St Petersburg

Добро пожаловать в Россию (Welcome to Russia)

Cathedrals, Forts, Art and the Start of the Vodka Train!

28/08/2017: Day One

After travelling through the night we arrived in St Petersburg!

The flight has definitely taught me my lesson on check actual flight times and time differences before assuming that I will get enough sleep on an overnight flight. The flight from London to Moscow was only 3 hours and then only an hour onto St Petersburg so we got a grand total of 3 hours sleep last night. Transferring through at Moscow was super confusing, after going through passport control (more nerve wracking than America) there were no signs of how to get to the domestic terminals and no one around to ask. Eventually found our way to our gate 5 minutes before boarding started! Not the most relaxing of nights!

We arrived at our hostel, the Baby Lemonade Hostel, where luckily we are staying in dorms so were able to check in straight away at 6.30am and get some shut eye for a few hours before going out to explore St Petersburg before we meet up with the rest of the tour tonight.

First stop was the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood which was a 10 minute walk from our hostel and spectacular. It is built on top of the sight where Alexander the second was shot by an arrow while touring the city. All the murals alter are mosaic and extremely detailed. There are several options here, you can wonder around by yourself with a map, grab an audio guide or wait for one of the tours (in several different language options). We then went to St Isaac’s Cathedral which is equally as impressive as everything is gold plated and gold leaf. You can also walk around the outside of the domed roof of St Isaac’s which gives a great view of the city. There was then a quick stop at Starbucks for the biggest coffee we could find as we were extremely tired, Starbucks is terrible everywhere you go but at least its consistently terrible.

After a day of walking around we met up with our first guide Ksenia and the other member of our Vodka train tour group Rachel. A pretty good start to the Vodka Train!

29/08/2017: Day Two

Day two in St Petersburg and we headed to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

This was the original St Petersburg and there is a saying that should the Angel at the top of the Spire fall so too will St Petersburg.
Our guide told us a story of how one day the Angel looked like it would fall so the mayor of St Petersburg said he would grant the desire of anyone who could fix it, many tried and one man succeeded. When asked what reward he would like the man said he would like to never pay for a drink again so the mayor gave him a medallion. Of course the man went and got drunk and lost his medallion, so he went back to the mayor and the mayor said a deal’s a deal and gave him a new medallion. This happened so many times that eventually the mayor had the medallion tattooed on the man’s neck, so when he wanted a drink he would flick the tattoo on his neck. And that is why Russians flick their neck when they want a drink. I don’t know if it’s true but it’s a nice story.

We then went to a cute local modern art gallery where the current instalment is swings, so we quite happily stayed here for a couple of hours swinging around. The rooftop of the gallery also had a great view over the city. On the way here we went to a park that has a map of the city with major landmarks made in bronze so you can walk around the whole city which is quite cool to see the detail and also get a birds eye view of the city without paying a lot of money for a helicopter.

For dinner we went to Katyusha which was the most kitch restaurant I have ever seen, it was fill of flowered fabrics, singing waitresses and wicker furniture, but the food was very traditional Russian and delicious.

30/08/2017: Day Three

Our last day in St Petersburg and I put on my hat of patient sister as we spent the entire day in the Hermitage Museum.

First we went to the Winter Palace; we only did the second floor here which is the European Art and Russian History. We then went to the Palace of Peter the First and Catherine the Great. This was built as their temporary accommodation when they first lived in St Petersburg as the Winter Palace was being built. It was also the first time that I had come across a detailed account of their reign and it becomes very apparent why they are such celebrated monarchs. We finally went to the General staff Building which is where the impressionist artists are housed and Louise was in heaven. It was a great day, if you are into art and history I strongly suggest spreading the visit to the museum across more than one day, preferably three but even two would do. There is a lot to see and tickets are not expensive.

It is now time to depart St Petersburg and hop on our first overnight train to Moscow; we have had an absolute blast here and hope to come back some day!