The Most Beautiful City I Have Ever Seen

If you want to visit a city where every single building is a part of history, and every single block will strike you with its beauty and grandeur, then St.Petersburg is definitely for you.

During this Summer I went to a variety of places. I've been to Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Denmark, as well as the Baltic countries which include Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Despite their beauty and rich history, none of these countries can even compare to the wonder that is St.Petersburg, Russia.

During our stay in Russia, we had a guide, who was purely amazing. She loved her city and she managed to transfer her love in such a way, that it was impossible not to fall in love with this city. She managed to show us absolutely everything in three days, and she did a wonderful job at it. She explained every little thing about every building and we very much enjoyed it. She even managed to squeeze in areas that weren't even in the program, and for that we are all very thankful.

The first building that we visited was the Hermitage. It is a museum of art and it was built by Catherine the Great, a queen of Russia. The palace was immediately stunning to us the moment we saw it. It was a huge, brilliantly colored palace with golden decor and white columns. That is only the outside. The inside was wonderfully decorated with golden walls and paintings/sculptures galore.

The Hermitage has the biggest collection of paintings in the world. We saw hundreds of biblical and mythological paintings, that our tour guide explained in great detail. Paintings like Madonna by Raffaello and Leonardo da Vinci and Danae by Titian were very impressive to me. Paintings were not the only things that decorated the rooms.

There were dozens of beautifully made statues of Roman and Greek gods. Some sculptures told stories, like the one where a boy and a dolphin were playing together, then the dolphin accidentally injured the boy in his side, as shown by the dent, that was purposely made, on the statue. There was no help in sight and the dolphin took the boy to the shore and they died together.

The next area that we visited was the one and only Peterhoff. It was a palace built by Peter the Great, and like all the other astonishing places, this palace was breathtakingly beautiful. In front of it was a man-made canal leading to a huge and glorious fountain that looked even more beautiful accompanied by its marvelous palace. The palace itself was white, with golden windows,statues and outlining. All the colors went so well with the white columns, blue roof and golden sculpture on top of it. As if all that wasn't enough, during all this there was amazing music playing in the background. All of these features were in perfect equilibrium and words can't describe what I saw. On our way back I met a little surprise. I was walking on the ground and, out of curiosity, I stepped on a gray floor tile, the result?, I stand there soaking wet. This was apparently a trip wire. Peter the Great built these contraptions just for the fun of it. He would tell his guests to have a seat on a conveniently placed bench in front of the tiles and boom, you can figure out the rest.

Finally, we went to Pushkin, to see the Catherine palace. It was a very majestic palace. It was absolutely huge, the biggest palace out of all of them. It was colored a light blue all over, with white columns and white windows all over. Each column was beautifully decorated with a golden covering on top. It was one of the most beautiful castles, I have ever seen. Historically it was a royal country residence of the Russian princes.

The inside was pure gold. The rooms were huge and spacious. Every room was decorated to the last detail. It was filled with the costumes and swords of all the princes that lived before in those houses. We even saw the dining room where people used to make golden food just so they can admire it. We also so many portraits of 100s of princes. It was very interesting to see how these people lived during those times.

Our last room was the famous amber room. It disappeared during WW2, but now it was restored. As you can probably deduct from the name, the amber room is a room where the walls are completely made up of beautiful amber. It was truly amazing. On our way back we went through a beautiful park. It had lakes and white pavilions everywhere, It was truly an amazing experience.

Another thing that we saw was the famous cruiser Aurora, which is a historical warship. It was famous for signaling the start of the assault on the Winter Palace, (which was the beginning of the infamous October Revolution).

Thus, we have been to many more beautiful places like the Church of the Spilled Blood and Peter and Paul Fortress.

Unfortunately, if I try to list all landmarks we saw, I would run out of paper. I am going to leave the rest to you.