St. Petersburg's imperial wonders

This city is "one enormous work of art"

Huddling for a photo outside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Each week, we spotlight a dream vacation recommended by some of the industry's top travel writers. This week's pick is St. Petersburg, Russia.

(Image credit: Courtesy image)

There's no shortage of other fine art in St. Petersburg. You could spend a month in the Hermitage, exploring its miles of corridors, without properly covering the museum's countless exhibits. "So choose your targets well — the Gold and Diamond rooms, the Leonardos and Raphaels — and zip by the rest." But try to spend the short daylight hours outdoors. Some of the city's best sights are on the canals: the Yusupov Palace, where Rasputin was fed cyanide-laced cakes; the gaudy, onion-domed Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood, built on the spot where bomb-throwing anarchists fatally wounded Czar Alexander II. "When the cold begins to seep into your bones," duck into the Fabergé Museum on the Fontanka River.

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Music courses through the city's veins. Tchaikovsky lived and died here, and his masterpiece, Swan Lake, seems always to be playing at one venue or another. My ticket to see the ballet at the Alexandrinsky, a stately theater founded by Catherine the Great, cost less than $14. Sacred Russian music of a different sort can be experienced during evensong at Preobrazhensky cathedral, home to one of the city's best choirs. The choreography of worship is "mesmerizing": the chanting priests, the incense, the heart-searing liturgy, "Gospodi pomilui, Gospodi pomilui" ("Lord, have mercy"). Stay just as long as you want. But savor the dark, chilly walk home, "because you will never be closer to knowing what it means to have a Russian soul."

Read more at Condé Nast Traveller, or book a stay with Steppes Travel. A five-day package starts at $2,740.