L’Escale in St Petersburg

Wednesday 4 – Friday 6 July

Not me, you understand, but for my crew – the plan to sail me there had long since fallen overboard, for reasons of cost, bureaucracy and general inconvenience. Instead, Mate booked them both a cabin aboard the Princess Anastasia, for a night passage from Helsinki on American Independence Day, to arrive in St Petersburg in the morning of Thursday 5 July. They would have the day in this Russian city of culture, and return to Helsinki overnight to dock Friday morning.

The ferry that marketed itself as a cruise liner was old and rattly, but fortunately only half full at around 1000 passengers of many nationalities. The sea was calm and my crew filled up from the breakfast buffet before joining the queue at Passport Control. Two hours later, they were finally released to the waiting shuttle minibus for the 30-minute transfer into the city centre, by means of which the required visa is supposedly circumvented.

As it was now noon, queues for the Hermitage Art Museum, top of the day’s list of must-see attractions, snaked several times around the Palace Square, and the plan of making it the first stop to beat the crowds faded in the sunshine. In case you’re planning a visit, be aware that the first Thursday of the month is Free Entry Day for Russian and Belarussian citizens. As it was now peak holiday season, doubtless this accounted for at least half the people standing patiently.

After picking up a few snacks at a local corner shop, Plan B was put into action: to find a riverboat to see the sights. Another city built on a network of canals, this proved the highlight of the whole trip. Front seats on the open deck of a wide, low vessel afforded prime viewing of all the key sights and points of interesting history, entertainingly described by Dennis in flawless English.

Item three on the wishlist was a visit to the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. Possibly the most recognisable image of St Petersburg, it was built on the site where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated in March 1881. He was Emperor of Russia between 1855 and 1881, also the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Finland. He was succeeded by Alexander III, who dedicated the building as a memorial to his father.

However, Mate’s planning and research for this trip did not allow for football fever – they arrived to a city in the grip of FIFA World Cup 2018. There was no match scheduled here today, but the ‘fan fests’ – white semi-spherical plastic marquees – were all over the city, including right across the front of this church, in a strongly cordoned-off area. Undeterred, they followed the path between two lines of chain-link fencing, topped by netting, to the entrance door…to find another long queue. With only a couple of hours left for sightseeing before the departure time of the last return bus back to the ferry, they admitted defeat and enjoyed the external architecture, allowing for the fact that the main spire was clad in scaffolding and plastic sheeting, completely obscuring it whilst under restoration.

Their ‘visa’ was for 72 hours, so if you’re thinking of booking a similar trip, they strongly recommend you treat yourselves to one or two nights in this beautiful city, to do it some justice. Once through the red tape, the atmosphere is no different than any other cosmopolitan European capital, and restaurants and cafés, with menus in English, are plentiful.