St. Petersburg

In St. Petersburg we stayed at the small but fine Swiss Star B&B guesthouse for two nights. The location and the amenities were top notch 😊

I had seen pictures of the Palace Square in St. Petersburg, but when I stepped foot on it for the first time, I was overwhelmed by its size and overall impression.

In the center of the square stands the Alexander Column, which was inaugurated in 1834 after Russia's victory over Napoleon.

The oldest and most famous building on the square is the baroque, white-green Winter Palace of the Russian tsars (built from 1754 to 1762), which gave the square its name. The Winter Palace is now part of the Hermitage, one of the largest and most important art museums in the world.

The next day, rehearsals for the celebration of the "Victory in the Great Patriotic War" on May 9th took place. It was impressive to see the spectacle with so many soldiers, vehicles, and even aircraft.

The Savior's Church in St. Petersburg is more or less a copy of the famous Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow. It was built at the beginning of the 20th century on the spot where Alexander II was assassinated.

The Kazan Cathedral was built from 1801 to 1811. It is not difficult to see which building served as a model...

The St. Isaac's Cathedral is the largest church in St. Petersburg and one of the largest domed buildings in the world.

The golden needle of the Admiralty is always in sight in St. Petersburg and serves as a reference point for one.

Naturally, we also took an extensive tour of the metro. Since the underground in St. Petersburg consists of swamps, it had to be built very deep, and the long escalators lead into the underground. I was fascinated by the frequency; the trains followed each other at intervals of 1.5 minutes.