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At virtually, 60°N, it is the most northerly great city in the world, yet its historic centre has a classical grandeur and elegance associated with the Italian cities of the Mediterranean. Indeed with its beautiful old honey-coloured buildings lining the canals dug to drain the marsh, Saint Petersburg is sometimes called the "Venice of the North". But being this far north gives it a quality all its own. Come here in mid-summer and you are treated to the legendary 'White Nights' when daylight never quite disappears and even at midnight the sky is filled with an orange glow that allows St Petersburgers to revel almost 24 hours a day. Come here in mid-winter, however, and you see the city transformed into a magical fairytale city by a blanket of snow and ice, that turns the city's old buildings into fantastic wedding cakes when the brilliant northern sun comes out, and allows you to walk across the river Neva on solid ice.
The centre of Saint Petersburg is almost an open-air museum with its array of 18th and 19th century palaces and mansions, culminating in the extraordinary Winter Palace, with its famous Hermitage, perhaps the world's greatest art gallery, sited magnificently next to the Neva. But the city was always much more than the architectural dream of a tsar. It became home to some of Russia's greatest artists. It is the birthplace of Russian ballet, with the unmissable Mariinsky Theatre, and there is not a city in the world where you can walk past the homes of so many great literary and artistic figures in such a small area - Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and many more lived here within just a few minutes walk. And one of the great pleasures of a visit to the city for anyone remotely interested in literature is to wander around Pushkin's beautiful flat alongside the Moyka canal.
The one must-see sight of any trip to St Petersburg is of course Catherine the Great's Winter Palace with the adjoining Hermitage Art Gallery and its matchless array of great painting, but there are many more unforgettable places. There are the gloriously extravagant, and very Russian churches, Church of the Spilled Blood, with its colourful onion domes and the vast gold-domed St Isaacs cathedral. The Russian Art Gallery with its stunning paintings by Repin and Levitan. If you're in the city in summer, you can cruise the canals, or take a boat trip out to Petrodvorets to see the symphony of fountains at Peter's summer palace, or out to Catherine the Great's magnificent palace at Tsarskoe Selo.
Cruises to St Petersburg Russia
Of course, St Petersburg is much more than just a museum. It is a huge, lively city, with a population of not far short of 5 million, and beyond the historic city is a vast, often dirty, often squalid urban sprawl. But it is this mix that gives the city its vibrancy - and keeps the historic heart, where most visitors inevitably gravitate, throbbing with life. St Petersburg is renowned not just for its cultural treasures, but its throbbing night life, its buzzing musical scene and its lively restaurants and cafes.
St. Petersburg
However he had the audacity, vision or sheer megalomania to do it, the Tsar Peter the Great created an extraordinary city when he drove the building of St Petersburg 300 years ago on the marshes of northern Russia. In his famous poem, 'The Bronze Horseman', Pushkin describes Peter in creating St Petersburg as a builder of miracles, and there is indeed something miraculous about this city.At virtually, 60°N, it is the most northerly great city in the world, yet its historic centre has a classical grandeur and elegance associated with the Italian cities of the Mediterranean. Indeed with its beautiful old honey-coloured buildings lining the canals dug to drain the marsh, Saint Petersburg is sometimes called the "Venice of the North". But being this far north gives it a quality all its own. Come here in mid-summer and you are treated to the legendary 'White Nights' when daylight never quite disappears and even at midnight the sky is filled with an orange glow that allows St Petersburgers to revel almost 24 hours a day. Come here in mid-winter, however, and you see the city transformed into a magical fairytale city by a blanket of snow and ice, that turns the city's old buildings into fantastic wedding cakes when the brilliant northern sun comes out, and allows you to walk across the river Neva on solid ice.
The centre of Saint Petersburg is almost an open-air museum with its array of 18th and 19th century palaces and mansions, culminating in the extraordinary Winter Palace, with its famous Hermitage, perhaps the world's greatest art gallery, sited magnificently next to the Neva. But the city was always much more than the architectural dream of a tsar. It became home to some of Russia's greatest artists. It is the birthplace of Russian ballet, with the unmissable Mariinsky Theatre, and there is not a city in the world where you can walk past the homes of so many great literary and artistic figures in such a small area - Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and many more lived here within just a few minutes walk. And one of the great pleasures of a visit to the city for anyone remotely interested in literature is to wander around Pushkin's beautiful flat alongside the Moyka canal.
The one must-see sight of any trip to St Petersburg is of course Catherine the Great's Winter Palace with the adjoining Hermitage Art Gallery and its matchless array of great painting, but there are many more unforgettable places. There are the gloriously extravagant, and very Russian churches, Church of the Spilled Blood, with its colourful onion domes and the vast gold-domed St Isaacs cathedral. The Russian Art Gallery with its stunning paintings by Repin and Levitan. If you're in the city in summer, you can cruise the canals, or take a boat trip out to Petrodvorets to see the symphony of fountains at Peter's summer palace, or out to Catherine the Great's magnificent palace at Tsarskoe Selo.
Cruises to St Petersburg Russia
Of course, St Petersburg is much more than just a museum. It is a huge, lively city, with a population of not far short of 5 million, and beyond the historic city is a vast, often dirty, often squalid urban sprawl. But it is this mix that gives the city its vibrancy - and keeps the historic heart, where most visitors inevitably gravitate, throbbing with life. St Petersburg is renowned not just for its cultural treasures, but its throbbing night life, its buzzing musical scene and its lively restaurants and cafes.
