St Petersburg

From Moscow, we caught the Sapsan, or high speed train, straight up to St Petersburg.  The distance between the two cities is about 650km or 400 miles, and it took us only three hours to get there!  The Sapsan is crazy fast, which is a shame in a way as it's such a nice experience.  It's a proper luxury train with tv to watch, food and drink on demands (and for free!) and the best service I've ever had.  I was really quite sorry to reach St Petersburg at the end of it!

Frozen lake from the train

One thing I'd learned in Moscow was that it was significantly easier to get by if you knew the Cyrillic alphabet.  Harri and Tom had sensibly learned it before we'd left, but none of the rest of us had.  However, I thought that my time in St Petersburg would be considerably easier if I put my mind to it, and I'd spent most of the journey messing about with it.  Combined with staring out of the window at the landscape flashing by (think snowy plains, frozen lakes and bare trees) the time slipped by really quickly.  Once we got to St Petersburg, the most noticeable thing to distinguish it from Moscow was the weather - whereas Moscow had been miserably cold and wet, there were bright blue skies and a not-horrific 14 or 15*C to make us happy.

The main station in St Petersburg is, somewhat confusingly, called Moscow Station.  We turned left out of it and straight down the main road, Nevsky Prospect, to the Corinthia Hotel where we were staying.  The most confusing thing about this was that on the map it looked about maybe a five minute walk, so after we'd been walking for 15 minutes or so and still hadn't seen the hotel, we thought we must've gone the wrong way.  After consulting the map for a few minutes it seemed like we were on the right road, so we carried on.  Sure enough, another ten minutes or so later, we finally found the Corinthia.  This was definitely our first lesson in the size of St Petersburg ... the Corinthia is, to all intents and purposes in the "middle of town" on a map.  However, St Petersburg is so absolutely enormous that it's still five kilometres to the river on the one side, and another five kilometres to l'Hermitage and Palace Square.  This was a big surprise to me, because I'd anticipated St Petersburg being smaller than Moscow.

On our first night we were pretty knackered from whizzing about in Moscow, and Flora at least was completely sick of Russian food - which is lovely, but is not massively varied.  Therefore, we pottered down the road to a cute Italian which was cheap and easy.  The Corinthia is perfectly placed on Nevsky Prospect - it might be enormous, but it's lined with shops and restaurants so nothing is too far away.  After a good supper we were ready to tumble into bed, so it was back to the hotel and a good night's sleep before the next day.

The River Neva

I got up early on the following day - our only full day in St Petersburg - and went for a run.  I knew that Palace Square was to the left of the Corinthia, so I thought I'd go the other way and head down Nevsky Prospect to the other end, which gets you to the Neva River.  All I can say is ... big mistake.  BIG.  HUGE, as Julia Roberts would say ... All was fine until I got to Moscow Station.  However, almost as soon as I was past it, the street changed dramatically.  Where there had been simply closed shops (this was 06:00 on a Sunday morning) before, now there the flashing lights and warm doors of sex shops, porn cinemas, shadowy buildings with no names, and men and women slinking in and out of alleyways guarded by armed policemen.  Since I had no idea whether all of St Petersburg was like that, I decided to continue down and eventually made it to the river having gathered a raft of suspicious looks along the way.  At least the river was absolutely stunning - it looked far more like a sea to me, being used to the Thames which is maybe 250 metres wide in central London.  The Neva looked like it was at least five times as wide at that point; I could barely see the other bank.  After snapping a few pictures I steeled myself and headed back along the same route.

By the time I got back it was BREAKFAST!  This is well worth the capitals!  Breakfast at the Corinthia is 100% the most amazing meal I've ever had.  It's a buffet, but you can literally have anything you can think of - they'd catered for every potential culture which could possibly visit, so as well as the standard English and Continental breakfasts, there were waffles, pancakes, potatoes, fish, rice, kedgeree and a whole load of things I'd never even heard of, let alone tasted.  My personal favorite were pancakes stuffed with meat and vegetables which I think were traditionally Russian.  I could eat those for every meal!  Breakfast also had mimosas and champagne, should you need a little pick me up to get you through the day.

Once we'd stuffed ourselves to capacity, it was off to Palace Square on the other side of St Petersburg.  To my massive relief, it turned out that Nevsky Prospect on the other side was absolutely fine - and in fact incredibly beautiful with the stunning buildings rising up on either side, and bridges crossing tributaries from the Neva every now and again.

Ceiling of the Church of Savior on Spilled Blood

Floor in St Savior on Spilled Blood

Our first stop of the day was the Church of Savior on Spilled Blood.  This is the most amazing church - from the outside it looks a little bit like St Basil's in Moscow, in that it has turrets and domes and is made of fantastical tubes which adhere to one another.  However, it's less colorful and it has a flat facade on one side, making it unique to itself.  It is, however, the inside that's really amazing - it's absolutely covered in frescos and murals in the most brilliant colors.  The colors are then relieved by gold leaf, and huge chandeliers light up the entire cathedral.  There are altars in recesses surrounding the main area, and the flooring is marble.  Basically, it's AMAZING and unlike anything else I'd ever seen.

Once we left the Church of Savior on Spilled Blood we headed down the canal and back onto Nevsky Prospect to make our way over to Palace Square.  Although we walked through it immediately, we headed down to the Neva to see what it was like down by the river.  We had a lovely time wandering over the bridge and looking over the river, basically just admiring the view.  Tom and I temporarily lost the others, but we eventually managed to reconnect and headed off to lunch.  Lunch was again Russian food (and again found by Harri!) in a tiny downstairs cafe, where we watched the soccer with the owner and played with the furry rabbits which lived in there.  It was super cute, and we lingered over our meal which was great for me because we were going to the Hermitage after it, and I'm not an art fan!

Eventually however we were all done, and we tootled back over the square to the entrance to the Hermitage, which is in the amazing Winter Palace.  Harri had booked all our tickets in advance, so we didn't have to queue which was a relief because the queue was CRAZY!!!!

The Winter Palace

After dropping off our bags and jackets - they're keen on this in Russia, we'd had to do the same in the Armory in the Kremlin - we headed through the gallery.  We'd agreed that we'd all separate and do it at our own speed, because Tom, Harri, Rachel and Flora really like art, whereas Harri and I couldn't give less of a shit.  Therefore, while they lingered over various artworks and discussed perspective and focus and light (or something) Harri and I went on a mission to see the entire thing within the three hours or so we had allotted to us.  Fortunately some of it was closed, but I think we made a fairly good crack at seeing the rest of it!  We did actually very much enjoy it; it was lovely.  If I could have gotten excited about art I'm sure it would've been very cool, but as it was I enjoyed the building.

St Savior on Spilled Blood

Once we were all done, it was time to get home again to get ready for supper.  Having been a little less intense in the Hermitage, Harri and I were less tired than the others so we decided to try out the St Petersburg underground and go on a roadtrip to see some of the good stations in St Petersburg while the others headed back to relax.  We found the tube station fine and negotiated our way onto the right lines, but we couldn't find any really good stations.  It was a shame, but we at least had fun, albeit we went the wrong way on the tube not once but twice!

Supper that evening was a taxi ride away at Teplo, a tiny little restaurant that looks like it's in a cottage.  It's the sweetest place, with everyone sitting around on sofas rather than at formal tables, and blankets to use if you get cold.  The menus are set into photo books with pictures of St Petersburg through time, together with pictures of the owner's family and pets - it's lovely and you feel right at home ... just with better food and cocktails than are at my place anyway!  We had yet more delicious Russian food before we practically rolled out into the street and our waiting taxis to get home.  We spent a little while in the bar, having some chilled drinks and chatting about the holiday before we set off to bed.

Just like Moscow, we only had half a day for our second day, and again we chose to do things differently.  Tom wanted to go back to the Hermitage, whereas Romy wanted to relax.  Rachel and Flora wanted to go shopping, and Harri and I wanted to see how much else we could fit in.  Therefore, we scattered, but with strict instructions to each other be back for 13:00 when the prebooked taxis would be ready to take us to the airport.

St Peter and St Paul Fortress

Harri and I had a relatively ambitious plan for the morning.  To start with, we thought we'd head over to the St Peter and St Paul Fortress, check out the cathedral there (not only because it looked beautiful, but because the Romanovs are buried there).  Then we thought we'd try and get to the Museum of Political History before we grabbed some lunch on the go and got back in time for 13:00.

St Peter and St Paul Fortress

St Peter and St Paul Fortress is absolutely stunning!  It's on its own tiny island which is walled throughout.  As well as the cathedral it has all sorts of municipal and state buildings, most of which are in a beautiful buttercup yellow, and the cathedral towers over the whole lot.  The streets are cobbled and the entire island is pedestrianised, so it feels totally quiet and non-touristy.  We loved it there, but after a quick view at the cathedral we had to get going to get the most out of the Political History Museum which was fortunately just over the road.

The Museum was AMAZING - it was completely gripping from the start (well, not the very start as we tried to get in through the back door accidentally and set off all kinds of alarms.  That was not gripping - we sprinted off as fast as possible!).  It started with older history, from about the 1850s and gave a very brief overview of the Romanov period.  That wasn't quite as interesting to us, but the following room was brilliant - it started with the 1917 Revolution and Lenin's rise to power and moved through from there to the present.  As well as the political artefacts and relics, there were also voiceover recordings with speeches and music from the time, and contemporaneous photos and letters describing life at the time.  We'd each been issued with a booklet in English explaining all of the different artefacts, so there was no question of us being unable to understand.  Following on from that room, a further room had interactive media so you could choose what you wanted to watch.  I chose to watch some videos of the Lenin era but I could've chosen any period from 1917 onwards and been presented with a wealth of material.  The final room dealt with Soviet and Russian sports, particularly in relation to the Olympics.  Since I love both sports and the Olympics I could've stayed there forever, but I prised myself loose to go and meet Harri again since it was 12:15.  We'd worked out that we should leave about then to get back for 12:45.

Off we tootled, looking out for somewhere to stop and grab some food on the way back.  We spied a little newsagent on the side of the road, so we dropped in to pick up a bread roll and a drink of something on our way.  As it turned out, however, it was a relic from the Soviet era and we couldn't just buy what we wanted - we had to point to what we wanted to choose and the shopkeeper would either get it for us, or shake his head.  All the cabinets were locked so it was totally up to him what we got!  With a couple of bread rolls in our paws and a drink or two to go with them, we were back on our way.  Unfortunately, in the excitement of that and the museum, we suddenly realised we had an extremely long way to go in a vey very short space of time.  As I said, St Petersburg is MASSIVE and we had totally underestimated it anyway, plus the tube stations are massively spread out.  That meant that our only choice was to run back!  Luckily for us we'd fuelled up with our bread rolls, and we managed to roll into the hotel at exactly 13:00 to the somewhat horrified faces of our friends, who'd all been sitting there for ages.  Luckily they'd thought to get our luggage out, so we could style it out and dive straight into the waiting taxis.  Perfect!

Stall outside St Savior on Spilled Blood

Overall, I didn't love St Petersburg as much as I loved Moscow but I was the only one of the six of us to reach that conclusion.  To me, it was a beautiful city but without much substance; it didn't have the excitement and drive of Moscow.  It was comparable to a city like Florence or York, where people are happy and prosperous (with a dark undercurrent from time to time) but where not much really happens.  It's definitely worth a visit but I prefer Moscow!