Rivers and Canals, Saint Petersburg

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Summary.....

Seeing a lovely Orthodox Church was a nice finish to a wonderful canal tour.

I have told you about as much as I can, there were more sights but I can't find out what they were.
It was a tour we thoroughly enjoyed and one we would recommend to everyone to do.
By doing both land and Boat tour, we saw a fantastic amount of St. Petersburg!

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We have just come out of the Winter Canal and are now cruising along the Neva River.
The Neva had no bridges crossing it in the 18th century, only ferries were used, which is just the way Peter the Great intended when he founded his "Venice of the North".
Only 46 miles long, it flows from Lake Ladoga to the Gulf of Finland, then joins the Baltic where Neva splits into several branches forming a delta, where downtown St. Petersburg is located.

Along here, we saw many beautiful Palaces and lovely buildings, great view of the Peter & Paul Fortress, and of sailing ship that is used as a Restaurant.
There was lots to see, and lots of locals and tourists walking along the banks of the River.

The river is covered with ice between mid-December and early April and during this period ships are unable to navigate the river.

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Come along on a virtual tour with me on the Canal Tour, then you can make up your mind if you wish to do one for "real!"

We on the boat, sitting near the back so we're hopefully able to take some nice photos.
We are heading down the Winter Canal, which is the place for lovers!
The canal, dug in 1718-1719, is one of the shortest canals in the city. Just before we enter the Neva River, there is a lovely arch which we pass through that connects the Old Hermitage and the Hermitage Theatre.
Alongside, is the smaller Hermitage bridge.
What I like, is all the different coloured buildings, and they all look well kept, so different to looking at plain brick!

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One of our highlights in St. Petersburg was the included Canal tour.
Saint-Petersburg has 93 different rivers and canals flowing through the city, making it similar to Venice and Amsterdam.

We had already seen and enormous amount of St. Petersburg before taking the Cruise.
What we didn't expect, was to see so much more that we hadn't seen!
From the Canal Boat we saw a lot more unique architecture, many more bridges, more 18th and 19th century palaces and parks and architectural landmarks, like the domes and spires of churches and cathedrals we had already been to!

The Boat tour guide only spoke in Russian, so our tour guide filled us in on what was being said.
The Boat had a covered and open area, we sat in the open area on the 1.5 hour cruise.

From June into September trips on the St. Petersburg canals leave every half-hour from a dock on the Fontanka at Nevsky Prospekt

If you can fit a Canal tour in, do so, it's worth it!

I remember walking along University Embankment.
In front of the facade of the Academy of Arts you can see a pier embellished with two Egyptian sphinxes on high pedestals with granite benches.
The granite benches are embellished with figures of gryphons.
The sphinxes are carved of pink granite.
They say it was brought from the famous Aswan stone quarries in Egypt.
There are hieroglyphic inscriptions on the support plate.
They glorify the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III who lived in the 15th -14th century B.C.
The inscriptions reads,
Son of Rah, Amenhotep, the ruler of Thebes,
the builder of monuments rising to the sky
like four pillars holding up the vault of the heavens
The sphinxes were bought by Russia from Egypt in 1831.

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From the very outset the city was built on water, on numerous islands in delta of Neva River. The combination of the architecture and water in St. Petersburg, as well as in Venice, has a special charm. St. Petersburg was built on the delta of the River Neva and is spread out over numerous islands of varying sizes, frequently prompting the nickname the "City of 101 Islands".

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The Strelka (or Point) picturesquely lies on the edge of Vasilievsky Island overlooking both the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Winter Palace. The Neva is at its widest point here (one kilometer). The Strelka is bordered to the west by the stock exchange building with a great Neptune statue on top. The Strelka was St. Petersburg's main port for over one hundred years, with the big reddish rostral columns serving as lighthouses. During festivities, flames alight the top of the columns and fireworks explode over the Neva

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So, you've read 'A wonderful view 1!' and now want just a little more.

As I said before, the afternoon was hot and humid. However, this did not stop a student (?) from waving us off and then run ahead of our boat and wave down at us from every bridge that we passed under. The heat, his lack of any running kit (in ordinary leather shoes!) and the distance...wow! He kept sprinting and jogging until we headed out onto the River Neva. We thought that we had lost him ---but no, he was there again as we entered the canals. Our guide, Svetlana, was not happy about it. She grunted a comment about drugs and money when we mentioned a tip for him ---so we gave them an equal tip because we admired his enterprise.

At the end of the river/canal cruise we had about 40 minutes to shop for tourist-tat in an open-air market beside the Church of the Spilled Blood. I'd been here before and knew to haggle and also inspect the goods carefully.
The painted boxes, with scenes from Russian folklore, are not the best! They are made by the students who are learning this creative process ---but for taking home for friends and relations they seemed fine.
We also bought some books and some decorations for our Christmas tree.
They will take dollars and also Euros but we already had local money and had a better deal for it!

So, next time we're in St.Petersburg will we take this tour again? Yes! It was excellent!