Wow what a City!!  I feel that I should stop writting now because anything that I write will not do this place justice.  St Petersburg is a planned City in the north-west region of Russia that at stages throughout Russian history as been the Capital of the Country and as such has many excellent examples of Russian Architecture.  The buildings are masterpieces themselves and if it wasn't for the da Vinci's, Raphael's and Michealangelo's (no Donatello's so I think that Shredder should try and attack St Petersburg because there is one less Ninja Turlte to battle, just saying) you would still be gawking at the ceilings and designs on the walls.  But for us we got to see many of the Master Painters at the number 1 attraction, The Hermitage.  The Hermitage has the world's largest collection of Paintings in one place, so much that only a small fraction is ever on display at any time.  Names like Rembrandt, Giogione, Titian, Veronese, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Frans Snyders, Gerard ter Borch, Paulus Potter, Jan van Goyen, Ferdinand Bol, Gerard van Honthorst, Renoir, Monet, Gauguin and some dude named Van Gogh grace the walls.  Just like you, I didn't know who most of these people were but a quick search on Wiki revealled a lot about them, none of the infomation I remember at all.  But someone thinks that these people are special so they have paid a lot of money to own their works and display them for all of us to study and go, hum I don't know art but I know what I like, and I hate that, but that one over there is good.
Audrey and I like to walk around the cities that we visit, we both think that you can see a bit more doing this rather than catching the bus, tram or taxi's.  But St Petersburg has the biggest blocks that I've seen.  When we both looked at the map and went, OK let's walk here then go there and finish here, it felt like a marathon just to get to the next place.  Nevsky Street, the shopping street of St Petersburg is just shy of 5k's long and 60m wide, we didn't even bother with on this trip as it would have taken up all the time we had available.  Same goes with Peterhof Palace which looks stunning in pictures, it was just a little too far out of the city when you have so much to see already.
St Petersburg has had a lot of history over it's time.  Peter the Great, the start of the Romanov era, choose this site for his capital.  Subsequent ruler kept St Petersburg as the Capital and as each one passed away they were internned into the Peter and Paul Cathedral.  We visited this site and saw all the previous ruler tombs layed out in rows.  Even the last Tsar, Nicholas II, who along with his family, including the famous Anastasia, have been placed here once their bodies were found in the Russian forests in 1992.  The firing of the cannon on the defensive walls occurs at 12pm each day.  We went up to have a look and to try and get an 'action' shot of the cannon going off but the idiot that I am I had the camera aimed at the wrong cannon !!!
Off to Tallinn in Estonia for a few days, maybe add an extra one where we will be doing sweet FA.