Our next port of call following St Petersburg was Helsinki the capital of Finland. We only had six hours on shore but that was enough to get a feel for the city. Our initial impressions weren't too great. The public bus we caught into the city dropped us in a very nondescript part of town near the main railway station. However as we walked the streetscape, architecture and overall ambience improved markedly. We found ourselves at a huge white cathedral the main w...

The 'piece de resistance' of a trip to St. Petersburg for many is a visit to the celebrated Hermitage Museum on the bank of the river Neva. The Hermitage is actually a complex of five interconnected buildings – the most famous of which is the Winter Palace. This was, as the name suggests, the home of the Russian Czars during the winter months. It was also where the Russian Revolution started in October 1917, resulting in the Bolsheviks overthrowing the gove...

The Church of the Spilled Blood is so called because it is built on the exact location where Czar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by a terrorist. This magnificent structure is dominated by its colourful ceramic onion-shaped domes that stand out on the St. Petersburg skyline. They and the church provide yet another amazing sight in this city of visual splendour. Stunning though it is from the outside, the inside of the church takes pictorial magnificence t...

After a culture packed first day in St. Petersburg we slept like logs – and were onshore at 8.00 am the next morning to meet our guide and driver for Day Two of our visit to this glorious city. Local Produce Market We took a wander through the central produce market in the old city where the locals do their fruit, vegetable, meat and produce shopping. For reasons of the weather it is housed indoors, and not unlike similar markets one would encounter el...

At 10.00 am we caught a hydrofoil down the Neva river and across the sea to Peterhof, a ‘holiday’ palace built by Peter the Great on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. Peterhof is famed for its gardens and marvellous fountains. It’s remarkable to learn that these amazing fountains were commissioned without the use of pumps – they are all fed and driven by gravity. There a several small but grand houses in the huge grounds used for differe...