Saint Petersburg, Russia
Established in 1703
Population: 2015 census 5,191,690
It is the 2nd largest city in Russia situated on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea
It was named St. Petersburg in 1703, changed to Petrograd in 1914, then Leningrad in 1924 and finally back to St. Petersburg in 1991
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| Saint Petersburg - located in the North-West part of Russia....a 4-hour fast train ride from Moscow |
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| The city and some of it's landmarks |
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July 12th-18th we had our first visitors to Moscow. They were a couple we met while Craig was temporarily in Abu Dhabi, UAE (2 months). Stephanie is Canadian and Jens is from Denmark. They arrived late afternoon and we couldn't wait to show them our beautiful city of Moscow. First stop, a walk by Christ the Saviour Cathedral on our way to our favorite Italian restaurant, Pinzeria. After dinner we popped on the metro 2 stops to go to The Ritz Carleton for a drink at the O2 Lounge on the rooftop where we were all treated to a gorgeous evening and view of Red Square and the Kremlin. After our $20 drink, we walked through Red Square, all lit up and got some nice photos of the square and St. Basil's at night followed by a lovely walk home.
The next day we hit the ground running. I brought them back to Red Square where we tried to get into St. Basil's, but it was closed on Wednesdays for a month (who knew?). It was disappointing, but we continued on to the State Historical Museum and then we met up with their guide for a private 4-hour tour of the Kremlin including the cathedrals, the Armoury and the Diamond Fund. After their great, but exhausting tour, I dragged them to go see the Bolshoi Theatre building and then headed back home.
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| Panorama of Red Square including the Goom, St. Basil's, Lenin's tomb and part of Kremlin wall. |
Thursday we headed back to Red Square for a second chance to see inside St. Basil's (I had never been inside either). It was not at all what I was expecting as it was 2-storeys and filled with a bunch of small rooms. There wasn't one large room like you expect to see in a church. I really liked it with the colourful walls and little peek-a-boo cubby holes.
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| Stephanie humoring me by posing in one of the peek-through slots in the walls |
We also popped into the Kazan Cathedral for a quick peek. Afterwards we hit the Museum of 1812 located just outside of Red Square. It's not a large museum and most was written in Russia. It wasn't all that interesting to me, but then again, museums aren't my thing. We were right on schedule, so I brought them to Dr. Zhivago restaurant in the National Hotel. It's got a great atmosphere and decor and we were lucky to be offered the "Vodka Room" table. It's this glass enclosure with one table for 4 and a wall of vodka. Jens & Stephanie loved it!
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| Stephanie in the Vodka Room for lunch at Dr. Zhivago's |
They sampled black sturgeon caviar with blini pancakes, borsch, pelmeni and, of course, a shot of vodka - Baikal Vodka (from Lake Baikal). I had a very delicious pumpkin & crab soup. Then we hit the metro and I brought them out to my favorite park - Tsaritsino Park - where we wandered around, saw the castle and strolled through the forest. Being from Abu Dhabi, they enjoyed being in nature. It had been a long day, but we weren't finished yet. I took them to see some of my favorite metro stations: Ploshad Revolutsi, Komsomolskaya and Novoslobodskaya.
We arrived back home, had about an hour to put our feet up and then we headed out to dinner at Uryok - a Central Asian restaurant in the Euro mall. There we enjoyed some delicious vodka/raspberry shooters, khachaturi bread and other yummy food and then all of a sudden belly dancers started coming around to dance by the tables. Interesting! Loved it! Early the next morning we headed off for our St. Petersburg adventure. 6:30 am we left the apartment and headed to the metro to take us to the train station. All went smoothly (thanks to my wonderful husband Craig who is awesome at navigating and organizing trips). The train was modern and comfortable and we settled in for the 4-hour ride through the outskirts of Moscow and then out into the wilderness towards St. Petersburg.
We arrived to a hectic train station where Craig, once again, successfully navigated us on foot from the station to our hotel (about a 10-miniute walk). We stayed in the Akyan Hotel which came highly recommended on Tripadvisor. It has a quaint little lobby with gorgeous tile art and a decorative stuccoed ceiling. Our rooms, although very small, were nicely decorated, had high ceilings and a good bathroom. Breakfast was included. The only thing missing was a lounge area to just chill and have a drink at night... maybe a rooftop patio ... that would have been perfect.
Shortly after we arrived we headed back out to explore the city. Unfortunately, it was raining, but we had planned it perfectly with tickets (purchased online) for the Hermitage Museum. Once we finally found the right entrance for online tickets, we by-passed lines and went straight in for our 3-hour exploration of a museum that you could spend days in (if you're that type of person). In 3 hours we probably only saw about 30% of the museum.
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| Gorgeous ceiling inside the Hermitage...well, technically, I believe it is the Winter Palace portion of this beautiful museum |
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| View from inside the Hermitage looking out towards the square behind us. I loved the carriages! How appropriate that they look like Cinderella would ride in them when we are, after all, in a palace. I wanted to ride in one... maybe next time! |
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| I was more interested in the architecture than the artifacts |
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| Even the floors were gorgeous! I could not believe they allow tourist to tromp all over these amazing wood inlaid floors. |
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| bling bling |
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| View of the lovely Hermitage building from within the Hermitage building. We were SO thankful we didn't have to wait in those lines! |
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| Jens really wanted to see the Peacock clock... it was well worth making the effort to find it! |
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| This is the amazing room the peacock clock was showcased in. Apparently you are not allowed to lean on the marble pillars - I got scolded by a guard when I was doing just that. |
From the Hermitage we walked towards the Church of Spilled Blood. On our
way, we were delighted to find a "Cocktails to go" booth, so we just
had to stop for a cocktail! But of course! It did feel very strange walking....towards a church, on the street, drinking a cocktail, but it was yummy after our hike through the Hermitage.
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| Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (aka Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ). It is aptly named because the church was built on the the site where Emperor Alexander II was fatally wounded in 1881. The church was built between 1883-1907. It contains over 7500 square meters of mosaics! According to its restorers, more mosaics than any other church in the world. It's incredible! In 1917 after the Russian Revolution the church was badly looted and damaged. It was again damaged after WW2. |
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| You maybe can't tell, but that's all tiny little tiles about 2 cm x 2 cm |
After seeing the Church of Spilled Blood we went for dinner right next door at Meat Head restaurant. It was a nice restaurant - not amazing, but good food and a nice, almost cave-like atmosphere.
The next morning we were on the go again. Rob (Craig's AA) had recommended we see Catherine's Palace and we were all glad we did. Craig had arranged a private tour for us, so we hopped in a cab where we arrived at the palace in about 45 minutes. We were taken to the back (or is it the front?) gate and there was nobody around. We were escorted to our guide where the 2-hour tour began from a small room where we could leave our belongings, use a private washroom and put on our fancy slippers.
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| (from http://www.saint-petersburg.com/pushkin/catherine-palace.asp) "Catherine Palace is named after Catherine I, the wife of Peter the Great, who ruled Russia for two years after her husband's death. Originally a modest two-storey building commissioned by Peter for Catherine in 1717, the Catherine Palace owes its awesome grandeur to their daughter, Empress Elizabeth, who chose Tsarskoe Selo as her chief summer residence. Starting in 1743, the building was reconstructed by four different architects, before Bartholomeo Rastrelli, Chief Architect of the Imperial Court, was instructed to completely redesign the building on a scale to rival Versailles. The resultant palace, completed in 1756, is nearly 1km in circumference, with elaborately decorated blue-and-white facades." This palace is definitely grand. The one room we were unable to photograph was the legendary Amber Room. The original amber panels were lost when in 1941 the German troops dismantled them. Their whereabouts are unknown to this day. In 1982, the order was given to recreate the Amber Room, a process that took over 20 years and cost more than $12 million. Opened in 2003 by President Vladimir Putin, it is a truly unique monument. | | | | |
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| The Amber Room in Catherine's Palace - photo from internet as we were forbidden to take photos |
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| Grand ballroom in Catherine's Palace |
After the tour we walked the grounds for a bit and then from Catherine's Palace we managed to find our taxi (using Yandex Taxi app) and from there we headed off to Peterhof to see the Peterhof Palace.
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| The grounds of Peterhof Palace - here is one of the many "tricky fountains". You could be sitting on this bench and then all of a sudden you'd find yourself within a fountain. Someone had a good sense of humor designing the gardens here. After a little walk through the grounds we came upon the view below. |
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| Peterhof Palace |
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| We didn't go inside the palace, just enjoyed the surrounding garden area. Lots and lots of tourists. |
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| A truly beautiful place with such grandeur and opulence |
You'd think we'd be tired after visiting two castles outside of St. Petersburg, but we kept on going and did a river cruise! It was a packed boat, but we managed to get four seats together at the back of the boat. Only mishap was I got a soaker when the big hydrofoil boat (goes St. Petersburg to Peterhof) whizzed by and splashed us. It was lovely, first of all, to sit down, and secondly to see the city from the water. The traffic on the water was quite crazy, but they seemed to know what they were doing.
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| from the river cruise.... |
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| Not a whole lot of space to go under some of these bridges. One bridge I even yelled out (in Russian) - "sit down" because this lady was standing up as we were about to go under a 2.5 metre bridge and if she hadn't sat down she would have been knocked out! |
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| Hermitage and other buildings attached including the Summer Palace. |
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| We didn't go under the 2.0 metre bridge to go right past Spilled Blood church, but we were close by. |
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| This is the 2.5 metre bridge...as you can see, this guy can touch the ceiling and he's sitting down! |
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| St. Isaac's - we didn't get in to see this... maybe next time. |
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| The morning we left St. Petersburg Craig & I had a nice walk around town while Jens & Stephanie relaxed at the hotel. Craig liked this selfie of us with Spilled Blood! lol |
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| I think this is called Singer Cafe on Nevsky Prospect - very beautiful building with a unique shop downstairs and the cafe on the 2nd floor. I missed seeing the mosque here, which is supposed to be beautiful, but it was closed for renovations anyhow, so maybe next time. |
Overall, I would recommend people traveling to Russia to go to St. Petersburg. As I said, it's a quick 4-hour train ride from Moscow and is quite easy to navigate. The summer palaces are outside of the city, but it's only about a $20 (Canadian) taxi ride there, so well worth a visit. I loved all the waterways and the architecture, but what I didn't care for is all the tourists. It's a very busy city in the summer, so I would think maybe it would be nicer to visit when it's off peak season.
