I have two limited days in St. Petersburg. I'm spending one day in Nevsky Prospekt and by the Church on the Spilled Blood. I have one other day and I'm trying to decide between spending it at the Hermitage or in Pushkin. Any advice on how to decide which is better?
Posted by
Berkeley, CA, USA
39 posts
You can go to the Hermitage for a couple of hours on the same day you rosm the Nevsky Prospect and visit the Church if the Spilled Blood. Pushkin is a place you can spoend many hours enjoying the grounds.
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
Nevsky Prospekt, despite the fame and acclaim, is just a street. Similar to the Champs-Elysee in Paris, I don't understand the fuss. You will see it while connecting sights; that's sufficient, and you don't need to plan on extra time for it.
The Church on the Spilt Blood is magnificent, but even taken slowly with the audioguide, it only takes about 90 minutes to see. So this will leave you plenty of time that day. In addition to the Hermitage, consider the wonderful Russia Museum. The Hermitage has great art - by artists you can see elsewhere. But the Russia Museum has great art by artists you won't see outside the country. If you do go, don't miss The Wave by Aivazovsky - it's breathtaking.
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16893 posts
If you visit the church and Hermitage on the first day and end up not seeing much of the street, then the street is free to come back again the next day, but the museum is not. The Nevsky Prospekt walk that Rick describes in his book is suggested as taking two hours, not counting stops.
Posted by
Tigard, Oregon, USA
40 posts
It is hard to spend a full day at the Hermitage because it is very warm inside. Nevsky Prospekt is interesting but it is stores, churches, and statues. Definitely go to the Pushkin for the grounds. Take the hydrofoil. We went to Catherine's Summer Palace instead of the palace tour at Pushkin.
Church on the Spilled Blood is only a 15 minute walk from the Hermitage.
(Be wary of the pick pockets along the canal. Same three tried to get us two days in a row.)
Enjoy
Posted by
San Diego
1540 posts
You might enjoy a canal tour/cruise on a small boat. We hopped on one outside of the
Church of Spilled Blood. It was a smaller flat boat and it had old kitchen chairs fastened to the deck.
It was very very in-expensive and even though we could not understand much of what the driver/guide said. It was a really really nice view of the city. ( I think it was about 2 hours)
They do have larger boats with English speaking guides - but the boats have tops on them it that blocks much of the view of the city and you are also limited to the larger canals.