Saint Petersburg walking tour: Sightseeing along Nevsky Prospect

Stroll along Nevsky Prospect on a walking tour of St Petersburg’s main avenue and cultural heart, and discover why the city is known as the Venice of the North. Every landmark along this storied street preserves the history of Russia’s northern capital, with its feet firmly in Mother Russia, but its eyes to the west.

Starting in front of the Eliseyev Emporium, you’ll weave between the city’s two waterways, the Neva and Moyka rivers, and end up in the Palace Square in front of the Winter Palace. Along the way, you’ll see one of the world's largest libraries, the National Library of Russia, where the first Russian language book is housed. We’ll take in the 250-year-old shopping mall, Gostiny Dvor, and the symbol of the city, the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. There, I’ll tell you the tragic story of how this beautiful church, decorated with more mosaics than any other in the world, was given the description ‘on spilled blood’.

You’ll have a chance to take in the impressive Kazan Cathedral, which unites the architectural traditions of the Catholic and the Orthodox churches and hear how, during Soviet times, it housed the biggest atheist museum in the city. I’ll also point out an architect’s elegant solution when an American company’s plans for a skyscraper were scrapped due to St Petersburg’s building regulations. We’ll end our walk in front of the largest art museum in the world by gallery space, the Hermitage Museum, where you can spend eight hours a day for 15 years and still not see everything!

Give yourself at least 45 minutes to take in the best-known sites in Russia’s complex northern capital, where local traditions blend with a European outlook. If you’re feeling peckish along the way, you can sample the Imperial-style Russian food at the Abrikosov cafe and grab a pyshka, a local doughnut.