St Petersburg, Russia - Part 2

Following on from Part 1 of our adventures in St Petersburg; the next stops in our travels were to visit: One of the most popular tourist sites in the city - the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood; the interestingly decorated St Petersburg Metro stations; and Peterhof Palace - constructed by Peter the Great who took inspiration for the design from the Palace of Versailles in France. On this trip, we were lucky to have great weather, a friendly tour guide and would highly recommend a trip to St Petersburg to all our friends, especially during summer.

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

The Church was built as a memorial to Tsar Alexander II who was assassinated by a bomb on the cobblestone road that has been preserved inside the Church. Built in the medieval Russian style, it is decorated with many colourful cupolas.. During the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Church was heavily damaged and used as a storage room for vegetables. It has now been restored and is richly decorated with thousands of colourful mosaics displaying biblical scenes.

The cobblestone road where the Tsar was murdered

Mikhailovskiy Palace

After visiting the Church, we walked to the park next door and entered an underground passage through the State Russian Museum (Mikhailovskiy Palace) as the shortcut across the other side of the square in order to wait for our minibus pick-up and also enjoy a popular Russian ice-cream similar to a choc-top.

Park gates

State Russian Museum

Russian choc-top

St Petersburg Metro stations

Our next destination - St Petersburg Metro stations, had initially puzzled us when we saw it appear on the tour guide's itinerary. However, the St Petersburg Metro is one of the deepest in the world and is richly decorated with various artworks dedicated to the Russian revolution, Soviet era and famous writers. 

The Metro system uses a token that was purchased by our guide and dropped into the slot at the barrier. We entered our first station near another monument dedicated to the victory over Napoleon and alongside a building decorated with interesting street artwork. 

Monument to the victory over Napoleon

Street art

Tribute to the Soviet era

Mosaic at one of the stations

The pretty decorated columns at Avtovo station

Levin, Restaurant for dinner

After the tour of the Metro, we were dropped off back at our hotel and a couple of hours later we took a taxi (an interesting ride when the driver didn't speak a word of English) to Nevsky Prospect where we had dinner reservations at Levin - a popular restaurant recommended on TripAdvisor for Russian cuisine.

Restaurant Levin

Vodka and borscht (beetroot soup)

Pancake and berries

St Isaac's Square

As it was still quite sunny outside after dinner, we took a walk around St Isaac's Square.

Sunrise in St Petersburg

The next day and our last in St Petersburg, we woke up fairly early to see sunrise over the buildings from our hotel room.

Palace of Peterhof

The day was booked in with the private guide to see the Palace of Peterhof, located a short distance outside the city. Along the way we encountered a number of road blocks, as security was screening the area in advance of the G20 summit; and the attendees were also due to visit Peterhof as part of the conference.

Peterhof was built by Peter the Great and was almost destroyed by German troops in the Second World War but was restored by volunteers. Our guide informed us that after the war, it was very important to restore the palaces as soon as possible to ensure that employees were still alive to provide the detail of all the interior decorations.

During this tour, we didn't take the option of visiting the inside of Peterhof Palace - as our guide advised that it was similar to Catherine Palace but no photos are allowed.

Fountains, Peterhof Gardens

Similar to Versailles, the gardens at Peterhof are home to hundreds of fountains. The most famous are on the Grand Cascade where gold leaf statues are symbolic of Russia's victory over Sweden in the 30 year Northern War.

Bath Block 

We visited the Bath Block, a private area used by Peter the Great and his closest companions.

Goodbye St Petersburg

After finishing our tour, we boarded the hydrofoil from Peterhof back to the area near our hotel where we said goodbye to our guide and boarded our shuttle-bus back to the ferry. The return journey to Helsinki started in the evening and we spent almost an hour waiting for the perfect sunset photo. On route through the Gulf of Finland, we passed by the Naval Cathedral at Kronstadt, dedicated to fallen seamen and built on the site of a World Heritage listed fort.

Naval Cathedral

Just as the sun hit the horizon, we passed by one of the greatest construction projects in the world - the St Petersburg Dam, stretching 25.4km and includes an underwater tunnel that allows traffic to pass from each side of the Gulf of Finland.

The sides of the dam wall, road traffic passes through a tunnel
to allow sea traffic to flow in/out of this international port

**Connect With Us**

This post was written by: Culture Stamps
If you liked this post, please share it with others using the social media buttons below.
To connect with us and see snippets of our Culture Stamp travel adventures:

• Follow Culture Stamps on Twitter 
• LIKE our Culture Stamps Page on Facebook