Although St Petersburg is revving up its party reputation and endorsing a Saatchi and Saatchi vodka ad lifestyle, it still has that gloomy Slavic sense of the romantic. In fact no one does lachrymose love better then the Russians - think of Tolstoy and his tortured Anna Karenina, or Pasternak and his doomed Lara. With this in mind, take a troika ride across a pristine snowscape with 'Lara's Theme' on high-rotation inside your head.

St Petersburg was built on a grand scale, with palaces and boulevards designed to be viewed from afar, and bold symmetry embracing the whole. The city sprawls across and around the mouth of the Neva River, at the end of the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. The Neva splits the city into northern, eastern and southern sectors. The area spreading back from the Winter Palace and the Admiralty on the south bank is the city’s heart, and Nevsky prospekt is its main artery. This central area is a pedestrian’s dream, as the waterside walkways and elegant streetscapes are best seen on foot.

Palace Square
For 200 years the vast Russian empire was ruled from this half-kilometre block at St Petersburg’s heart. This is one of Europe’s great squares, lined with colourful yet elegant edifices and dotted with monuments commemorating Russia’s victory over Napoleon. It witnessed Bloody Sunday in 1905, the Bolshevik’s grab for power in 1917, and all-night vigils in the name of democracy during the 1991 coup.

Peter & Paul Fortress
Tiny Zayachy Island contains the oldest building in town - the Peter & Paul Fortress. It was built in 1703 while Peter the Great was still roughing it in a log cabin overlooking his golden embryonic city (the cabin is preserved as a shrine-like museum), and designed according to plans by the man himself. Its original purpose was to defend the land newly acquired from the Swedes.

Russian Museum
Often overlooked by visitors in favour of the Hermitage, the extensive Russian Museum is a must for anyone interested in Russian art and culture. It’s housed in the former Mikhailovsky palace, which was designed by Carlo Rossi and built in 1819-25 for Grand Duke Mikhail (brother of Tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I) as compensation for not getting a go on the throne. The museum was founded in 1895 under Nicholas II, and opened three years later.

Vasilevsky Island
St Petersburg’s largest island lies wedged like a plug in the mouth of the Neva. The main points of interest are clustered on its eastern ‘nose’, just across the river from the Admiralty. They include maritime buildings, the city’s university, a clutch of museums, and some of the best views of the city. The island’s nostrils are adorned with the Rostral Columns, navigation beacons shaped like ship’s prows which today spurt forth gas-fuelled fire on holidays.

Nevsky Prospect
St Petersburg’s ‘Champs ?lys?es’ is the famous Nevsky prospekt, which runs west from the Admiralty 4km (2mi) to the Alexandr Nevsky Monastery on the banks of the Neva. It’s lined with fine buildings and thronged with people - a good place to feel the city’s pulse, particularly during the midsummer White Nights. The list of former residents who lived on and around the famous thoroughfare reads like a veritable Who’s Who: Gogol, Tchaikovsky, Turgenev, Nijinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Dostoevsky.

Summer Garden
Between the Mars Field and the Fontanka River, this is St Petersburg’s loveliest and oldest park. Laid out for Peter the Great with fountains, pavilions and a geometrical plan to resemble the park at Versailles, it became a stomping ground for 19th-century ladies (and gentlemen) of leisure. Though changed now, its formal elegance remains.
The modest, two-storey Summer Palace, in the northeastern corner of the park, was St Petersburg’s first palace, built for Peter in 1704-14, and now open to the public. Little reliefs around the walls depict Russian naval victories, and many rooms contain early-18th-century furnishings.

Pushkin Flat-Museum
Pushkin died in this house by the Moyka River in 1837, after a duel with French soldier of fortune Baron d’Anthes who had been publicly chasing Pushkin’s beautiful wife, Natalia. The affair was widely seen as a put-up job by Tsar Nicholas I, who disliked the famed poet’s radical politics - and who, rumour has it, may have been the one really after Natalia.

Museum of Decorative & Applied Arts
Opposite the east side of Summer Garden, this museum is seriously stunning. The collection was begun in 1878 by Baron Stieglitz, who wanted to surround students of his School of Technical Design with inspirational works of art. Between 1885 and 1889 the building was created by architect Messmacher and each room was decorated in its own unique style. Unfortunately much of this decoration was ruined when the school was closed after the revolution, but renovation work continues today.