St. Petersburg Travel Guide

Guidebooks

Fodor's Moscow & St. Petersburg, 9th Edition

Photo: Allen Furmanski/shutterstock

Commissioned by Tsar Peter the Great (1672-1725) as "a window looking into Europe," St. Petersburg is a planned city whose elegance is reminiscent of Europe's most alluring capitals. Little wonder it's the darling of today's fashion photographers and travel essayists: built on more than a hundred islands in the Neva Delta linked by canals and arched bridges, it was first called the "Venice of the North" by Goethe, and its stately embankments are reminiscent of those in Paris. An Imperial city of golden spires and gilded domes, of pastel palaces and candlelit cathedrals, it's filled with pleasures and tantalizing treasures.

St. Petersburg Hotels

The city's capacity for overnight visitors is small, but growing. By 2010 St. Petersburg plans to have added dozens of new hotels. What the city especially...read more

Fodor's Choice

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St. Petersburg Restaurants

The new restaurants and cafés of the burgeoning scene stand in sharp contrast to the traditional, sometimes uninspired, Russian-style eateries of...read more

Fodor's Choice

Things To Do in St. Petersburg

The city's focal point is the Admiralteistvo, or Admiralty...read more

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St. Petersburg Experiences

Top Reasons to Go to St. Petersburg

The State Hermitage Museum: The pearl of the world's historical and art collections, you can see everything from works by Monet, Picasso, and... Read more
Southern Suburbs

Park Inn Pulkovskaya. The attractive, Scandinavian-design interior of this hotel is in decent condition, thanks to renovations for the city's... Read more
Eclectic

Aquarel. With three stories of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Vasilievsky Island's Rostral Columns and Stock Exchange, this flashy restaurant-boat... Read more
St. Petersburg's Mini-Hotels

During the Bolshevik Revolution many of the city center's lavish mansions where appropriated from their owners and divided into communal apartments... Read more
Getting Caught with Your Bridges Up

St. Petersburg's mighty Neva River creates some of its most picturesque views, making it easy to forget that it is a working river and transport... Read more
The Peacock Clock

The Peacock Clock (Tchasy Pavlin), one of the most delightful pieces on display at the State Hermitage Museum, is found in the Pavilion Hall... Read more