Hello, and welcome to this new section of TravelGuys that I have the chance to inaugurate today and which is called Travel Diaries. Bertrand and I wanted to create this category to go beyond the airline and hotel experience. Because in the end,while we personally consider travel and hospitality to be more than 50% of the travel experience, most of you do not. And also we wanted to share with you our most beautiful discoveries in the countries we visit. These travelogues are thus at the same time the attractions part of a tourist guide, but also the Restaurants part and, obviously, we can’t do without them: the Hotels part ! This hotel part will often refer to an article already published on the blog, or to an article to come.
And what better city than St. Petersburg, romantic by nature and so rich in architecture and art, to start with.
Introduction
So why choose Saint Petersburg for your trip? Well first of all because it is a beautiful city:
- Beyond the internationally known Hermitage museum, the whole city has an architectural level almost never reached in Europe, even in nearby museum cities like Paris, London or Rome.
- Then, because it is not so far from Paris: only 3h30 by plane and direct flights are available.
- Well, because it is a city that can be explored in three days without any problem and we will tell you in the following article what to see.
How to get there?
Several times a week, Air France offers direct flights to St. Petersburg. Note that this option can be quite expensive, the prices proposed by the French national airline often approaching 450 € round trip. You can obviously use your miles, and the rate for Russia is rather advantageous with Flying Blue.
Alternatively, and still without connection, Aeroflot, via its subsidiary Rossiya, allows to reach Saint Petersburg daily. However, the schedules are not very convenient if you are only going for a weekend.
In any case, use a flight comparator to find the best rate if this is your priority. All connections are of course possible via the national carriers of neighboring countries such as Lufthansa, Swiss, British Airways, Alitalia and so on.
On-site travel
This is where traditional travel guides are pretty bad. And so that’s where we want to be different.
To get from the airport to the city, I advise you to book a prepaid transfer in advance. These transfers are booked from the website of the Russian national airline, Aeroflot. It will cost you a fixed price of 18 € from the airport to the city. Please note that even if the website allows you to make a reservation in English, the email confirmation you will receive will be in Russian. Don’t worry, your reservation is still taken into account.
Even if the travel guides tell you that you can take a cab, I don’t recommend it when it’s your first time in a country, especially Russia where many (if not all) cab drivers don’t speak a word of English. It will be impossible for you to negotiate a fare in this case.
In the city and to get to the airport on the way back, contrary to what the guidebooks tell you,I invite you not to use buses or minibuses for your trips. I formally advise you against using private cars to take you to your final destination at any time, contrary to what the guides say. Without speaking a word of Russian, it will be impossible for you to give your destination, and impossible to negotiate a fare there again. Please note that official cabs will not stop on the street: if you want to use them, you will have to call a reservation center, which will also be difficult if you do not speak Russian.
I therefore advise you to use either the metro or Uber which works extremely well in Russia and will allow you to reach your final destination without negotiation and without the risk of being mistaken about your address.
But overall, and if your hotel is well located, you can navigate the city on foot without any problem.
Lodging
To stay in St. Petersburg, we recommend the W hotel, whose review you can find here.
We will not recommend a myriad of hotels here: of course, use the comparison and review sites such as TripAdvisor.
Eating out
Eating out in St. Petersburg is quite easy. Many cafes and restaurants are available throughout the city, but make sure when you enter that a menu in English is available. Be aware that most waiters will not speak English either, and you should point to the menu to see what you want.
Try to taste some Russian specialties such as soups or dishes in sauce, especially beef in sauce.
However, if your stomach doesn’t allow you to explore local cuisines, there are many restaurants serving foreign cuisine.
Visit
Downtown St. Petersburg can be explored in about two full days, which allows you, in three days, to have more relaxed days, enjoy your hotel, rest and especially warm up if you are going to explore the city between October and April.
Hermitage Museum
The Hermitage is the largest museum in Russia. After visiting it, I would say that it is one of the most beautiful museums in the world and one of the biggest too.
There really is something for every artistic taste and you can spend well over a day if you explore it all. I advise you to spend a long morning there: the museum opening at 10 am, I advise you to stay there until 2 pm, avoiding to eat in the cafeteria or in the refreshment bar.
Avoid at all costs the touts who appear around the museum and try to sell you either walking tours or boat rides: rest assured, most of these touts don’t even speak English, so it will be easy for you to dodge them.
I also recommend buying your ticket online, because despite my visit in the off-season, the line at the entrance desk was long. So I was very happy to have my ticket purchased online. If you visit St. Petersburg in high season, I strongly advise you to look at buying tickets more than a week in advance because some dates are already indicated as full, and you will have to wait in line with no guarantee of entering the museum the day you want to visit.
Note also that the museum is closed on Mondays and therefore you will have to banish this day from the list of your visits… So be careful if you visit St. Petersburg St. Petersburg on a backbend weekend, I advise you to check that you plan this museum outside Monday.
Saint Isaac’s Cathedral
St. Isaac’s Cathedral is located right next to the hotel, which we recommend. This cathedral has two major attractions.
The first attraction is the ascent the stairs of this church which allows you to arrive on the roof of the cathedral, this roof offering a 360° panoramic view of the entire city of St. Petersburg. The view is literally breathtaking and I invite you to take the combined ticket with the visit of the cathedral itself. I also advise you to start with this ascent before the visit of the cathedral which will allow you on one hand to enjoy the view, and on the other hand to warm up. Be careful, however, if you are traveling with people who have difficulty getting around: they will not be able to climb to the top of this cathedral because there is no elevator.
The visit continues with the cathedral itself but be careful: there is no connection between the two visits, so you have to go back down, walk around the church again and get your ticket through almost the same entrance you went through for the panoramic view, so don’t worry: you have to do the whole circuit again.
The visit to the cathedral is totally majestic: decorated in a neo-gothic style and restored in a very fine way. The entrance ticket is not very expensive, but the fact of charging for access to a place of worship that is no longer a place of worship, with a view to transforming it into a museum, has enabled this almost permanent restoration of the property. Be careful, because even in low season, there is a certain affluence in the church especially Asian groups, so I advise you to visit this church in the morning if possible. The visit was quite short, about ten minutes, and allowed to see all the painted works exposed in this church.
The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood
Don’t be afraid of the name of this cathedral, which may lead to a smile: it is simply beautiful, resembles its double located on Red Square in Moscow and we will come back to it in a follow-up in a next travel diary.
It is located almost in the city center of St. Petersburg: you will have to walk along a canal to reach it and this marvel will appear, all in colors, in a very Russian style.
At the time of my visit, the cathedral was undergoing some exterior renovation work, which did not allow me to take the best photos. If the exterior is impressive, the interior is a little less so, at least less than St. Isaac’s Cathedral.
It is already much smaller and the ornaments are less rich than in the other cathedral I mentioned earlier.
Here it is really the outside that is worth the detour: you can also do without the interior visit, although it is not very expensive, around five euros.
City tour
If you don’t have much time in the city, or if you want to have a glimpse of the city, I don’t recommend double-decker buses which are sometimes very nice: but in St Petersburg the ideal is a cruise on the different canals, on the different rivers that run through the city, so do some research on the Internet to buy your ticket in advance.
General atmosphere
This is a point that is often not addressed by travel guides. How will we, as French people, feel in the visited city?
Well, in St. Petersburg, contrary to all the prejudices that we can have about Russia, we feel very well! Be careful though: your dress code must be impeccable. That is, for men, a shirt, even when walking around the city, leather shoes, pants and not jeans. The women are also extremely coquettish, very well made up, with dresses and tights, boots or shoes with heels.
So pay attention to your look and if you are not well dressed, you will be stared at all the time. In any case, if you still want to go for a relaxed outfit, make sure your shoes are clean and your jeans are well cut, well ironed and that you are in an outfit that seems at least decent to them.
Conclusion
St. Petersburg is a wonderful city. You already knew that before you read this. But it’s a city that has a lot of artistic potential, it’s a city that has a lot of potential in terms of restaurants, in terms of service and where people are extremely nice, a city where overall you will feel good. And you will feel good from the start. Unlike some Asian cities for example. Have a good trip!
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