Saint Petersburg began here, on Hare Island in the Neva, where Peter the Great laid the foundations of the Peter and Paul Fortress in 1703. The fortress, with its tall golden spire above the cathedral where Russian emperors are buried, still marks the heart of the city, and from its walls you look across the river to the Winter Palace, the Hermitage and the long granite embankments that make the city one of the most beautiful in Europe. The historic centre and its related monuments form a World Heritage Site.
The city is built on islands and canals, with palaces, churches and grand avenues laid out by Italian, French and Russian architects in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Nevsky Prospekt, the main avenue, runs from the Admiralty to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. In June, the white nights mean that it never gets fully dark, and the city stays awake late into the night.
For riders, the city has one crucial rule: the bridges. During the navigation season, from spring to autumn, the bridges over the Neva are raised at night to let ships pass, and if you are on the wrong side when they open you will be stuck until they close again in the early morning. Check the schedule and plan accordingly. Traffic in the centre is heavy, cobbles and tram lines are common, and parking can be difficult.
Across the Kronverk strait from the fortress lies the Petrograd side, where the city's grand apartment blocks, many in Art Nouveau style, line the avenues, and the cruiser Aurora, whose gun gave the signal for the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917, is moored on the Bolshaya Nevka. A walk around the fortress walls, with the noon cannon fired from the Naryshkin bastion every day, is the classic introduction. On sunny days people sunbathe against the warm granite of the walls by the river, even in early spring with ice still floating past.
Fuel and services are everywhere. A foreign rider has extra homework at present, from visas to the fact that most Western cards fail at the pump. The best time to visit is in summer, when the weather is mild and the days are long, but crowds are heavy. Spring and autumn are quieter, though weather can be grey and wet.