- Take a hotel as close to Winter Palace as possible. Not only most of the attractions are around this but also the buzz on the street with various kind of artists performing is truly engrossing.
- Book the ticket for Hermitage in advance online. It is bit costlier but will save you lots of time as the entry queue for online tickets is separate.
- Cathedrals are closed on different dates of week so plan ahead if you want to cover a particular one. River cruises are a great way to cover some of them.
Russia is as foreign as I have been to a country. There is almost nothing written in English and almost nobody speaks English. You depend on google to do most of your navigational work and Uber to take you around. We reached Saint Petersberg on a windy midday and immediately felt the handicap of not knowing Russian.
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| View from Hotel Terrace |
Our first experience was not so dissimilar to India. A cabbie tried to make the best out of our discomfort by asking for 1100 roubles to take us to our hotel. Thanks to wifey's presence of mind, we tried Uber and reached hotel in 120 roubles. Our hotel was nice and cosy. There was a rooftop bar on 7th floor with a view of entire city and a beer in hand. I loved it.
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| Kazan Cathedral |
The warm ups for FIFA World Cup had already started. Entire Russia was warming up to the mega event and we witnessing it first hand. Saint Petersberg is the art capital of Russia and hence was more flamboyant that Moscow as we learned later. We took one full day rest and decided to cover the most the next day which meant we had to plan a kind of milk run.
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| St. Isaac's Cathedral |
As per the plan, we started walking from our hotel to Kazan Cathedral. It is a massive structure right on the road that leads to The Hermitage. Inside the cathedral, sermon was going and we prayed along with others. Coming out, we settled at a Starbucks adjacent to it. The view from Starbucks was great and we enjoyed our brunch thoroughly. Taking few clicks, we started walking toward the Winter Palace.
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| View from top of St. Isaac's Cathedral |
As it is, the area has quite a number of points worth visiting and hence we took left to reach Sir Isaac's Cathedral. It was bigger and more decorated than Kazan. There was a way open to reach the first level of this structure. The inner Chambers were closed for the day. Up from the first level, both the inside and city horizon was visible and it took us a good half hr to absorb the beautiful view we were presented with. Far on one side the Winter Palace was sitting pretty at the bank of Neva River.
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| Winter Palace |
Coming down and out, we walked along the Neva river to reach Winter Palace gates. We wanted to see The Hermitage.For the uninitiated, The State Hermitage Museum holds one of the greatest collection of paintings and artefacts of modern era. Unfortunately the queue to the museum was already couple hour long and we had to cover a good chunk.
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| Saviour on the Spilled Blood |
Saint Petersberg is full of churches and cathedrals each of size and artwork of level that may put them among the best in the World. After Kazan and St Isaac, we came across Saviour on the Spilled Blood, the most decorated church I have ever seen. The amount of mosaic used here holds a world record as was quite evident. We appreciated the millions of roubles spent on this work of art before deciding to call it a day.
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| Bronze Horseman |
We had almost completed a circle around the palace ground and were thoroughly exhausted. It was time to take a cab back to hotel. There was an Indian restaurant right across our hotel and we actually ended up trying Mumbai Chat and Butter Naan in Russia that day. It was as good as we get in India. Next day had to take a train to Moscow early morning.
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