tourism.txt

I spent Tues and Wed over by the Hermitage (downtown St Petersburg) being a tourist. A couple of suggestions for those of you who are here for a few more days and want to do the big tourism spots —

a good itinerary involving the below is,

* hermitage early in the day, before it gets busy
* late lunch at the blini place
* boat trip

Everything below involves a total of about 45 minutes of walking, if you start at the hermitage.

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I found the CityMaps2Go app (for iOS, not sure about android) to be very useful. It doesn’t use data, just GPS signal, and has offline maps.

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You can buy an online ticket to the Hermitage, the big museum, here: https://www.hermitageshop.org/buytickets.html. Highly recommended over standing (looooong) lines! And only about $20. To quote,

On the day of your visit, please use the address: 2, Dvortsovaya Ploshchad (Dvortsovaya Square) as the Main entrance to the State Hermitage Museum.
To enter the museum, scan the bar code on a printed ticket at a turnstile.
If you cannot print the ticket, please approach the information desk on the first floor of the Small Hermitage from Millionnaya street, enter between the New Hermitage and the Small Hermitage buildings; you will need to name the number of your order, the name it has been placed on, and present a valid ID.

I didn’t actually need to print my ticket, since I had only one - I just brought it up on my iPhone screen and scanned it at the entrance, worked fine!

YMMV, but I found the egyptian, vietnamese, and russian palace exhibits to be amazing! I spent about 2 hours there. Most of the third floor is closed for renovations so don’t bother trying to figure out how to get up there :)

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Anton K. recommended the blini chain restaurant, Teremok. The one on Nevsky Avenue is reasonably close to the Hermitage and the boat place on the Fontanka River. I got the salmon blini, the caviar blini, and a glass of kvas (mildly alcoholic.) Yum!

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I took a great ~1.5 hour tour up the Fontanka river to the Neva river (hat and/or sunscreen highly recommended during the day!)

It leaves at 14:00, 16:00, 18:00, 20:00.

It was relatively cheap (< $20), booked online here: https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductDetail-g298507-d14911402-Imperial_Saint_Petersburg_Daytime_Boat_Cruise-St_Petersburg_Northwestern_District.html

The boat dock is a bit down the Fontanka river from the Lomonosov Bridge (if you stand on the Lomonosov Bridge and face towards the Hermitage or the Neva river, it’s on the left bank about 200 meters up the river). I found it using “53 fontanka river embankment” on google maps (NO COMMA AFTER THE 53), or you can use “Lomonosov Bridge” in google maps, there’s only one :).