable to miss it, is a statue of Lenin erected in 1970.

Typically styled in a dramatic action pose, it is one of the largest statues of him I have seen. His pose, set against the Stalinist building behind, could convey you back to the 1970s at the height of the Cold War – wonder if this setting has ever been used as a political backdrop for a film?

Conveniently also on either side of the square are two small parks. The number 39 bus to the airport stops here too, so a good place to get off to catch the onward Metro ride from the airport.

From here I took the nearby Moskovskaya Metro into the centre of the city. I was to get to know this station intimately as I used it twice a day over my four days here. I even bought some sweets from one of the multitudes of little cheap shops that lined its wide walkways underground. I even developed a sense of arriving home every time I got back to the walkways here …. funny that!

Nevsky Prospekt, St Petersburg

I got off the Metro at Nevsky Prospekt Metro station and exited, anxious to see this main shopping street that had such a prestigious reputation.

Well, I arrived here and …. ummmm … not particularly impressed.

Yes, it is a long very wide avenue with wide pavements, but much of the street looks very samey. Lots of 3-4 storey old, magnificent buildings in that heavy Russian style but not enough variety for me. Beautifully maintained I have to admit and lots of international and national stores but juts too …. plain? …. for me.

Alexandrinsky Theatre

I walked further up the street as the Alexandrinsky Opera/Ballet/Theatre was along here. The Empress Elizabeth founded this dramatic theatre, one of the oldest still operating in Russia. It had a garden frontage and a large decorative statue of Catherine the Great facing it. Nice to see and the gardens were pretty but I did not venture inside the building.

Have I become used to the typical grand frontages of wide streets here and am now anesthetised to their effect? I walked along further just to check I had not hit a boring part and yet whilst I saw many more columned and porticoed building it was nice but not overly impressing me.

Deciding to forget the 20 min walk along Nevsky that I had planned I turned a corner further along and headed for my next stop.

Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral, St Petersburg

What was impressive, however, were the buildings surrounding my next stop. Some beautiful art nouveau buildings opposite. One was a massive bookstore with a café in the historic building previously owned by the Singer sewing machine family.

I did stop as I raised my gaze to look at this Cathedral.

Was I seeing double? From where I was standing, I could see this huge, semi-circular, colonnaded, open entrance. It immediately reminded me of the plaza colonnade in front of St Peter’s at the Vatican.

I was impressed at its size and well-maintained state and there was a small grassed are in front, busy with gathering tourists.

I crossed the road and entered the park-like area and then wandered among the narrow colonnaded columns. Yep- just like the Vatican’s ceremonial lined plaza.

A little read-up quickly on my guide about the Cathedral states it was finished in 1811 after 10 years of construction.

It has a few select pieces of history. The Commander-in-chief of the Russian forces fighting Napoleon’s invasion of 1815 is buried here and has a memorial statue in the grounds. The first Russian political demonstration took place here in 1876.

In 1932 it was closed by the Russian Communists (much like many churches in Russia) and it reopened as the pro-Marxist “Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism”. The joke was that it was anything but that. One Russian contemporary writer actually called it “Leningrad’s largest anti-religious museum”.

It wasn’t until 1992 that it reopened as a religious site and four years later the cathedral was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church

The interior was at first very different to what I was expecting.

After seeing its St Peter’s imitation colonnades outside I was expecting bursting shafts of light and gloriously painted walls inside. Actually, after checking later back at the hotel, I found out the whole Cathedral, including the colonnades, is indeed based on a copy of St Peter’s at the Vatican.

Instead, I found a rather dimly lit huge aisle, resembling to me more of a 16th Century English grand Stately house. The wall decorations were quite dark – maybe they needed restoring to their original brightness.

Maybe the lack of natural light gave this impression. Maybe the small lamps rather than glowing bulbs gave a sombre appearance. Just not what I was expecting.

The granite columns were impressive in their regularity and giving such height to the ceiling with their gold-coloured finials.

There is only one internal photo here as strangely, (although perhaps not strangely as many Orthodox churches ban photography I found – never did find out why!), there were signs everywhere stating “No photos”.

I snuck a quick one when no-one was looking or near me. It needed a flash to get the detail but that would have given me away so here it is, in all its (gloomy) glory.

Ok, another little interesting fact about this Cathedral.

It was used as a model for the building of the iconic Helsinki Cathedral. Guess where I am headed after my stay in SP? Yep, I’ll be on that train to Helsinki, so I’ll tell you in my next post if I found that little snippet to be true!

Mikhaylovskiy Square, St Petersburg

Walking away from the Cathedral, I headed to my next stop.

You can cross Nevsky Avenue and walk up past the grand Belmond Hotel in the pic here – reputedly one of the top hotels in SP. – and on towards the large gardened square nearby.

I did look at the Belmond to stay in but at around £300 per night it was quickly rejected!

The square here has benches and a plethora of trees for shade – yes it gets hot in SP in the Summer – and a monument to Alexander Pushkin, a famous Russian poet and writer.

A mimic artist was singing along to an Opera track on a small speaker (wearing a long leather overcoat, big goggles and an orange bathing cap. Strange clothes indeed!) and he was actually very good. The backdrop to his performance was the park’s statue of Pushkin, in all thus quite a cultural experience.

I stopped and rested a while and listened and the small crowd that had gathered gave him a rapturous applause when he finished and we all gave a few coins as a thank you.

These are the small, quality, spontaneous things that I love experiencing in cities as I travel. Buildings and parks are great but unique, one-off sights like this make the trip more memorable.

Russian Museum

The square faces the huge Russian Museum just outside the park.

Now many will say “why didn’t you visit this Museum?”. Well, there are probably around 20 museums alone in SP that I would want to visit, let alone all the other 40 or sites that I would love to get to.

With only four days on my itinerary and with so much here to see I had to rationalise what to see. Unfortunately, the Russian Museum got left off as I was seeing two other art galleries here, so something had to give …. sorry.

If you do want to see this museum it is packed full of artworks, statues, sculpture, furniture and the rooms alone are an artwork in themselves I am told. I knew from my research it would take me about 4 hours to go round it in depth (as I do) and I just did not have the time.

Click here for the link to the Museums website for opening times etc.

However, with the budget airlines having now set up bases in SP a trip back here to complete this visit was an easy option (visa permitting), so I was not entirely disappointed to miss it out

From here it was a turn to the left and along the street with heavy, imposing but well-maintained grand buildings on either side to arrive at the canal that goes up to my next stop. The stucco facades of the buildings, rather than brick, was a common if not universal sight in SP.

The buildings looked thick-walled and strong, supposedly to endure the cold winters here and after a similar experience in Moscow I was becoming accustomed to this style of building.

I turned right at the end of the street and entered what seemed a semi-permanent street market. It was busy, at one point joining the masses to get along the street. While the stalls were tempting there were just too many clearly tourist souvenirs on display – Russian multi layered dolls, I found the Putin t-shirts amusing and the painted pictures of Russian iconography of saints a little too much to be worn.

Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood 

This was one of the sights I most wanted to see. It had a unique reason the be built here and so many reviews had said it was exquisite.

I could see it from afar, settled right next to the canal, that it almost looked as it would fall into it. The external twisting, onion-domes stood out and it has to be said that apart from one of the squarer flatter facades, looked all too similar the St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow that I had visited a few days earlier.

The church contrasts with the rather formal, symmetrical buildings around it and though not of the period harks back to a mediaeval design in churches

Its fame comes from the fact that it marks the spot where Tsar Alexander II was fatally wounded in an assassination attempt on March 1, 1881. It actually took 24 years to build, starting 2 years after the assassination and money was provided from the Romanoff Royal family and several private donations.

Today it is a museum rather than a church and there is a small entrance fee to go in.

Inside the walls are full with the usual colourful iconography of the saints and biblical scenes. It is not huge internally but at least it is one large open space unlike the dark “rooms” of St Basil’s in Moscow.

The paintings can be difficult to see as the atmosphere is quite dark and when the sun does shine through the upper windows it tends to light up only certain areas and strangely provide glaring lights if your eyes stray to the actual window the light is coming through.

There is a columned canopy structure that covers the exact spot on the embankment floor that the Tsar was fatally wounded on. You can see the original cobblestones of the road and then the assassination spot is highlighted in decorative blue stone/gems within the small floor square area under the canopy.

The walls and ceilings inside the church are completely covered in intricately detailed mosaics and it rivals a church in the USA for the title of most mosaics inside a church in the world.

Inside the walls are full with the usual colourful iconography of the saints and biblical scenes. It is not huge internally but at least it is one large open space unlike the dark “rooms” of St Basil’s in Moscow.

The paintings can be difficult to see as the atmosphere is quite dark and when the sun does shine through the upper windows it tends to light up only certain areas and strangely provide glaring lights if your eyes stray to the actual window the light is coming through.

There is a columned canopy structure that covers the exact spot on the embankment floor that the Tsar was fatally wounded on. You can see the original cobblestones of the road and then the assassination spot is highlighted in decorative blue stone/gems within the small floor square area under the canopy.

The walls and ceilings inside the church are completely covered in intricately detailed mosaics and it rivals a church in the USA for the title of most mosaics inside a church in the world

In the Russian Revolution it was ransacked and looted and closed like many churches in Russia in 1932. It was then heavily damaged during WW2, being used as a morgue for the overflowing dead of the siege of Leningrad. Later it was used as a warehouse and eventually handed back to the church in 1970.

Strangely even when it had just been built it was a memorial place rather than a public church with only a few memorial services held every year. In 1997 it re-opened after extensive renovation but still only has the occasional service.

I knew my next venture would entail a massive amount of walking as nearby here were three seperate gardens all next to each other.

Each had a different style and was there for a different reason. As I had to get back to a Metro station for my journey back to the hotel, the best option would be to walk through these three parks and get to the station on the other side of them.

Field of Mars

This was a relatively open and more grassed than tree laden park but held an important monument. That of the Monument to the Fighters of the Revolution.

I walked the waterfront taking in the splendid scenes across the river to the shining spire of the church on the opposite bank that was destined for a visit the following day. I turned down a wide side street to arrive at the gates and the wide open expanse ahead of me.

The sandy wide walkways led me to the monument centrally located in the park.  It marks the burial places of some of those who died during the February and October Revolutions in 1917. Poignant given that the revolution started in the storming of the nearby Winter Palace.

The area was rather bland, with a few flower beds and untendered pathways and very open to the elements. The commemorative walls and inscriptions were also quite formal and the area held little reverence for the solemn scene it should have set.

St Petersburg Summer Gardens

The Field of Mars does not have a fence surrounding it so entry is wherever you prefer. There were sandy wide walkways to follow but this meant I could leave the park further up the road at any point and cross the road back to the waterway promenade,

I wanted to enter from this entrance as I had read that the iron fence and gilded black and gold gates were something to behold.

On arrival they were and gave me a taste of the beauty that was to be revealed inside.

The thing to see here is the old Summer Palace. Called a Palace but in real term is  the size of a small stately house so not quite Palace sized. It was pretty but not a grand edifice that I was expecting. Its symmetrical lines and large windows gave it a Royal feel but in an understated way.

The shade from the trees on hedged walkways gave a welcome relief from the heat. Yep, it was Summertime and the sun was shining gloriously and it was getting quite hot despite my shorts and t-shirt attire.

The rest was welcome here and the locals with their kids were really enjoying the space and the fountains in their family walkabouts.

The garden had a real family space feel but it was easy to get away from the crowds on many of the smaller pathways and even get an ice-cream or coffee from one of the cute small stands dotted around the park. It was meticulously maintained and the greenery really stood out against the blazing blue sky.

Mikhailovsky Garden

The walk through the Summer Garden ended at the lake on its perimeter and a view across to the Palace on the opposite side of the road outside the gardens.

The nearby canal was busy with watercraft taking tourist on a canal trip and the sun was reflecting off the water surfaces giving it a bejewelled affect.

St Michael’s Castle

This Palace is the Mikhailovsky or commonly called St Michael’s Castle. It was a former Royal residence and originally was surrounded on three sides by a moat and the nearby river on the fourth side. Only the river and one canal still survive.

Each of its massive facades is designed in a different style. At first, I was taking photos thinking it was a different building, such is the difference in architecture on each side. It was only when I reached the third side via the wooded walkway that I came to realise my mistake!

It is again full of Russian art and history and in itself in any small city would be the main attraction. Here it competes with dozens of other grand palaces and Museums, so I gave it a miss – it’s on the list for my next visit.

The castle is again full of Russian art and history.

That was another day finished and I had arrived back close to where I started the day. The Metro station was a few minutes away. I came to realise that St Petersburg can be easily visited by splitting the city into four sections and seeing what was in each for four days.

This did mean that each day I got to see a variety of sights rather than theme the day i.e., a Museum day or Palace day but it meant less wear on my legs and a less frustrating and time-consuming trip using lots of public transport.

 Day two in St Petersburg

Legs certainly felt the effects of that long, long walk around the gardens etc from yesterday but today there would be more opportunity to sit down at more regular intervals.

The day starts with my 10 mins walk to the Metro along a busy wide suburban street of locals shopping and starting their commuter day. I took the Metro to that same stop as yesterday – Nevsky prospect. – and then a 10 min walk to my first visit.

Winter Palace St Petersburg

I had read up about the Winter palace i.e., the famous Winter residence of the Russian Royal family. It was here that the Russian Revolution started when troops loyal to the Bolsheviks of Lenin stormed the Palace. They took it over from the recent provisional civilian Government that had only just gotten the Tsar to resign as ruler of the country.

I was warned by an American friend that it is vast, the contents even more vast and it takes a day to go round everything. Believe me she was not kidding and I spent around 5 hours just going from opulent room to ostentatious room after another.

Am sad to say that after the 50th magnificent room I was resigned to just pass through the next ones and glance as I walked through just to get a general impression. My concentration had waned after 3 hours and I was fearful that I would never get to see them all within the day!

The entrance staircase is magnificently grand and often on photos giving an example of the amazing rooms and designs within this palace. The sheer size of the rooms the decorations, furniture, colours and each one such a different design from the next, can be overwhelming but captivating.

The Winter Palace is immense – I’ve said it before and if you want exterior pics you will need to stand far back or have a wide-angle lens. I took pics from the Palace Square on one side, the nearby bridge over the wide river and got in a few side shots too. I even managed to get a good shot of it from the windows of the Hermitage Museum on the other side of the square!

Buy your Winter Palace ticket in advance online 

You must buy your ticket in advance online as there are often no tickets left on the day – don’t risk not being able to get in! You can combine it with the Heritage Museum and other buildings as a deal. I did the palace, museum, General staff HQ building, Menshikov Palace and the small palace of Peter the great as a two-day deal.

Whilst not cheap it is worth every penny. For the quantity you see and its worth, it is very good value. My ticket was about £20. Click here for website 

Entrance to the Palace (for online bought tickets) is actually via a small entrance on the square, not the superbly arched gateway that you would expect.

Read up on this Palace and make sure you see the grand staircase, the robot Peacock (I kid you not) and the largest vase in the world as these are stunning. The whole building is impressive but there is just so much to compare on degrees of impressiveness.

Rather than explain each room – that would take forever – I am presenting my favourite photos below. There are lots of pics here  but remember there are over 200 main rooms to view and a total of over 1,000 if you include minor rooms.

Keep in mind that the palace was constructed on a monumental scale that was intended to reflect the might and power of Imperial Russia. From the palace, the Tsar ruled over almost 1/6 of the Earth’s landmass and over 125 million subjects by the end of the 19th century. Impressive or what!

The whole building is impressive but there is just so much to compare on degrees of impressiveness.

There are mainly interconnecting so you wander directly from room to room.

In some parts of the Palace you do actually come out of the highly decorated room into enormous colourfully decorated corridor areas. The corridors themselves are works of art – no where seems to have been untouched by embellishments

Each room is lavishly styled. Some have heavy ceiling stucco work, others have dozens of columns, with feature windows. Every one is so opulent in its own differing style that after a while I was forgetting what style I had already seen and what could possibly differentiate the next room.

One room will be replendent in red velvet and gold lattice work on the walls. The next will be bright white with a dainty pastel flowered ceiling. Another could be heavy greens and an almost autunal woody feeling to the room, followed by another with marble intricate flooring and oversized fireplaces and paintings.

The assault on the eyes of all this over the top but regal decoration can be at once exciting but also never-ending. The ostentatiousness of the designs, the huge jade coloured vases and gold painted double doors becomes a little over whelming but in a good way.

Something felt missing though, and after walking through what was probably the twentieth room I suddenly realised it. There is a real absence of any furniture and  articles. In a Palace or stately home back in the UK you would usually find furniture – dinner setting on dining table s and chairs, sofas and side tables in lounges, beds in bedrooms etc.

The furniture would give the setting for the room and identify it. Here however it was opulently decorated bare room after room. I was missing the furniture to give me a sense of what the room was used for. The echoes of shoes on wooden floors, exaggerated the emptiness of the space.

Of all the rooms probably one of the least important stood out in my mins afterwards.

This was on a lower floor and was a huge hall of dozens of black-grey granite columns with an illuminated beamed ceiling. The starkness of the colours and the matching grey white mosaic floor was a huge difference to the colourful and wow factor other rooms.

It felt like I was more in a Greek temple from the columns and ceiling and I funnily enough imagined young royalty playing hide and seek around the columns in that era.

The Palace is absolutely amazing and a real over the top display or architectural styles that should not be missed. After my umpteenth room, (I lost count after about 40) I was feeling the sensory overload of seeing yet another visual delight in another room

I had now spent around 4 hours in the Palace and there was still more to see here. I felt I had seen all I needed and really needed to move on to prevent a sense of repetition leading to boredom setting in. Amazing you could ever get bored in such a place but it is so absolutely huge that time and patience is needed to see it all.

The Winter Palace is said to contain 1,057 rooms, 1,786 doors and 1,945 windows – I said it was big!!!

When I had finished seeing everything I could, my legs were aching from the effort. I knew I had walked kilometres and kilometres and my mind was now officially blown by the opulence and grandiosity of this building.

How anybody ever found anyone they were looking for in pre-phone days I just do not know!

Today, the palace, as part one of the world’s most famous museums, attracts an annual 3.5 million visitors.

Heritage Museum, Artworks, St Petersburg

Just as the Palace is immense, so is the art gallery. Not only for its size but also for the number of famous painters and their works. World renown artists are exhibited here in a magnificent permanent collection. There is also extensive rooms for alternating temporary exhibits too, not only of paintings, but sculpture, statues and artisan work.

Click here for the official website of The Heritage Museum.

Again, the list of works and artists is to extensive, so I will just say give yourself another few hours to see this building. The main body of works are in the General staff HQ building across the square from the Palace but it also extends into buildings adjacent to the palace.

It took me another 3 hours to get around it and I did it on a seperate day to the Winter Palace – culture is great but an overload can be wary on the eyes and brain.

I would suggest doing it on a different day like me to give your legs a rest and to avoid an history/art overdose.

I’m again displaying the photos below on a revolving screen – there are too many to fill space on sheets so scroll as fast, or as slow as you wish. I can only say it was one of the most captivating galleries I have seen in the world, and I’ve seen many!

The Museum has artefacts dating from ancient Egypt, through to Mediaeval times and the great European schools of art right through to the present day. I actively sought out the Matisse and Van Gogh paintings but the Picasso’s and modernist artworks were a surprise in that they had many.

Part of the artworks are on the walls of the Palace so you have a curious mixture of furniture, wall art and a grand room setting. Others are set separately in the General Staff HQ building in more traditional blander settings.

From the GSHQ you even get a marvellous view across the enormous Palace Square to the Winter Palace.

Through a window from the Museum I could look out onto the huge Palace Square in front of the Palace and Museum.

They were dismantling what looked like a huge stage arena for a concert in the square. It gave a surreal look to its backdrop of the 17th Century GS HQ buildings that in many ways rivalled the sheer size of the Palace.

The Faberge Collection

Remember that I said it was huge? Well now I was entering into another section of the Museum, a specialist area. Guards were obvious by their numbers here and they patrolled the rooms constantly. I was now in the Faberge collection. You know …… the famous gemmed up and exquisite eggs.

Here were several designs of eggs and other artefacts made by that designer, along with a little history of each one, worth no doubt millions each.

The diamonds jewels and uniqueness of each piece was clear and they were amazing. Would love to own one sometime …. in my dreams!

Manolo Blahnik Exhibition

My ticket permitted me access to the temporary exhibitions also and I was curious what was on display today. I wandered in and found that there was a exhibit the world renown …… shoemaker ……. Manolo Blahnik.

What???! I was surprised yet intrigued. What on earth was he doing here as an exhibit. I associate this with haut couture expensive shoes in a New York or Paris shoe store, yet here he was here in St Petersburg!

I realised that the exhibit was a history of his shoes over the decades. The impracticality of the shoes for wearing made them an artwork – or at least to me I couldn’t see anyone walking far or comfortably in these shoes!

They were an artwork to be sure. The vibrant colours and use of feathers, velvets and textured textiles was fascinating to see.

I walked the entire length of the exhibit mesmerised by the outrageousness of the designs but also admiring the intricate designs and symbolism of each pair. For the first time in a while a work of “art” had actually surprised me and got me thinking,

I even left the exhibition thinking that I had suddenly developed a shoe fetish in there!

So much to see in SP is on such a huge scale (the Tsars did nothing in small measures), that sightseeing can take days.

I was so glad I had given myself a extra day on top of my usual 3 days in any city as there was still masses to see. To be honest I would need at least a week here to see all I would love to see but my budget does not permit such extended stays in one city, so I had to compromise.

My next place to see, just along the waterfront from the Winter Palace, was quite the opposite to what I just said. Peter the Great did much but he was apparently quite a man of simple tastes and his original Winter Palace was a far cry from the grand affair next door to this.

Winter Palace of Peter I

The original small palace was found underneath the Hermitage Theatre and renovated in 1992, Now you can wander this very small palace (I would call it a house due to its size) and see pieces taken from the Hermitage collection directly related to Peter the Great and placed back here.

These include his gilded carriage, and a waxwork of the Tsar by Bartolomeo Rastrelli created in 1725. The rooms also contain a variety of personal effects and paintings from his reign.

The seated wax effigy of Peter is interesting. It looks far too big with larger-than-life hands and a smaller than usual head. It is supposed to be lifelike but it looked out of proportion. I then read that Peter was actually 6 feet 8 inches tall (2.03 metres). He absolutely towered over anyone! Guess that explains it all.

This took me all of about 20 mins to wander through but it was still fascinating to see the courtyard (now covered with a ceiling that is effectively the floor above of the theatre). It was included in my Winter Palace ticket so I saw two sides of the Tsarist legacy.

Thus, finished my second day in SP. Legs were again feeling the effect of the walking and my brain was feeling rather fluffy from the quantity of rooms, paintings and colours I had seen today. All was becoming a blur.

The nearby Metro station beckoned and I was glad to collapse back at the hotel and a meal in the bar area before an early night to rest.

Day three in St Petersburg

Today was going to be a little more condensed but there was still enough street walking between a couple of the sites to make me want to take it a bit easier today.

The sun was gloriously high in the sky and the weather had been good to me so far – I even had a bit of a tan from my outdoor adventures.

Hopped onto the Metro and this time got off at the stop after my usual Nevsky Prospekt stop i.e., Gorkovskaya.

This meant a pleasant walk through the nearby Aleksandrovskiy Park and along the waterfront, this time facing towards SP proper,

I was headed towards something that was unique and often not spoken about but was pivotal in the Oct Russian Revolution

Cruiser ship Aurora

So, why was this ship so important in a land-based takeover of government? Let me reveal the secret!

The October 1917 revolutionaries had amassed near the Winter Palace in SP ready to storm and take over the Palace. Inside was the recently formed Provisional Government who had, only a couple of months earlier, forced the Tsar to abdicate and thus took over control of the country.

The Revolutionaries needed a sign for them to start the attack and the Cruiser Aurora, moored nearby, was ordered to fire a shot that would resonate around the city to signify that start. It fired it, and the now famous storming of the Winter Palace took part.

Presumably no Aurora … then possibly no Revolution! Fame indeed for one ship.

Next door was the appropriately located Naval Academy. The building is not famous or a must see in St Petersburg but I had to take a pic of its beautiful blue pastel façade set opposite a small park with an ornamental spouting fountain. Just a keep-sake of something that caught my eye – do you agree?

Peter the Great’s Wooden lodge

In a small, unassuming square, surrounded by residential buildings, just a short walk from the cruiser is a small but unique curiosity.

Peter the Great wanted to commence his building of St Petersburg but had nowhere to reside while he personally oversaw the works. Being the practical and plain minded person that he was, he had a small two room wooden lodge built near the works and lived here for a while

It effectively became St. Petersburg’s first building. From here he directed the building efforts of the “Peter and Paul Fortress”, with the small city dwellings inside as the central area to his new capital.

Whilst you cannot go inside the lodge you can peer in through the windows and see the simplicity and starkness of how he, as a Tsar, had decided to live while monitoring the works.

The weird thing is that the lodge sits inside what looks like a protective large public building – which is what it actually is. So, you have to go inside a building to see the building inside. His rowing boat he used on the wide river is also preserved and displayed here.

Khram-Chasovnya Svyatoy Troitsy Chapel

Five minutes’ walk further along the promenade road and you arrive at the next sight.

This miniature chapel caught my eye and I just couldn’t walk by without taking a photo of it. Probably, historically not very important but yet again a building that I enjoyed seeing for its uniqueness.

It is early 18th Century and from the outside is bell-shaped with the appearance of a granite pavilion with a golden dome, topped with a cross. Apparently, it is famed for its choir singers and commemorates a church that previously stood nearby on the other side of the park it is located next to.

Moving swiftly on, another five minutes along the tree lined road away from the Neva River you arrive at the entrance to the big deal here. See, my walking tour is keeping the sites close to each other!

The Ioannovskiy bridge will take you across what is a wide moat that is effectively a channel cut in the river bank to form a huge island.

St Peter and Paul Fortress St Petersburg

Once across the Ioannovskiy bridge you arrive at the Fortress

You walk through, firstly, a plainer fortified gateway set in the high red brick outer walls of the Fortress to gain access to a massive inner paved and grassed yard. From here ahead is the more decorative second gateway again flanked by massive red brick walls, this time with small arched windows.

Once through these two gates and walls you are into the Fortress itself. You will pass by the various perfectly restored museums. However they held little interest to me personally. I’m not into Children’s Museums or Space Exploration to name but a few here.

The interior is vast and almost like walking into a village setting. The numerous trees gave great shelter on what was another warm day and the crowds do get big unfortunately.

Peter the Great statue

You have a must do here – if you can get anywhere near it!

There is a seated bronze statue of Peter the Great. Again, out of proportion but apparently, he was over two metre tall and a bit unshapely anyhow. You are supposed to touch his hand for luck and hundreds of tourists (nearly all Chinese) were crowding around to do just this.

The statue in my photo looks quite solitary but believe me when I say I had to wait at least 10 minutes to get a shot when there were no crowds buzzing around it. It was empty like this for about 4 seconds and I got the shot in!

There is a walkway from the central area to the fortress walls overlooking the wide river (it feels more like a small sea).

From here you can see across to the distant shore and just make out the grand buildings lining the promenade on the opposite riverbank.

There is also a beach here …… yep, I said it right …… a beach. A wide sandy flat expanse below the fortified walls enables sunbathers to soak up the rays and today there were a few dozen doing so.  You can even walk along the beach and the wide below-walls walkway for a fair distance and take in several sides on the star shape walls and waterline.

St Peter and Paul Cathedral St Petersburg

The Cathedral is a sight to bold. It is surmounted by the tallest and most slender spire I have ever seen, measuring 123 metres high.

I approached the Cathedral from the back and seeing its Baroque design and pale-yellow walls I felt I was in Italy; it seemed a little out of place style wise. I later found out that it was designed by an Italian so I got that bit right.

However, the hard cobbled street I was treading and the heavy symmetrical buildings with high pitched roof juxtaposingly told we I was definitely in northern Europe…

On turning the corner, the huge spire came more into view and in fact, such was the reflecting glare of the sun off its gold painted surface, that I had to put my sunglasses on to be able to see it properly.

I was curious about the construction. The spire looked crazily tall and slender compared to the structure below holding it up. It did cross my mind as to how it stayed upright and not topple over in a massive storm.

The whole Cathedral was built between 1712 and 1733, with Peter the Great himself placing the founding stone in the ground. The spire is actually the belfry, and as it comprises one section is recognised as the tallest Orthodox belfry in the world.

Like most churches under the Russian Communists, it was closed in 1919, reopening as a museum in 1924. Religious services resumed in 2000, again as in many churches after the fall of Communism.

If this was what it was like on the outside, I was definitely interested in seeing what the inside held.

The interior came as a surprise – it was so decorative and colourful. The walls and carved wood screens were gold and the designs swirled everywhere. Various iconography adorned the walls too.

It was difficult to get photos due to the sheer number of visitors today, so much patience was needed in waiting for a clearing and to quickly take my photo.

It was however the ceilings that amazed me. They seemed like huge mosaics and the lights illuminating them really brought out the various shades of pastel green and accompanying gold and white.

Enormous chandeliers hung from the ceilings and again it felt more Italian than an Imperial Russian Church.

Tombs of the Imperial Russian families

The big thing here was still yet to be seen. I had come here specifically to see the tombs of the Royal families that date back hundreds of years. The cathedral houses the remains of almost all the Russian Emperors and empresses from Peter the Great to Nicolas II.

They are laid out generally in rows with the same size tomb – a white marble block with a gold cross embedded on the top. Occasionally, one of them wanted to be different and a purplish granite one stands out or a plain dark grey stone one is there too.

All are behind an ironwork grill presumably to stop people touching them Each are named and it is clear that the allocated space is now full.

The Imperial family that was executed on the orders of the Communists have now been buried here a few years ago after they were discovered where they were hidden. They rest in a seperate room to the side – a rather plain Edwardian styled alcove.

Interestingly this is the only room that has extra space for more tombs …. are they expecting more!?

Restaurant ship Letuchiy Gollandets 

I’m just going to throw this in here.

After leaving the fortress via the gates on the opposite side of the walls to where I came in, I wandered past this on my way to my next site.

It is actually a well-known floating restaurant, disguised as an 18th Century warship.

At the time, I couldn’t find a reference to it as an historical piece but it was pretty lifelike. Some things gave it away as not being around 300 years old so I had to look it up later and thus discovered its true nature.

Inside it is a rather grand eatery. Just had to get a pic of this to put on here. It did sit well in its setting with the fortress as its backdrop.

The Rostral Towers

The Rostral Towers are built in the style of Roman Rostral (victory) columns and are placed at a viewpoint over the Neva River

These Iconic 32 metre columns, adorned with sculptures, anchors and ships’ prows and topped with torches are lit on holidays. They are certainly different and from here you get a sweeping view of the fortress and the winter Palace on either side of the Neva River

Interestingly, this wide-open area on a river promenade is also regularly used by locals for events and when I was there had several stalls selling trinkets and souvenir pieces.

Stalls also had the “souvenir” t-shirts of Putin and some comedy ones too. I just has to get a pic of one of the stalls as political leaders on t-shirts is not something I usually come across. … Souvenir anybody?

This was also a fittingly humorous ending to my third day and my legs were telling me it was time to rest. The walk back took me across the Dvortsovyy bridge facing the Winter Palace. I got yet another view of its facades as my lasting moment before catching the Metro at the nearby station and enjoying a meal at my hotel.

Day Four

I was already getting withdrawal symptoms on my last day before I left for Helsinki, Finland via train.

I was enjoying the grandeur of the buildings and the apparent more affluent society I was encountering here compared to Moscow. I was definitely feeling the effects of the previous three days of sightseeing as several of the sites were on impressively large scales.

Menshikov Palace St Petersburg

Menshikov was a man of humble beginnings (a stable boy according to the legend). He rose up through the ranks to become a great friend and aide to Peter the Great from whom he received many Nobility and Military titles.

He however was frequently found to be involved in corrupt practices and looting the coffers of Peter behind his back. After one corrupt revelation too many Peter stripped him of everything and exiled him to Siberia with his family where he died.

The Palace that he built for himself, was the first stone building in the city, that is, built outside the fortress walls and was initially opened in 1711. It was still being constructed when Menshikov was exiled to Siberia in 1727.

It served as a military establishment after his exile and for centuries was kept as such under the Communists. It was eventually restored and reopened as a Museum.

My visit coincided with a quiet period for the Palace as I was often the only person wandering through the many rooms.

Each room contained a porcelain chimney structure in a a corner, something that I had found more akin to more southern eastern European countries like the Czech Republic.

The plethora of well-maintained furniture, paintings and homewares gave each room a homely feel and looked straight out of the period, with even tables being laid ready for service.

The artefacts and arrangements are a great example of how they have made the Palace come to life as a Museum but also a glimpse into 17th Century home life.

The Admiralty Building

This building was originally built as the HQ for the Russian Navy and still remains as such today. It was originally a fortified shipyard for the navy but was hugely remodelled in 1806 to give it its classical present-day look.

The building is ginormous and its yellow colour stands out on any of its neighbouring streets, almost rivalling in size and height the nearby Winter Palace of the old Tsars.

The gilded spire almost copies the spire of St Peter and Paul Cathedral that I saw the previous day and in effect appears to be a combination of a palace and cathedral made into a huge office building.

I walked around the four sides capturing the different looks on each side and the well-maintained gardens it sits in. To think that his is the naval HQ of Russia’s modern fleet today is something of a conflict in design.

Grand it certainly is, modern it is not, but beautiful it definitely is!

There was no obvious security from the outside given the huge military importance the building must command, It was however noticeable that entrances had barriers and that little if any movement of people in or out of the building was visible.

The Bronze Horseman

Nearby across the road was another monument well known in this city.

Called the bronze horseman, it is actually a statue of Peter the Great on horseback commissioned by Catherine the Great and placed here on Senate Square in 1782.

It faces the river, in a tree-lined, open, grassed square. The Admiralty Building lies on one side of the square and the fabulous St Isaac’s cathedral further as its backdrop.

St Isaac’s cathedral

This church, located on the aptly named St Isaac’s Square, is actually the fourth one to stand here. It was commissioned by Tsar Nicolas I.

It is dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia who was the patron saint of Peter the Great (he gets in there again). Peter was also coincidently born on the feast day of St Isaac. Completed in 1882, it actually took 40 long years to complete.

History repeats itself again as in 1931 it was converted into a Museum by the Communist (“religion is the opium of the people”, quote from them!).

It actually remained as a museum to this day. It was proposed to be reconverted back to an Orthodox Cathedral with services in 2017, but the idea was rejected by the local citizens. It does hold occasional religious services however.

The exterior is faced with grey and dark pink stone and at first seems somewhat sombre in its colouring. It features a total of 112 dark red granite columns, a 101 metre high dome and a viewpoint from the top across the cityscape.

The interior (after passing through the huge bronze doors), is an explosion of colour and opulence.

The neo-classical design of the walls and columns, mosaic, painted frescos and altar screen is a real WOW moment. It really took me back at the splendour as a contrast with the outside, I was expecting another dull interior like the Kazan Cathedral down the road.

I couldn’t get enough of the sights and my camera went into overdrive. What I show here is a small selection of the myriad of designs and colours to be seen and it really has to be seen in reality to appreciate the artwork and opulence.

Canals of the city

Something I want to bring to everyone’s attention here, that doesn’t get the publicity it deserves. St Petersburg historical centre is built around a series of canals.

The city is often referred to as the “Venice of the North” but not much is then further explained or shown about these amazing canals.

Much wider than Venice’s canals and in lesser number, they easily accommodate large tourist boats that ply these waters. They are often more like the size of small rivers.

Like Amsterdam, they have wide streets lining their banks and beautiful building perched on their edges giving panoramic views down their length.

I loved crossing the bridges over these canals and taking in the sight down the length of what are often fairly straight parts of each canal. I hope these canals get more interest as I found them fascinating.

So ends my last day in St Petersburg and what a trip it has been. I have thoroughly enjoyed my stay here.

Captivated by the grandeur and majesty of the building, enthralled at the history I have seen and so, so glad I have finally fulfilled a life-long held wish to see this amazing city – it exceeded my expectations.

June 2017

Below are some related posts on nearby places to visit. Click on the pic to view.