Our BA flight from Heathrow wasn't until 0920 so being a Saturday morning we thought we'd take a chance on traffic and roadworks and not book an overnight hotel this time. We called it right for once as we sailed through and were soon ensconced in the Lounge (it still isn't a patch on the Gatwick one!)
The flight was uneventful (boring) but I took a couple of snaps of the City from the air. The city was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great who incidentally was 6'7'' which was an enormous height in those times. After gaining control of the River Neva following war with Sweden he envisioned a planned city with streets laid out in a grid. The area he chose was essentially marshland and 100,000 workers died of fever and disease during construction. The Russian court baulked at moving to this wilderness, but Peter insisted and in 1712 he forced 1,000 noble and 500 merchant families to move north (from Moscow). By the time of his death in 1725 the city population had risen to 40,000.
The majority of the 1 million present day residents live in the suburbs.
The majority of the 1 million present day residents live in the suburbs.
Grey skies and drizzle greeted us.
After using a city card in Copenhagen, I found there was a similar thing available in StP (the full name is just too long) so we ordered 3 day cards online to collect at the airport and even printed off a picture of what the Tourist Info Booth looked like (in case we couldn't read anything).
We found what we thought was the right place quite easily but no, it was another IDENTICAL one, the other side of the Arrivals Hall. To get to the city centre involved a bus and then metro ride and we knew the city card had to be topped up to include transport costs but it turned out this could only be done at the metro station so we had to have Rubles for the bus ride. Rubles are a closed currency therefore we couldn't get any in advance, so we headed for the nearest change bureau except they were on a break (loo break presumably as lunch was scheduled for a different time per the notice). Never mind, only a 5 min wait. Ian then asked to change £5 (the smallest UK note) but apparently the commission alone was that, so we ended up changing £15 for the bus fare of 40p each - grrrr!
Dodging the taxi touts for the final time (they'd been following us around) we got out of the terminal and Bus 39 was waiting - result.
The trip to the Moskovskaya metro station took around 25 mins and there we tried to top up the cards in one of the machines. I'd printed off exact instructions as to which buttons to press but, even with this, we couldn't find the options we wanted. A very kind young lady tried to help us but she didn't have any more luck so we decided to try and speak to someone. The lady in the booth didn't speak any English whatsoever but luckily she noticed the StP card in Ian's hand was valid for 72 hours and offered us unlimited travel (metro/bus/tram) for just over £4 each.
The metro ride was easy, just 6 stops and then back up to ground level but, as is often the case, the map I'd downloaded was "schematic" and didn't show all the roads. So - although we knew roughly where our hotel was - finding it was another matter. We got there eventually and although check in was a little slow (a Japanese couple decided they didn't have to wait, so interrupted), we were offered a glass of fizz.
The room was a little small - think shoebox - but it was nicely decorated, warm and most importantly beautifully clean. We quickly dumped our bags and headed out to explore