White nights in St. Petersburg

After a short sleepless night on a Mercedes bus, I arrived in St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, I thought it would be good to get of at the bus terminsus and not at the Belorussia station. It soon came clear, that the next metro station was about 2 km away from the bus stop and no ATM wanted to give me money. So I walked the whole distance to the Moscow station where I left my heavy luggage.

At a nearby hostel, I joined a group of Peter's Walking Tours and we left by bus for the the Mariinsky quarter. There we had a look at the famous theatre, at New Holland (an old ship building site on an island - now up for new development) and Nikolsky Cathedral.

We crossed the Neva river and nearly entered a training sail ship, but as the sailors were busy loading the ship, we just took some pictures before we left for Newsky Prospekt. There our tour ended and I strolled on my own a little bit.
In the evening, I returned to the train station and picked up my little backpack and left the suitcase behind. I tried to reach the hostel by metro and bus, but ended in the middle of nowhere. The mistake was to get off the bus at a street named similar to one I was looking for. So I returned to the metro station one hour after I first left it. For luck, I found some nice Russians (see the picture) who took me to the hostel.

The hostel was not very nice, so I was happy to have booked another one for the next two nights. My second day was dedicated to art & culture. At 10:30 am, I joined the queue in front of the Hermitage which moved fast to the inner court. Less than an hour later, I entered the Hermitage which consists of state rooms, halls and imperial art collections.

I walked down the Jordan Staircase to leave the Hermitage and head to the train station where I picked up my big suitcase. I headed to the south to the other hostel that was very nice and welcoming. After check-in and registration I got redressed and left in a hurry for the Mariinsky Theatre. I just arrived in time for the beginning of Wagner's opera "Twilight of the gods". Six hours later, I strolled through the White Nights back home...