Today I’m talking about my recent Baltic trip and have posted some photos of the wonderful canal trip taken by myself and my husband in St. Petersburg. It was a cold and rainy day, and if you catch the short video at the end, you will see it wasn’t the best day weather wise, but it was a wonderful experience, which I would highly recommend should you choose to visit Russia!

The trip took about an hour and twenty minutes and it was really special. I had little idea of the huge scale of the city until this point. St. Petersburg was founded in 1703, and was originally the capital of the Russian empire. It was the rather daring vision of Peter 1st to whom this grandiose and very ambitious project was symbolic of an era of confidence, extravagance, and optimism. The city was built on northern reclaimed marshland, which was perpetually wreathed in mist – which explains the less than optimum weather conditions many visitors to St. Petersburg experience. But as I am sure you are already aware, you don’t go to Russia for the climate…

When planning a Russian trip, you are required to obtain a visa, and the easiest way to do this is to book via a travel agent who will sort it out for you (it’s not cheap around 120 euros) or you can go on an organised group trip as we did. Even so, passport control is very strict and time-consuming. I did think I was going to have to continue without my husband at one point – when they brought a very official looking man uniform to question him about some apparently unsavoury stamps in his passport – he does get about a bit… but they eventually let him through and thankfully, the bus was still there waiting for us to join it!

Back to the boat trip: there are 342 bridges in total on the river Neva, which runs from Lake Ladoga, right through the middle of the city into the Gulf of Finland. On this canal trip, we lost count of how many bridges we passed under and there was some stunning wrought ironwork to be seen. It was an amazing trip with such an impressive collection of beautiful buildings and a vast assortment of bridges; some of which were so low that our tour guide instructed us to duck our heads as we went under them – and you most definitely needed to!

If the video looks upside – it does right itself once you press play!