Me and My Sisters: St Petersburg

The next day, we start our day early. I'd say St. Petersburg is much more beautiful that Moscow, it's one of the main tourist attractions. By comparison, Petersburg is much younger than Moscow (while Moscow celebrated its 850th birthday in 1997, Petersburg is less than 300 years old!). The official date of its founding is held to be 1703, when Peter the Great decided to build a new capitol, to wash away the conversative style of Moscow. He wanted Petersburg to be a true European city. Construction took place so rapidly that the city took shape not by the week or even day, but by the hour.

We stayed in Nevsky Prospect, which is St. Petersburg main avenue, and also the most famous street in Russia. Even though my sister claimed that it's the city's central shopping street and the hub of the city's entertainment and nightlife, I still find that we had to do a lot of walking.

The many waterways and canals rightfully earned Petersburg the name Venice of the North

There are a few beautiful sculptures of men and horses like this

Nevsky Prospect City at a glance

Luckily SJ agreed to walk once in a while, or else I'll be suffering from severe backache (which I actually did!)

Luckily there's Daddy to help out once in a while...

Sze Yi enjoyed posting with her Tigger the most...each of them brought one along actually

Nevsky Prospect is also renowned for its splendid architecture...

Since it's my sister's first time here too, all of us were busy reading the maps and finding the directions.

It's not always that Daddy got to be in the camera! He told me he hardly see his own pic in my previous entries, so I made sure I put more of his here :)

This is the Kazan Cathedral, which is distinguished by its curved colonnade of numerous huge columns.

The cathedral was conceived as a replica of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome

More on the Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral

The girls especially SY were posing with their mouths open in nearly every shot, maybe she thot that's coolest pose!

We went into the Cathedral to have a closer look at the interior...

One last glimpse of the whole Kazan Cathedral before we made our move, magnificient, isn't it?

By then it was already lunch time, so we went to a nice restaurant since it's my father's birthday.

We ordered quite a variety of food so that we could sample a little bit from every dish

It's quite famous for its pancake, as you can see that we ordered 2 types of that

This sculpture was just outside the restaurant

After a hearty lunch, we continued on with our adventure...

Do we look like tourists? :)

We then headed towards The Church on Spilled Blood, which is arguably the most-photographed site in the city.

At a glance, you might see a resemblance to St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow. The architect, Alfred Parland, was trying to copy St. Basil's, and most would say the two churches do look much alike, although their environs are certainly different.

Church on Spilled Blood in Saint Petersburg, Russia

St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow's Red Square

A closer look at the Savior on the Spilt Blood

It's very common to see couples having weddings in St. Petersburg...

We went into the Cathedral to marvel at its unique interior

Oops, SJ's already asleep while SY's still very active.

After that, we went to the Palace Square. Here's what we passed along the way.

Here's the Palace Square...

We spent sometime sitting around here while waiting for my sisters and brother to check out the tickets to the Hermitage Museum. By then, SJ was already awake, and she was playing with Sze Yi, running all over the square. Their actions attracted some tourists, who naturally came over to give them some sweets/chocolates and also requesting to have a photo with them.

The square is bounded by the incredible Winter Palace, the stunning General Staff Building and the incomparable Admiralty with the Alexander Column standing proudly in the center.