For once, on our arrival in St. Petersburg, it wasn’t actually raining – just rather overcast and grey. We went through Russian customs without any hitches and I got a nice new stamp in my passport (hadn’t had one of those in a while!). Then we joined our bus for the long journey into the City Centre.

View of St. Petersburg

The first part of the journey goes through an area that is currently being massively built up around the new Cruise Terminal that has only recently opened. Once complete this area is going to be a huge complex of shops and housing, but at the moment is largely building site.

The bus first stopped at St. Isaac’s Cathedral – the third largest domed church in the world after St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London. We would go inside the Cathedral tomorrow, but for now I put my first steps onto Russian soil since my single day in Vyborg in 1999.

 
Andrew outside St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg

The church is massive and monumental and from the outside a bit forbidding and, dare I say it, almost dull. It’s largely grey and brown – if it wasn’t for that massive golden dome it would be one of the less attractive old buildings of the City. All the more surprising then when we went into it on Day Two … but I’m getting ahead of myself.

 
St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg

After the brief stop in the square outside St. Isaac’s we were off again passing by a series of fantastic vistas and amazing pastel shaded architecture; including our first views of the Hermitage/Winter Palace.

 
The Admiralty, St. Petersburg

Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg

Near the Hermitage we crossed the Neva River to Vasilyevsky Island. The island meets at the confluence of the Bol’shaya Neva and Malaya Neva where the two branches join to form the main river. Here is the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island – one of the landmark places to see the City.

 
Rostral Column on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island, St. Petersburg

At the Spit – or Strelka – there are two rostral columns, once used as lighthouses, which define a small panoramic park. From here you can see all of St. Petersburg’s historic heart spread out before you.

 
Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg

To one side is the Fortress of Peter and Paul, where Peter the Great founded the City in 1703, in the centre of which stands the massive golden spire of the St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral where almost all of the Russian Emperors from Peter the Great onwards lie entombed.

 
The Winter Palace/Hermitage from across the Neva, St. Petersburg

Looking across the wider Bol’shaya Neva you get a stunning view of the Hermitage and all the buildings which stand alongside it. This is one of those views of St. Petersburg that you see everywhere and it is truly wonderful. It was a shame that our stop at the Strelka was so short as I would love to have had more time to absorb this view in all its finest details.

 
View of St. Petersburg

I stayed as long as I could looking out across the Neva and then I became aware that our bus was probably on its way so a short dash back across the park to the bus became required.

Once back on board it was only a short trip to the main event of this tour, a walk around the Peter and Paul Fortress.

 
Entrace to the Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg

This is where Peter the Great first decided to found the City which he would call St. Petersburg. There was a small Finnish settlement here and the remnants of a Swedish fortification which Peter’s forces had recently taken for his new Russian Empire. Peter required an outlet to the sea more useful than ice-bound Arkhangelsk and he was also keen to have Russian considered more European. This little island – then called Hare Island – was his chosen spot.

 
Hare Statue in Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg

Work began immediately and soon the City began to grow into the magnificent reflection of Russian power and wealth that we know it as today. Peter – along with almost all his successors – is buried within the walls of his Fortress in the St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral, a massive edifice of gold and yellow stucco that dominates the skyline of the City even today thanks to a rule stopping tall buildings in the City centre.

 
St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg

Another view of St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg

The tour continued to take us around the interior of the Fortress.

 
Andrew and Jacqui in St. Petersburg

After a while we emerged out onto the Neva Bank for some more stunning views out over the City and you began to see the reasoning behind citing the Fortress here.

 
View from Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg

Looking towards the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg

 
Andrew in the Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg

Despite the strategic sense of building St. Petersburg here the construction of the City was one which was fraught with problems. The land was swampy, the marshes unhealthy, thousands are thought to have perished. But Peter the Great was a typical Russian leader and would not let anything like that get in his way!

After this stop it was back to walking through the Fortress to where our coach would be meeting us. Another of my ambitions had been met, I’d finally walked through the Fortress which had been haunting my travel plans for a decade.

 
Inside the Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg

After our sojourn in the place of the City’s founding we then had our comfort break and souvenir stop. This was at the wonderous Bazaar souvenir shop on Petrovskaia Naberezhnaia. The shop is massive and half-filled with wonderful amber jewellery and a range of matryoshka dolls that was bewildering.

Outside free samples of Russian vodka helped beat the cold away.

Cheers!

Oddly enough, completely unmentioned even by our guide, just across from the shop is the Cabin of Peter the Great. His little log cabin – built in 1703 near the Winter Palace and transposed here in 1711. Peter himself had it encased in a little wooden building in 1723 and it was the first Museum in Leningrad (as it then was) to be re-opened after the Siege in 1944. I thought it looked like an interesting building and so I photographed it – I only learned of its significance when I got home.

Peter the Great's Cabin, St. Petersburg

This day of intensive and extensive sight-seeing continued with a brief stop at the Cruiser Aurora. In itself just a medium sized grey battleship, but historically of vital importance. It was from this ship that a gun was fired which signalled the beginning of the 1917 Russian Revolution. So here, in the birthplace of Imperial Russia, stands the birthplace of the Soviet Union.

 
The Cruiser Aurora, St. Petersburg

After briefly passing the Mikhailovsky Castle and the Field of Mars we continued onwards.

ooking towards the Mikhailovsky Castle, St. Petersburg

It felt like we had already seen so many of the landmarks of St. Petersburg, but our Panoramic Tour had one more major sight for us. The ultimate sight of St. Petersburg, in fact, the amazing, multi-coloured, multi-domed Cathedral on the Spilled Blood.

 
Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

This Cathedral – built between 1881 and 1907 in spectacularly Russian style – is on the site of the assassination of Emperor Alexander II; one of the few liberal Russian Emperors. He was blown up by a saboteur’s bomb which removed his legs as he left his carriage. The spot was then venerated and orders for the construction of the Church were given.

 
Another view of the Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

Like St. Isaac’s Cathedral, we would visit the interior tomorrow. But for now we contented ourselves with the view of elaborate domes, mosaic frescos and golden cupolas. It’s a dazzling thing.

After the Cathedral on the Spilled Blood everything else could only be an anti-climax, so the bus took us along part of Nevsky Prospekt – the main shopping street of St. Petersburg – where we surprised to see Prada, Louis Vuitton and all the other top end stores you’d more expect to come across on Fifth Avenue.

 
Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg

A brief glimpse of the Bronze Horseman statue of Peter the Great – one of the few icons of the City I didn’t get to see properly – and then we were back at the Ship.

 
The Bronze Horseman, St. Petersburg

It had been a long and tiring day, but we were very satisfied. St. Petersburg had lived up to its splendid reputation. Surprisingly, tomorrow, the best was yet to come.

 _________________

After the previous day’s whistle stop tour of St. Petersburg it seemed unlikely that today might better it. The title of the tour was St. Petersburg Cathedrals – and it seemed quite a small scale concept. Only three Cathedrals would be visited – St. Isaac’s, Spilled Blood and St. Nicholas. Even the Kazan Cathedral on Nevsky Prospekt was not to be included.

However, this turned out to be entirely wrong. This day was at least the equal to the previous one. We were all kitted out with a little radio earpiece – this was a great innovation and allowed our guide to continue to guide us both inside and outside the coach.

We began at St. Isaac’s Cathedral – the massive monolithic slab of a building the Golden Dome of which dominates many views of the City. We arrived early and – in true Russian style – we were not going to go inside any earlier than we had booked to do. So we had to wait outside, much to the ire of some of the tour group, whilst our poor put-upon guide tried to negotiate the un-negotiable with the guards on the gate.

 
Portico of St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg

When you are this close to the Cathedral the scale of the place begins to sink in. Those red columns are solid lumps of marble, each one weighing around 114 tons – there are over 100 of them. The massive bronze doors are so big that each panel weighs 10 tons.

 
Waiting to enter St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg

The less amenable members of our tour were starting to get decidedly whingy by the time we got our tickets and filed through the turnstiles.

 
Interior of St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg

Once inside the Cathedral you are absolutely blown away by the sheer size, colour and elaborate spectacle of the place. It is possible to describe it all in detail, but description does not provide the sense of awe and wonder that standing amongst all the glittering decoration gives.

 
Another view inside St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg

For instance, it could be reported that the iconostasis has columns of pure malachite and lapis lazuli, that the screen is dotted with semi-precious stones and silver and gold. But actually, just look at it – it is a thing of beauty that transcends all descriptions and all religious sensibilities.

 
Iconostasis of St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg

The longer you stay inside the Cathedral, the more you see – the dove at the top of the Dome; the models of the four successive churches on the site; spectacular mosaics and paintings everywhere.

 
Looking up at the Dove in the Dome - St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg

Colour and sparkling metal just assail you from all angles, it is truly dizzying and I think is probably the most spectacular church interior I’d ever seen.

 
Another view of the interior of St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg

When we emerged blinking, back into the pallid light on a day that so far had managed not to rain on us, we were all stunned into silence. The exterior of the Cathedral had given no clue as to what we were going to encounter inside. As we drove away we barely heard our guide’s words telling us that there were bullet holes in the exterior from the Revolution.

As we headed for the next stop I finally got a view of the front of the Winter Palace and Hermitage with its massive column. It was brief and fleeting but at least I got to see the front of the building for a few seconds.

 
The Hermitage/Winter Palace, St. Petersburg

And then we were back on the trail of Cathedrals again. We briefly stopped by the Field of Mars – once a soldiers’ training ground and now a public park – to take pictures of our next visit viewed across the field. Our guide said it was the only way to get a good view of the Cathedral as it was meant to be viewed, from afar, and she was probably right. Our next stop was the Cathedral on the Spilled Blood.

 
Cathedral on the Spilled Blood from the Field of Mars, St. Petersburg

It took our poor coach driver a few attempts to negotiate the melee of coaches, cars and tourists that were thronging around the Cathedral on this day. Eventually we all just jumped off and stood in front of the Cathedral in awe. Today was brighter than yesterday and the colours and gold on the domes and cupolas more vivid still.

 
Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

The Domes of St. Petersburg!

If I had thought that the inside of St. Isaac’s Cathedral had been elaborate and colourful it was nothing compared to here.

 
Interior of the Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

Another view of the dazzling interior of the Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

Every inch of space was covered in mosaic – apparently some 7,500 square metres; a record apparently only broken by the Roman Catholic Cathedral in St. Louis, Missouri. It is hard to believe that for a good half of its existence this amazing space was used as a storehouse.

 
Close up of one of the dome interiors, Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

The Cathedral was built on the spot where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. It was not opened until 1907 and had only been in existence ten short years when the Russian Revolution arrived and it ceased to function as a church. Early on the Bolsheviks had wanted to destroy the Cathedral completely – not only did it represent the religion they despised, but it was a monument to a member of the Royal family to whom they were just about to put an abrupt end.

 
Another view of the interior of the Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

It only survived when someone pointed out that large buildings were at a premium. So it became a warehouse. During World War II the Cathedral was used as a morgue and then it became a warehouse for vegetables, gaining it the temporary name “Church of the Saviour on the Potatoes”. For a brief while it became a museum dedicated not to Alexander, but to the movement which assassinated him – but Stalin, who was rather paranoid about assassination himself – closed it and the Cathedral then remained abandoned until restoration work began in 1970.

 
The Iconostasis, Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

It took 27 long years for work to be completed and the Cathedral finally re-opened as a museum in 1997 by which time the Soviet Union was gone. In all its life the Cathedral only operated as a church for around 10 years.

 
Closer view of the Iconostasis, Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

A final view inside the Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

At the back of the Cathedral stands the Catherine Canal, one of the elegant canals which cross-cross this City, and a nice park which we didn’t have time to explore stretches to one side of the Cathedral.

Catherine Canal, St. Petersburg

Happy Andrew in St. Petersburg

We had a little time to explore the rear of the church before heading back to the bus once more.

Final view of the Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

Off we went once more crossing the Blue Bridge over the Moika River which is apparently the widest bridge in St. Petersburg (and some claim the world).

 
Crossing the Blue Bridge, St. Petersburg

From here we drove to the only working Cathedral of our tour – St. Nicholas’s Cathedral.

 
St. Nicholas' Naval Cathedral, St. Petersburg

The Cathedral which dates to the 1750s is particularly connected to the Navy and has a number of monuments to the service. Although not obvious it is actually two churches in one; on the ground floor St. Nicholas’s Church which has regular services and on the first floor the Epiphany Church which is used for ceremonial services.

 
St. Nicholas' Naval Cathedral, St. Petersburg

Outside is a fine bell tower built a few years after the main body of the Cathedral. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the Cathedral which was, compared to our previous two, fairly dark and unspectacular, but we were allowed to light a candle before departing.

 
Bell Tower of St. Nicholas' Naval Cathedral, St. Petersburg

As we left the area of the Cathedral – and indeed left St. Petersburg – we crossed over the Green Bridge, also on the Moika River. Just down river from here is the Yusupov Palace (the building with the bright yellow exterior in the picture) where Rasputin met his end – yet another of the many historic turning points that happened in St. Petersburg – a City which lived up to its reputation as one of the great destinations of the World.

 
Crossing the Green Bridge, St. Petersburg

Next stop was Tallinn in Estonia.

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