Overview to St Petersburg: Travel Guide and Tourist Information

  The Russian Orthadox Church

Sitting solemnly on the River Neva, St Petersburg mixes delicate beauty with an impressive scale. The city is truly remarkable – a virtually peerless assortment of fabulous palaces, stunning churches and formidable fortresses.

The core of the Old Town is the attractive main street, the Nevskiy Prospekt, from which the city stretches away in every direction. Although decidedly European in feel, few places in Europe are so full of atmosphere or possess such a darkly fascinating history.

St Petersburg’s main sights include the vast churches of Kazan Cathedral and St Isaac’s, the Peter and Paul Fortress (the city’s oldest building) and the majestic Winter Palace. The latter is home to the enormous Hermitage Museum, one of the world’s largest - and finest - museums.

Staring out on the Gulf of Finland, you’re never very far away from water in the city. Crisscrossed by bridges, the River and its adjoining canal ways and islands are a great place for a scenic stroll.

Out to the east of the city center, the atmospheric Tikhvin Cemetery is well worth a visit, not least to pay your respects to a couple of its prestigious residents – Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky.

There is no ideal time to visit the city: the frozen winter months are perhaps its ‘natural’ state, when things are most beautiful, snow-capped and white. The summer, however, yields up the eerie beauty of the ‘Belye nochy’ or ‘White Night’, when the sun never sets on the city.

As befits a city that (until it was moved to Moscow) had a Vodka Museum, St Petersburg is also a hard-living, hard-drinking place. Bars and cafés line the streets of the center of town; the perfect place to meet the outrageously friendly locals.

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