Excursions in St.Petersburg - city tour and St Isaac Cathedral

City tour includes all major sights and places of St.Petersburg. This is one of those “must-do” excursions that serve as number 1 priority for the first time visitors, and today stays as the most popular option, the necessity in every single itinerary.

Here are the places included into a standard 3-hour city tour. 

Nevsky Prospekt, the main street in St. Petersburg, is one of the best-known streets in Russia. Being in the historical center of the city, the prospect runs from the Admiralty to the Moscow Railway Station and then, after a slight turn, to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. In the very first days of St. Petersburg it was originally called the Great Perspective Road and was simply the beginning of the road to the ancient city of Novgorod, but it quickly became adorned with beautiful buildings, squares and bridges and became the very center of the bustling, rapidly growing city. It is 4.5 kilometers long and 25-60 meters wide. It was planned by the French architect Alexandre Jean Baptiste LeBlond, who at that moment was working for the city's founder Peter the Great.

           

St Isaac’s Cathedral, one of the most prominent landmarks in the silhouette of St Petersburg, towers at the crossing of St Isaac’s Square and Decembrist’s (formerly Senate) Square on the left bank of the Neva. St Isaac’s is the fourth largest domed cathedral in the world after St Peter’s in Rome, St Paul’s in London and Sta Maria del Fiore in Florence. St Isaac’s, amazing by its dimensions even today, is 101.5 m high, 111.3 m long (with porticoes) and 97.6 wide. The inner diameter of the dome is 21.8 m and the outer one 25.8 m. The pediments rest on 112 monolithic granite columns – each of portico’s columns is 17 m high and weighs 114 tons. The cathedral can accommodate about 14,000 people. It was designed by the outstanding architect of the first half of the nineteenth century Auguste Ricard de Montferrand.

In accordance with Greek canons assimilated by Orthodox architects, St Isaac’s Cathedral is cross-shaped in plan. Its compact rectangular block is crowned with a gilded dome surmounted by an octagonal lantern resting on a high drum. The four belfries make a transition from it to the basic volume more gradual. The central dome and the small tops of the belfries form the traditional five-domed design characteristic of Russian architecture. The porticoes of the Corinthian order projecting on the facades lend an air of grandeur and majesty to the entire edifice. Large arched windows with massive surrounds pierce the quiet planes of the walls; the corners of the building are adorned with pilasters. The exterior of St Isaac’s has an easily traceable imprint of Renaissance and Baroque models, especially as regards the abundance of decor.