The cruise port terminal for Saint Petersburg is located on the western side of Vasilyevsky Island. The surrounding area is quite sparse and with no commercial port activity taking place it’s one of the less interesting ports to arrive at or spend any time looking at. Nevertheless, on the morning of our second and final day visiting the Russian city I took a few photos from our aft cabin balcony on the Crown Princess as we had some time to kill before our late-starting riverboat excursion. I had hoped to see some typically Russian brutalist architecture in the country but this was not to be from the bits we saw.
There was a near-constant stream of hydrofoils passing the port to the south. The duty free store shown in the pictures below wasn’t the one we used as we left the ship; ours seemed far larger and as I’ve mentioned in another post it was a very good place – and the cheapest – to pick up the typically tourist things like Russian hats or dolls. My recommendation if you’re taking a Baltic cruise into Saint Petersburg is to make a note of price of the things you’re after as souvenirs in the shop as you leave for a day trip in order that you don’t find yourself ripped off when in the city; we ended up paying over the top for a reproduction Russian hat because we didn’t figure this out until too late but we got a great price in the port shop for dolls that were a gift for my niece.
We weren’t the only cruise ship visiting Saint Petersburg on that day. Two vessels of the German AIDA cruiseline (the Diva and the Cara) were also docked at the port. The hull artwork on their ships always looks so interesting and there looked like an interesting slide and pool area on the aft of one of the vessels.
I even tried a nearly-successful panorama shot on my phone of the port with the two cruise ships pictured.
At the conclusion of our day’s organised trip there was more time as the light started to fade in the early evening to grab some more photos while our cruise ship left Russia.
On the starboard side of the ship as we departed there was a huge new building under construction. It was interesting to see something so tall after our weekend in Saint Petersburg where the heights of buildings were kept low.
Saint Petersburg was a fabulous place to visit and we’ll definitely have to return one day to see some of its many sights we never got a chance to experience on this trip.