Location: Saint Petersburg
Day 1 - 6 Jan 2019
Saint Petersburg
Content: My stay in Russia lasted around 6 months because of a student exchange program, but in this itinerary I will show you what you can see in a week in Russia particularly in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. I flew from Roma Fiumicino with Aeroflot company and landed to the Saint Petersburg Airport.
Location: Sankt-Peterburg
Day 1 - 6 Jan 2019
Saint Petersburg State University
Content: For my stay I booked an accommodation in a student dormitory. Quite bad experience as I disliked the poor conditions of the building and the interiors. A part for this, anything else you are going to read in this guide will be exciting, I promise.
Location: Sankt-Peterburg
Day 2 - 7 Jan 2019
Winter Palace
Content: The Hermitage Museum is the 2nd biggest museum in the world after the Louvre. The Hermitage is in fact huge. It has six buildings and there are over 3 million exhibitions inside.
Location: Saint Petersburg
Day 2 - 7 Jan 2019
Hermitage Museum (Государственный Эрмитаж)
Content: CURIOSITY: If you spent 2 minutes looking at each exhibit in the Hermitage, it would take you 6 years to see everything.
Location: Sankt-Peterburg
Day 2 - 7 Jan 2019
Chesme Church
Content: Chesme Church looks, without any doubts, like a fairytale castle. It's located in the Southern area of Saint Petersburg and quite far away from the city centre. To reach the church I recommend going by metro, which is the fastest way, and get off at Moskovskaya. Chesme is a gothic church painted pink and white that appears like a "candy cone", with long, vertical white stripes giving the impression that it’s rising straight up from the earth like a mirage and shooting upwards.
Smol'nyy Cathedral
Content: I thought fairy tales only exist inside storybook pages, but I was clearly mistaken until I stepped into a real fairy environment where fairy tales are part of reality. This happened when I saw architectural gems like the Chesme Church and the Smolny Cathedral which are definitely two of the most unusual and colorful churches. Smolny Cathedral is considered to be one of the architectural masterpieces of the Italian architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Some Churches in the world are real masterpieces and Russia is plenty of iconic buildings.
Location: Sankt-Peterburg
Day 3 - 8 Jan 2019
Savior on the Spilled Blood
Content: The Savior on the Spilled Blood Church is without doubts one of the icons of the city of Saint Petersburg. Located in the very central area of the city (on the River Side crossing Nevsky Prospect) is a must-visit architectural masterpiece. What makes this church so attractive, are the spectacular detailed and colourful domes.
Savior on the Spilled Blood
Content: The interiors of this Orthodox Church are even more stunning. In fact, the Church contains over 7500 Square meters of mosaics!
Sobor Svyatoy Zhivonachal'noy Troitsy
Content: This is the most gorgeous Cathedral of Saint Petersburg. It's called Trinity Cathedral and the specialty of its architecture is given by the blue cupola decorated with golden stars. When I was in Saint Petersburg, I spotted this cathedral from far away and I knew I had to see it up close. Trinity Cathedral is an Orthodox Church and it is an example of the harmony between the snow-white walls and columns and the deep-blue domes. The picturesque Cathedral is very pretty from the outside also thanks to the blue domes covered in glittering golden stars. The interiors are magnificent as well but you are not allowed to take pictures. In addition, when visiting the inside, women must cover their head and men have to take off their hats. A devastating fire in 2006 caused the cupola to collapse, but it has been fully restored and now looks even better than it did before.
Kazan Cathedral
Content: Kazan Cathedral is also known as the Cathedral of our Lady of Kazan. Another Orthodox Church located on the Nevsky Prospect in Saint Petersburg.
Location: Sankt-Peterburg
Day 4 - 9 Jan 2019
St. Isaac's Cathedral
Content: Believe it or not, this is not only a Cathedral but the building serves as a Museum, as well. Inside the Cathedral of St. Isaac is completely covered with 14 different marbles, it is often named "the museum of mineralogy" since 43 types of stone have been used to decorate it.
Saint Petersburg Mosque
Content: For me, it was one of the best things I've seen so far. The façade, made up of a crystal blue mosaic left me amazed! 🔹The facade of the mosque is characterized by the combination of a turquoise mosaic with decorations typical of the oriental tradition (in particular sentences from the Koran).
Palace bridge
Content: St. Petersburg, apostrophed Piter by the inhabitants, is called the "Venice of the North" because it was conceived and designed by Peter the Great on the 42 islands of the Neva delta, in fact on what was an ominous swamp. Here there are 86 canals that intertwine in the center crossed by over 300 bridges that sew the most literary city in Europe, reinvented and fantasized by its incomparable writers: Pushkin, Gogol, Turgénev, Lérmontov, Dostoevsky, Akmàtova, Mandel'stam.
Location: Khimki
Day 5 - 10 Jan 2019
Sheremetyevo - A.S. Pushkin international airport
Content: Last 2 or 3 days you can spend in the beautiful Moscow, the capital of Russia.
Location: Moscow
Day 5 - 10 Jan 2019
Izmailovo Kremlin
Content: Almost every tourist who visited Moscow is familiar with the Kremlin, but only few of them know that there is another one located out of the mainstream tourist path. Generally, “Kremlin” is a Russian word meaning a fortification built to protect a city. But it’s not the case with the Izmailovsky Kremlin. It doesn’t perform the function of any fortification and perhaps isn’t very historically accurate. It was built as a cultural and entertainment complex in 2007 with an imitation of the Russian architecture of the 18th century. Here one can find Tsar`s Palace, built with the same style as the summer palace of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich in Kolomenskoye; the Church of St. Nicholas the highest wooden church in Russia (see photo posted yesterday); museums, cafes, souvenir shops etc
Location: Moscow
Day 6 - 11 Jan 2019
The Moscow Kremlin
Content: The Moscow Kremlin is particularly famous for being the official residence of the President of the Russian federation. The complex includes five palaces, four Cathedrals, the Kremlin walls and Towers. The Kremlin today is actually also a Museum open to visitors. Visible are the Armoury Chamber, the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell. The name Kremlin means 'fortress inside a city'.
Location: Moskva
Day 6 - 11 Jan 2019
St. Basil's Cathedral
Content: Outside of the Kremlin is the Red Square (in Russian 'Krasnaya ploshchad'), the biggest and most important square in Moscow. In the Red Square you can see the beautiful Saint Basil Cathedral, the GUM and the Lenin's Mausoleum.
Red Square
Content: To conclude, I can recommend visiting Russia during spring or summer, for two main reasons: 🔹 When I was there, it was winter and the temperatures were often below zero. Meaning, it was too cold, frozen and snowy to explore around. 🔹If you visit Russia in June, you can assist to a special phenomenon, called the White Nights. Meaning you can actually see the sunrise at Midnight. Awesome right?