Matthew & Jen's World Trip: St Petersburg (Санкт-Петербург)

We would regard St Petersburg as essential for any Russian travel itinerary. The city is almost venetian with its canals, bridges and cathedrals, but differentiates itself with spectacularly colourful architecture.

Church of Savior on the Blood

Looking across to the Fortress of Peter and Paul

The city is on the edge of the Baltic Sea, and a number of ice-berg encrusted rivers create a series of islands, supposedly connected by some 500 or more bridges.

The city is adorned with a number of museums and attractions. Our sight-seeing naturally began with the Hermitage Palace - a spectacular pastel green building which was the former palace of Russian emporers. The palace is literally something from a fairytale, comprising a labyrinth of inter-connected rooms over two levels housing thousands of pieces of art works, painted ceilings, marble statues, huge vases made from malachite and a crystal room - with crystal chandeliers, floor mosaics and a giant golden peacock clock.

We spent most of our time with our mouths agape as we moved from one magical room to the next, each different from the next, from different architecture, colours on the walls, paintings or designs on the ceilings, and artworks on the walls or statues on the floors.

Outside the Hermitage

The first thing visitors to the Hermitage see after paying for their tickets is the Jordan Staircase

The Crystal Room

A corridor in the Hermitage

Chandeliers, Huge Malachite Vases and Statues are positioned in the middle of this artwork filled room

Statues from the Roman Empire have found their way into the Hermitage also

A mother prepares three young girls for photos in the Crystal Room

Fortunately, the snow-storm we experienced on our last day in Moscow had avoided St Petersburg. In fact, the streets were substantially drier than we had expected. Either it hadn't snowed as much as Moscow, or the streets are swept - my inadequate shoes were no problem here. The weather was cooler. The temperature was probably hovering around 5 degrees on average, but an icy breeze cut through exposed skin, putting our thermals to the test.

The Kazan Cathedral

On our second day the weather cleared substantially and blue sky prevailed once again - the perfect excuse to spend a day walking around the city's stunning buildings. Beginning with a trip to the Church of Savior on the Blood, we made our way to a small island housing a fortress (Peter and Paul's Fortress) where St Petersburg was founded. Notwithstanding the cool wind, the sun provided some Russians the perfect excuse for a day of sunbathing!

We looped back around to St Isaac's church, where we climbed 211 stairs to get a fantastic bird's eye view over St Petersburg. The city was certainly much larger than it felt at ground level, with development stretching as far as the eye could see in every direction.

After a full day's walking we turned in early to pack our things and get ready for a 6.40am train to Helsinki tomorrow morning. We've really enjoyed our time in Russia and would love to come back - hopefully the process for obtaining visas and visa registration (which we felt was nothing but a tourist tax) will be relaxed as the country builds up for the 2018 soccer world cup. The Russian people are extremely kind and friendly, nothing like the dour people pictured on television. We've had no issues with the police or corrupt bureaucrats (touch-wood) and the weather has largely been great and not too cold (generally in the single digits). The evidence of the cold Russian winter is beautiful to see, the days have been surprisingly long (the sun set last night at 9pm) and we are pleased to have visited when we did as tourist numbers have certainly been lower.

Off to Scandinavia...