Saint Petersburg was a swamp when Peter the Great decided to build a capital on it. In 1703 he founded a fortress on an island in the mouth of the Neva, on land that belonged to Sweden and had been taken in war, and he forced tens of thousands of workers to drain and pile the marshy ground, thousands dying in the process. Within a few decades the city stood as a European capital, with straight avenues, canals, palaces and a harbour, a window cut, as Pushkin said, to Europe. The Neva delta, with its islands, branches and canals, gave the city a character that is still something between Amsterdam and Venice.
The site is low and flat, and it floods. The Neva has risen many times when westerly storms push the Baltic up the river, most dramatically in 1824, when the water covered much of the city. A long barrier, the dam across the Gulf of Finland that carries the ring road, was completed in the 2010s to protect the city, and it is a surprising structure, a long line over the water with gates for ships. The ring road itself is the fastest way round the city, but it is busy and best avoided at rush hour.
Riding in Saint Petersburg is much like riding in any big city: heavy traffic, trams, potholes, aggressive drivers and the occasional deep pothole on the cobbles. Parking can be a puzzle. The city has plenty of fuel, repair shops and bike dealers, and its sheer size, with over five million people, means anything you need is within reach. Summer is the season, when the white nights from late May to mid-July keep the sky light until midnight and the drawbridges rise in the small hours, a spectacle that draws crowds on the embankments.
At the moment, foreign visitors will find travel to and in Russia heavily restricted, with sanctions, insurance and border problems, so check carefully before you plan a trip.
Food is a delight: blini with caviar or sour cream, pelmeni dumplings, rich soups such as ukha and solyanka, and the pastries sold in the old cafes along Nevsky Prospect. Winter is long, dark and cold, and the Neva freezes, though the city has a beauty of its own in snow. If you can, see the city from the water, on a canal boat, since that is how it was designed to be seen.