Welcome to Saint Petersburg, the city of legendary palaces, museums and art galleries, broad avenues and beautiful drawbridges! Russia’s second largest city, Saint-Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in 1703 as Russia’s new capital and a “window to Europe”, and called “Venice of the North” for its numerous canals and islands.
Sightseeing private tour is an excellent option to explore the very best that this remarkable city has to offer in the safety and comfort of a private vehicle with brief photo stops along the way.
The sightseeing tour starts on Nevsky Prospect, which cuts through the city historic center and is lined up with palaces, fashionable boutiques and art salons, trading arcades, and such architectural masterpieces as the Admiralty, the Kazan Cathedral, the picturesque Russian-style Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, Gostiny Dvor shopping mall, Anichkov Bridge and many more.
The tour continues along the Neva River embankments to view the imperial Winter Palace, home to the Hermitage, St Isaac’s Cathedral, one of the largest domed churches in the world, the Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter I.
Built in the first half of the 19th century by the French-born architect Auguste Montferrand, the St. Isaac's Cathedral was to be the principal church of St. Petersburg and the largest cathedral in Russia. Nowadays, the Cathedral – still the largest church in St. Petersburg, which can accommodate over 14,000 persons, and a monumental building in the neoclassical style, which facades are decorated with sculptures and massive columns, each made of single pieces of red granite. Also, the Cathedral - one of the greatest cupola churches in the world. Its golden dome remains one of the key elements in the modern view of the center of the city.
At the present time the Cathedral serves mainly as a museum. A visit inside the cathedral gives a chance to explorer its stunning marble interior, columns made of malachite and lapis lazuli, incredibly detailed mosaic icons, paintings and luminously colored stained glass windows. Also inside the Cathedral visitors can admire a unique iconostasis, beautifully decorated with malachite and lapis lazuli, and the main altar with the rare stained glass window of the "Resurrected Christ".
During the summer evenings (from 1st May to 30th September ONLY) the colonnade of the Cathedral offers its visitors a stunning panoramic view of the city. As an additional option for extra charge, during the tour visitors can climb up 300 steps to the observation walkway to admire breathtaking city sights at sunset.