Sightseeing in St Petersburg

Hi everyone!

After we got off the night train we were all so exhausted but we had another full day of sightseeing in St Petersburg!

The first place we went to was a cathedral. It was as beautiful inside as it was outside but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

Afterwards we went to the Yusupov Palace which was huge and had so many amazing rooms with massive chandeliers.

The palace even included it's own private theatre and this was my favourite room because it was decorated in gold with velvet, burgundy curtains.

We made a quick stop for some photos (it is unreal how many statues of horses there are in St Petersburg!).

In the evening we went to a folklore show. Before it started we had a fancy dinner in the Nikolayevsky Palace where the folklore show was held (shown below).

And they had English Breakfast tea!!

The folklore show consisted of Russian dancing and singing and we all really enjoyed it!

The next day we got up bright and early and set off for some more sightseeing. We had a quick stop to take pictures of the Winter Palace (also known as the Hermitage Museum) which we visited later on that day.

The picture above shows how cold it was there! It actually felt a bit warmer than Moscow but it was still ice cold!

We crossed this bridge to get to the Peter and Paul Fortress and Prisons where there was another cathedral which was just as impressive as the one we visited the day before.

Then we headed to the Church on Spilled Blood (below). Despite it's name it was really pretty on the outside but unfortunately there wasn't enough time to go inside because we were on a really tight tour.

Although we were in Russia we still made time for lunch in an American diner called Long Island Diner and Bar.

Next we went to the Winter Palace where the Hermitage Museum is. The palace was so huge and (according to Wikipedia) has been calculated to contain 1,786 doors, 1,945 windows, 1,500 rooms and 117 staircases.

The rooms were covered in gold with columns and chandeliers everywhere. Even though it was so amazing (as the pictures show), after walking through different palaces for several days we were actually quite accustomed to walking through gold rooms!

One of my favourite parts of the Hermitage was the painting shown in the two pictures above. Our tour guide told us to stand on one side of the painting and then the other and it was so weird because the painting seemed to change in proportions! As you can see in the first picture, the building looks so much bigger than the sea, but in the second one, when you look from the perspective of the boats, the sea looks so much bigger than the building. I got so excited by this and kept running back and forth from one side to the other but I couldn't figure out how it worked!

Maybe the most anticipated part of the trip was the visit to the Mariinsky Theatre to see the ballet 'Swan Lake'. I don't know much about technical ballet but it was such an amazing performance and I loved all the costumes! The show was split into 3 parts and lasted just over 3 hours - both the dancing and the music were incredible!

Our last day in St Petersburg was sadly cloudy and wet but luckily it didn't rain too much when we were outside. Despite the weather we were all excited to go to our last visit which was the Catherine Palace.

This palace was a great place to end our Russia trip and after our tour ended we went off to the airport and took off for England.

The whole trip was so fun and it was really unusual for me because I have never been to an Eastern country before so I found it so interesting. I would definitely recommend going to Russia but I would also say that it is probably better to go on a tour or with a Russian speaker because it could be quite difficult otherwise! 

I hope you enjoyed this post - I really enjoyed writing it!

Love 

Emma
xxx