"Worth a Visit" a Saint Petersburg Travel Page by asimk

This was my first trip to Russia, when I landed all I had in my mind was KGB and all that stuff which I saw in hollywood movies and I kind of felt scared while entering the country ;-)

Also our tour guide sent us so many precautions which we should take while in St.Petersburg that I was feeling is it really worth going to this city ?!?! but eventually during my stay I found out that its all a myth and it really is a wonderful place to visit ...... they have a few issues but it should be accepted as every other major city in the world has similar kind of problems.

Weather is a bit of problem, although I visited St. Petersburg in May but the temperature was something around 3-4 degree centigrade, so for a person like me who is experiencing 38 degree rightnow, it was a pleasant change :) ...... but the locals were I guess not happy with the weather as still there were no signs of spring and they all love to see signs of sunlight ...... I asked all the locals to come to middle east and it will be completely opposite as you will be looking for a sign of cloud for months :)

My trip to this wonderful place was of only 3-4 days though and it was sort of a paid vacation from my company as they arranged all the tour and sight seeing tours and here is a brief overview of what I did during those days:

We arrived at the airport in the afternoon and reached the hotel in the evening. After some rest we went to Catherine's palace with the police escort and there was a bit of drizzle on that day with a bit of chilly wind so it was a good change of weather for me :) After visiting the palace we had dinner at DatchaTerem restaurant also with some local traditional music and songs. We were told that once Putin, George Bush and German Chancelor Shroeder had dinner in this restaurant :)

After having a heavy breakfast, In the morning we went to Hermitage Museum and then we had lunch at Hermitage Museum, which was also nice and after we took a boat ride to Yusupov Palace and had a tour of that palace and it really was amazing. Later in the evening I did some shopping from the market close to our hotel and had dinner later in the evening (to me it was still evening as although we started eating at 9:45 pm but still I could see the sunlight :) )

3rd day in St. Petersburg

The day started again with the heavy breakfast at the hotel :) and then we went on to see the St. Issac's Cathedral and from there we went to Spilled Blood Cathedral, both the places are really worth visiting. Then we went to the flee market which is next to the Spilled Blood Cathedral. We had lunch at Customs house where we were told Viladmin Putin celebrated his birthday with his family and friends. Then we returned to the hotel and did some last minute shopping of souvenirs and bought the canon digital camera surprisingly it was much cheaper then KSA.

The Grand Hotel Europe then started celebrating their 130th anniversary with a 130 m long Caviar sandwich so enjoying watching them make that sandwich.

Later in the evening we were taken to the Konstantine's palace (its also known as Putin's palace so there was a lot of security as well) again there was a police escort , here they gave us a very good reception and we had dinner over there also they presented us with russian music and dances so it was really good fun and all of us enjoyed it alot.

4th day in St. Petersburg:

Packed our bags and left St. Peterburg early in the morning.