Our first stop in Russia on the Baltic tour 2004 was St Petersburg, at the far east of the Gulf of Finland. St Petersburg was previously known as Leningrad until the 90s, and has been called Petrograd at some point too, but back in the Tsarist times it was named after St Peter. Like all great cities, it is built on a swamp; there are canals criss-crossing the city and the water from the taps is undrinkable.

We stayed for three nights in St Petersburg in June, when the weather wasn't cold but wasn't very warm either, we arrived in a shower of rain and it was fairly windy too. We stayed at the Nordhostel, run by a woman called Marsha, which was as central as we could possible hope for, with the Winter Palace just round the corner.

The Winter Palace was built during Tsarist times to be their residence during winter, while St Petersburg was the capital of Russia. It houses the State Hermitage museum, a vast collection of over 3 million items, some of the world's best art and treasures. With an ISIC card you can get in for free, which we did, and spent a day exploring what we could. To see the whole place would have required two or three days.

One of the main staircases in the palace, all gold and marble and normally swarming with people, I stalled on exit at closing time to get this picture when it was more peaceful. It reminded me of a wedding cake.

The General Staff building faces the Winter Palace (see the first photo), and between them is an open square, being set up for a Paul McCartney concert at the time. Our hostel was just on the other side of that arch in the middle.

St Isaac's Cathedral stands by the River Neva just next to the Winter Palace. We climbed up to the collonade and walked around the dome, from which you get a very good view of the city. As with many other tourist attractions in Russia, you had to pay extra to take photos, or risk having your camera relieved of you. It is the only cathedral I have seen with double glazing.

One of the many canals which cross St Petersburg, this is one of the larger ones. The entire canal network and most of the Neva River is frozen solid for a few months over winter. Some of "James Bond - Goldeneye" was allegedly filmed here, the bit with the tank chase.

A view of an inner-city beach...! Looking across from the fortress of Peter and Paul, towards the south bank of the Neva River. The Winter Palace lines most of the river front, and you can see the dome of St Isaac's cathedral in the distance. During winter you can march straight over the ice from here to the Winter Palace.

A slightly stranger tourist attraction in St Petersburg during the "White Nights" of the summer when it doesn't get completely dark, is the raising of the bridges each night at about 1:30am. They stay open for a few hours to allow ships to pass, but driving from one half of the city to the other is rendered impossible during this time. The sides of the river were crammed with people, mostly Russian tourists, watching the spectacle.

The Church of our Saviour on Spilled Blood was built to mimic St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, and it was constructed on the spot where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. This photo was taken at about 3am, I didn't pass this way during the day time.

Again a shot of the Winter Palace, this time at night when it was more or less as dark as it got.