Click on any photo for a closer view.

We didn't choose St. Petersburg for the climate, which was just as well. The temperature (early October)  was in the 50s most of the time. Also, we arrived in a slight drizzle and each successive day was rainier than the last. But, fine weather is not a necessary prerequisite for us. We were in Russia and at the very heart of the tsarist world! Of course we enjoyed it.

At left is the fortress of Sts. Peter and Paul, taken from the Hermitage.

A grim reminder from World War II. The German army surrounded the city and laid siege for nearly a thousand days. -- The translation of the blue sign is, "Citizens! This side of the street is the most dangerous during artillery bombardment."

We did most of our sightseeing along the Nevsky Prospect, where our hotel was also located. If you would like to know more about the history of the Nevsky Prospect, here is a great site with more pictures.

Here is Ron at our favorite breakfast place. Fortunately, when you decipher the Cyrillic characters, the Russian word for donut is… donut. Though not crowded in the morning, MacDonald’s was very popular in the evening. We walked by it on a Sunday at around 5 PM and it was almost impossible to get in the doors.

A tribute to Catherine the Great. The men positioned under her were all her advisors and most were her lovers, whom she generally pensioned off after she tired of them. One, whom she made the King of Poland, continued to write passionate letters to her from his new country.

This statue of Peter the Great, erected in 1900, is just outside the church where he was buried on the Fortress of Sts. Peter and Paul. Judging from the shiny brass knees, this is a very popular statue. We couldn't get a clear shot at it because there was always a horde of tourists around it, so we decided to show you the tourists, too.

Many tour groups use the former Intourist hotels, but we’d heard mixed reviews and selected the Radisson instead. It is located right on the Nevsky Prospect and peoved to be a good choice. We were given a welcome drink upon check-in (Regina had champagne and Ron went “native” with a shot of vodka) and they immediately suggested that we might want to upgrade to a suite -- which would have added close to $600 to our hotel bill. Definitely not Intourist behavior. We appreciated their keen understanding of capitalism but passed on the offer.

At night, a pianist played tunes to please the out-of-towners. Ron even sang along with one. "Oh, when the Tsars go marching in..." The vodka greatly improved the ad-lib lyrics.

The hotel had a restaurant with food and service well up to the standards of any good European hotel. Unfortunately, the prices were about the same level as in midtown Manhattan. We enjoyed the menus but none of the food. We had some wonderful eating adventures on our own, though. St Petersburg is a tough place to keep to a diet. More on our food adventures

Peter wanted his city to be "The Venice of the North". It's many canals did remind us of Venice to some extent but the "feel" of the two cities is quite different. That's the church of the Resurrection just visible in the background mist.

We ran across this plaque commemorating Lenin who somehow managed to have avoided the distaste the people of St. Petersburg seem to have for all other things communist.