Don’t underestimate the size of Saint Petersburg. Don’t think you can get a good impression of the city in a day or two or during a walking tour. Even though most of the city centre is accessible by foot, there are still a mind-boggling amount of sights to visit. In a future post, I will present you with a sample four day itinerary for the city. In order to reduce the size of that post, I will tell you all about the walking tour in this post.

Organised vs. Self-Guided Tour

I like to start my visit to any city with a walking tour. If they are available I usually pick the “free” walking tours – I did this in Sofia & Berlin –  or I plan my own walking tour – which I did most of the time in for example Warsaw & Thessaloniki & Busan.

In the case of Saint Petersburg I wanted to learn more about the city without carrying a guidebook with me, so I opted for the free tour. This post consists of all the “main sights” which we covered in the free tour. I did other self-guided walks through the different districts of the city which I’ll tell you more about in next week’s post.

You could do this walking tour organised, the tour my friend and I chose was organised by Petersburg Free Tour. The benefit of organising your own walking tour is that you can enter the buildings you would like to visit straightaway, otherwise you have to backtrack which is what we did.

Sights on the Walking Tour

Alexander Column
The Alexander Column is a great starting point for any walking tour through the city. It is located on the Palace Square. A square which played a unique role in Russian history. Before the Revolution it was the location of colourful military parades – on the day we arrived we saw military musicians performing & practicing for a big event.

In 1917, Lenin’s Bolsheviks secured the Revolution by attacking the Winter Palace from both the square and from the west.

Nowadays, it’s one of the most magnificent squares of Saint Petersburg. It’s surrounded by grand buildings, most of which house the Hermitage collections and others house government buildings like the Russian military.

The Alexander Column is a great feat in itself. Even though it symbolizes the victory of Alexander I over Napoleon, the granite column weighs 600 tons and is the largest free-standing monument in the world. It took 2400 soldiers and workers two years to cut & transport the granite. The column, including the statue, is 47 metres tall.

The Hermitage & Winter Palace
The most prominent buildings on the square are the Hermitage & Winter Palace. I wouldn’t advise you to make a visit to these buildings part of the walking tour because even if you’re not a art aficionado, you could still find yourself roaming the halls of these buildings for hours on end.

My tip is to visit these buildings the next morning of afternoon.

Read more here: A Photo Diary of the Hermitage

The Admirality
Right next to the square, you’ll find the Admirality. This is a building with a lot of significance for the city, but it’s not possible to enter. The first thing Peter the Great did after founding Saint Petersburg was to form a Russian navy in order to guarantee the city’s dominance over Sweden.

The Admirality building breathes navy. There are a plethora of statues depicting the Russian fleet. Nowadays, the School of Shipbuiding is housed inside.

Nevsky Prospect
It’s impossible to visit Saint Petersburg and to miss Nevsky Prospect. It’s the main artery of the city centre. Since the 18th century, this street has been the place-to-be in terms of shopping & night life. The street is 4,5km long and stretches from the Alexander Nevski monastery to the Admirality.

This is still good place for shopping souvenirs, or clothes. There are big shopping centres along this street. For example, I bought a few bottles of vodka from Gostiny Dvor.

I’ll write more about the delicious breakfasts & lunches we had along this street, to give you a few more reasons not to miss it.

St. Isaac Cathedral
My favourite cathedral in the city is the St. Isaac Cathedral. It’s one of the biggest cathedrals in the world.

It reminded me a lot of the Berliner Dom. Actually, a lot of the city reminded me of Berlin, but that’s a tale for another time.

It’s really worth checking this cathedral out from the inside, especially if you love colourful churches like I do.

You can also climb to the top to enjoy the view.

Monument to Peter the Great
A few metres away from the St. Isaac Cathedral is a statue of a man on a horse. This man is the aforementioned Peter the Great. The horse is leaping up to trample a snake – a symbol of betrayal – with its hoofs.

Church of the Saviour on Blood
Hello church with a name I always forget. I will always refer to this church with a few of its key words: church, blood, spilled, saviour…

The name might be difficult to remember, the church is definitely worthy of a visit. Unfortunately, when we were in town the outside was under construction. I hate it when that happens.

Construction was only going on on the outside though (I wasn’t so lucky with the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul…). The inside was more than perfect though. It gave me a real Orthodox feel, which is something I love in a church. It’s colourful, it contains a lot of images, it’s wild & it’s perfection.

The name of the church stems from the fact that tsar Alexander II was killed on the spot where the church was built. There is a monument inside the building commemorating him. I almost missed it because I was too enthralled by the colourful mosaics.

Conclusion

If you would run past all the sights of the walking tour it would take you around an hour maybe.

The free tour my friend and I were on took three hours, but we didn’t visit any of the buildings during that time. I think that took us an additional 2 to 3 hours (not counting the visit to the Hermitage).

Basically, a walking tour can always take you as long as you’d like. You could opt to visit the buildings, or not. I would advise you to at least visit the churches though. They are absolutely beautiful – and a visit to Saint Petersburg is not really complete without a visit to its biggest museum, the Hermitage. So, actually, my tip is to spend the day visiting all the sights in this post.

My next post will be a sample itinerary, which will include all the sights I missed out on this time around.