Long Walks in St Petersburg: Four Routes of 2 to 4 Hours, 200 Roubles for a Park at Weekends

Most visitors "walk the centre", end up in the crowd outside the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood within an hour, and spend the rest of the afternoon hunting for a toilet. A long walk in St Petersburg works differently: it needs a start and an end at a metro station, a coffee stop you can count on, and an honest allowance for autumn, when it gets dark early and wet granite turns lethal. Here are four routes of two to four hours that join up on the map without doubling back.

Kolomna and New Holland: 5 km, 2.5–3 hours

Start at Spasskaya or Sadovaya metro, walk southwest along Sadovaya Street past the Yusupov Garden to Nikolskaya Square and the blue St Nicholas Naval Cathedral. Turn north along the Kryukov Canal embankment; within minutes you reach Pikalov Bridge, the spot where seven bridges are visible at once. Another 700 metres brings you to Theatre Square, between the Mariinsky and the Conservatory. Continue along the canal to the Moyka and enter New Holland from Admiralteysky Canal Embankment 2. The park is open 9:00–22:00 Monday to Thursday and until 23:00 Friday to Sunday, admission is free, and the two large underground toilets on the main alley are the only genuinely reliable free ones on the route. Leave via the Moyka bridge, Trud Square and Konnogvardeysky Boulevard to Senate Square and the Bronze Horseman, then through Alexander Garden to Admiralteyskaya metro.

Petrogradsky Island, skipping the fortress: 4.5 km, 2–2.5 hours

From Gorkovskaya metro, walk along Kronverksky Prospekt to the Sytny Market — a working market with a toilet — then along Mira Street to Austriyskaya Square, a small Art Nouveau crossroads. Head north on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt to Lev Tolstoy Square and the unmistakable Rosenstein house with turrets, then take quiet Lenin Street, lined with cafés, to Chkalovskaya metro. This route has food every fifteen minutes and no free public toilets at all.

Vasilyevsky Island: 4 km, 2–2.5 hours

From Vasileostrovskaya metro walk to St Andrew's Cathedral and along the pedestrian stretch of the 6th and 7th Lines, then via Bolshoy Prospekt to the University Embankment at the Academy of Arts, where two genuine Egyptian sphinxes stand above the water. Follow the embankment east past the Rumyantsev Garden, Menshikov Palace, the Kunstkamera and the Academy of Sciences to the Spit with its Rostral Columns, and finish across Palace Bridge. There are almost no cafés on the University Embankment, so buy coffee in the first third of the walk.

Kamenny and Yelagin islands: 6 km, 3–4 hours

From Krestovsky Ostrov metro walk north along Morskoy Prospekt and cross the 2nd Yelagin Bridge into the Central Park on Yelagin Island. This is the only paid point on all four routes: entry is free on weekdays from 6:00 to 23:00, but on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays it costs 200 roubles for adults and 50 for students between 10:00 and 19:59 — free again before 10:00 and after 20:00. Park toilets are paid. Cross the 1st Yelagin Bridge to Kamenny Island for wooden dachas, the Kamennoostrovsky Palace and the timber Church of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, then leave over Ushakovsky Bridge to Chyornaya Rechka metro. Many alleys here have no lighting, so be back on the main avenue before dusk.

What is actually slippery

Snow is not the danger here; water is. The granite ramps down to the rivers and canals have a slope, no railings and wet leaves. Cast-iron manhole covers are more slippery at plus two degrees than ice. Bridges and open embankments feel five degrees colder because of the wind. Bring shoes with real tread, water, and an offline map — mobile internet in the centre sometimes disappears block by block.