Other favorite landmarks include; the Peter and Paul Fortress which is the oldest building in St Petersburg, the spectacular Palace Square and the Winter Palace of Peter the Great, the Stock Exchange and the Rostral Columns, the Admiralty and the Cathedral, which dominates the skyline of St. Petersburg.

The "Northern Capital of Russia" offers both locals and visitors a diverse entertainment program and lively nightlife. You can enjoy leisure time at various venues including theaters, opera, circus and concert halls, nightclubs and music bars. The city restaurants offer both the Old Russian culinary and the new trends, which come both from the West and the East.

Created by Peter the Great as a seaport on the Baltic, this city is an open-air museum combining the best of the Western and Eastern influences. It is a stunning place to learn the language and is filled with unlimited cultural treasures.

Our program allows you plenty of time to discover your new country, culture and customs. Below are some of our recommended highlights. Some tours and packages can be organized when booking your program, please see the program price page for more information.

city tour
From the Yelagin and Kamenyy Islands to the north, along the broad River Neva to the Palace Embankment and by winding waterways to the River Fontanka to the south, St Petersburg, like Venice, is a city of elegant palaces and elaborate churches on a network of waterways.

On the Palace Embankment, the Hermitage, the statue of the Bronze Horseman and the Admiralty look out over the Neva to the Peter and Paul Fortress and the bridges to Vasilevsky Ostrov or Petrogradskaya. Behind the Bronze Horseman, the magnificent gold dome of St Isaac's Cathedral towers over the classical terraces around it.

Close by, the Nevsky prospekt runs all the way from the Admiralty through Gostiny dvor to the River Fontanka. From Nevsky prospekt, the Church on Spilled Blood, the Russian Museum and the Kazan Cathedral are all with easy walking distance along the Griboedova Canal, where Dostoevsky set Crime and Punishment.

hermitazh (hermitage)
The Hermitage is one of the greatest art collections of the world, housed in a vast architectural tour de force. At its heart is one of the world's most luxurious royal palaces, the ornate Baroque Winter Palace, designed by the Italian Architect Bartolomei Rastrolli and perfectly situated looking out over the River Neva at the soaring gold spire of the Cathedral of Sts Peter and Paul.

isaakievsky sobor (st isaac's cathedral)
St Isaac's Cathedral was built in 1818-58 by French-born architect Auguste Montferrand. Commissioned by Tsar Alexander I to build a spectacular imperial cathedral, he executed a masterpiece of engineering on the marshy ground.

One hundred and eighty years later, the gilded dome of St Isaac's still dominates the skyline of St Petersburg, but the price was high. Thousands of serfs died in the building, numerous sculptors decorated the façades and pediments, tons of granite columns supported it and Alexander and his successor were dead before it was completed.

The interiors are dazzling with malachite and lapis lazuli columns, mosaic icons, painted ceilings and, in the sanctuary, a large stained-glass 'Resurrected Christ'. The climb to the colonnade of the dome is rewarded by panoramic views over the city.

petropavlovskaya krepost (peter & paul fortress)
Peter the Great laid out the plans for the Peter & Paul Fortress on Zayachy Island in 1703 to defend the area from the Swedes. Entered through imposing gates and containing most of the island within its massive defensive walls, the fortress housed part of the city's garrison and notoriously served as a high-security political jail.

Among the first inmates of the Trubetskoy Bastion was Peter's own son, Alexei, who was tortured and died here. The bleak cells, which held many famous residents, including Dostoyevsky, Gorky and Trotsky, are now a museum, as is the Commandant's House where prisoners were tried.

muzeh-domik petra i (cabin of peter the great)
The first house built in the newly founded St Petersburg in 1703 was the humble wooden Cabin of Peter the Great from which Peter supervised the construction of his grand imperial city. Now encased in a protective brick enclosure and furnished with period furniture, its spartan simplicity is a strange contrast to the grand cathedrals and palaces that surround it. Peter lived here between 1703 and 1708 and some of his belongings remain, including his boat, his compass and his icon of the Redeemer. The functional minimalism of the possessions emphasises the frugal life he led in this tiny three-roomed house.

khram spas-na-krovi (church of the saviour on spilled blood)
Modelled on the sixteenth-century traditional Russian style of St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, the Church on Spilled Blood was built on the spot where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated on 1 March 1881, and named because of it. The richly ornamented exterior of colourful enamelled domes, gilded mosaic panels, ceramic tiles, columned windows with intricately carved arches is like a confection of bright sugar candy in a sweet shop window.

piskariovskoye memorialnoe kladbishche (piskarivskoye memorial cemetery)
Piskarivskoye Memorial Cemetery is a place of pilgrimage for the dwindling survivors of the 1941-44 Siege of Leningrad, rather than a tourist attraction, but is all the more poignant for that. Below large grassy mounds, under the gaze of a massive bronze of Mother Russia, lie the mass graves of 500,000 of those who starved to death in the Nazi blockade. The story is told in the Memorial halls. The suffering and endurance are palpable.

kreyser avrora (cruiser aurora)
Launched in St Petersburg in 1900, the Cruiser Aurora was significant in the major events of Russian history in the first half of the twentieth century. Active in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, it fired the shot at the Winter Palace in 1917, which signalled the storming of the palace and the beginning of Bolshevik rule. It was sunk during the siege of Leningrad in 1941 and raised in 1944 to be refitted as a museum in the 1950s. The crew's quarters and the gun that fired the historic shot are on display, as well as photographs and memorabilia of the ship's chequered history.

excursions

kirovsky islands
The Kirovsky Islands - Kamenny, Yelagin and Krestovsky - are popular outdoor escapes for city dwellers. Boating on the canals and lakes around the islands, picnics in the parks or walking or cycling along the leafy avenues, amid the homes of St Petersburg's richer residents, provides a pleasant summer half-day excursion, particularly popular at the White Nights of midsummer.

petergof (peterhof)
The Grand Palace of Peterhof (tel: (812) 420 0073) lies around 32km (20 miles) west of St Petersburg. Built by Peter the Great in the style of Versailles, remodelled by Bartolomeo Rastrelli and seriously damaged by the Germans in World War II, it has now been carefully restored to its former glory. Splendid fountains and waterways surge and spout in soaring jets and sparkling sprays through the magnificent palaces, parks and gardens of this 600-hectare (1500-acre) estate. The famous Grand Cascade and Water Avenue connect fountains, gilded statues, water jets and channels from the Palace all the way to the sea. Monplaisir, Peter's original, much simpler home at Peterhof, overlooks the sea, as does the Hermitage, his eccentric private dining room in a tiny red and white Baroque building surrounded by a moat.