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| St. Petersburg |
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| Something new, something old.. |
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| The State Hermitage Museum |
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| Main entrance in Hermitage |
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| Nevski Prospekt |
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| Arabian Nights? |
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| F. Dostojevski |
After dreaming about a trip to St Petersburg for the past 2 years, we finally were able to travel to this beautiful city in mid October 2011. We did not bring our computer with us so therefore this "update" is written a month later and it is just a summary of the highlights.
Although there is a good train connection between Helsinki and St. Petersburg, we traveled to St. Petersburg by bus because we found a good deal for a four-days-trip through Citydeal. The bus took quite a long time to get there because we made quite a few stops along the way: i.e. our bus driver and the tour guide wanted to make a stop to buy some vodka like just a few minutes after crossing the border. Next time I think we will take the train instead. But it was nice to see the scenery along the way so we didn't mind sitting on the bus for like 8hrs each way.
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| Hotel Moskva |
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| Scary escalator to the metro |
We stayed in the Hotel Moskva which is along the main street of Nevski Prospekt. The hotel was maybe a little too big to our taste but it had a great location especially because the metro station of Alexandra Nevskogo was in the same building. The metro was an easy way of moving about in the city and the best thing was that the names of the stations were written also in western alphabets (which made it 100x easier to navigate in the city). The escalator to the metro tunnel was amazingly long and steap so in case you are a little bit afraid of heights and you do not feel comfortable in cramped spaces, you might want to close your eyes when going up and down the escalator.
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| St. Nicholas Church |
The bus deal included a visit in the
Peter Paul's Cathedral and in St. Nicholas Church as well as a sightseeing tour by bus. The bus tour was actually quite a nice way of getting to know the city because it was surprisingly cold outside. If you are not afraid of the cold, October is actually a really good time to visit St. Petersburg because it is not so busy with tourists anymore. In the summer you might have to queue to
the State Hermitage Museum for hours, but we just walked right in and got some great pictures from the front yard as it was relatively empty of people. The Hermitage is definitely a must-see when you are in St. Petersburg!
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| Dimitry & Aygul |
We met with our "local friends" who we met through
CouchSurfing on Friday evening. Aygul and Dimitry are a couple who live in St. Petersburg and they said they have hosted quite a few couch surfers in the past and no wonder, they both were absolutely lovely and very much fun to hang out with. Aygul took us first to see the
Loft Project Etagi (very cool!) and when Dimitry go off work we went to throw down a few beers in some pubs. On Saturday we visited
Erarta Museum of modern art
and in the evening we went to see the band of Aygul and Dimitry's friends play in a bar in the ourskirts of the city. We had a blast and thanks to A&D we got a much more authentic experience of St. Petersburg.
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| Loft Project Etagi |
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| Turning a new page every day |
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| Loft Project ETAGI |
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| Erarta - Museum of Modern Art |
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| Street Art |
All in all our trip cost around 1000€ for 2 persons (inc. the bus trip, visas, 3nights in a hotel, wine&dine, entrance fees to museums). Depending on your accomodation and how much shopping/museums/concerts/ballet/circus you want to do you can save/spend a lot more money than we did.
We definitely recommend St. Petersburg to everyone! In fact I would say it is a must-see if you are traveling in this part of the world. The only minus side is the visa stuff and the passport control at the border but I think it all went surprisingly smoothly as we had prepared ourselves for something a lot worse. St. Petersburg is a huge but a beautiful city with a lot of history and tons and tons of things to see and do. Do yourself a favour and do not try to fit everything in just one weekend. Make sure you have enough time just to walk around the city and enjoy the atmosphere and all the beautiful sights.
