St. Petersburg 6 (LONELY PLANET)

I loaded this guide onto my Kindle Fire. The double-click / spread-finger zoom works fine on the maps. Our trip was to multiple cities, so getting kindle versions of this guide book and a few of the Rick Steves guidebooks gave us all the advantages of these guides without the bulk. The Lonely Planet guide took us to a couple of great restaurants and all of the key attractions in St Petersburg. With tips from this guidebook, and if you're brave enough to figure out the metro and/or deal with taxis, you really don't need a guide. Good guides certainly have their place for those who want background and history. However, we're a pretty independent family and we do some research on places before going, so we found no need for a Russian guide other than our Lonely Planet guidebook.The detailed tip on getting Hermitage tickets on line and COMPLETELY avoiding any lines was easily worth the price of the guide. Works like a charm in St. Petersburg -- you literally enter the museum through the guide's entry at the back of the museum where the busses park. You get your voucher approved at the guide check-in desk, and then (important step) you are directed to the head of the ticket line, where you pick up your tickets, and walk right in to the museum. We used the same tip for the Coliseum, Palatine Hill, Forum, and Vatican Museum tickets in Rome. Works great, only costs a couple of dollars more per ticket, and NO WAITING IN LINE, even in August! You just need access to a hotel or internet café computer, a web-mail account like gmail, and a printer for the voucher, or do it at home before you go.

Downloaded for recent trip to St. Petersburg. Tried several of the restaurants. Good advice. Gintarus, Zoom Cafe, Lev.While walking around the city, the interactive maps did not work because I did not have 4G service in Russia. So it might have been easier with a physical book. Yet I hate carrying that much around all day.Even thought we already had a packed itinerary we used the book to read more about local history, and customs. I recommend it

Kindle version is not as good as the physical book. I bought the Kindle version 3 weeks ago before my trip and ended up with a buddy who had the book version. He had more maps, and the Kindle version was harder to navigate with the links they set up for viewing the book. It was super convenient to have the book on my iphone, but I think having the paper back book is much more useful. I'd give 5 stars for the paperback copy.

This book should be in your preparation for a trip to Russia. It is very well organized by topics. The color photographs capture the beauty of the area. The included maps provide a useful reference for locating places. There are an abundance of useful tips on how to communicate and find what you will need there. One of the best compact references I've found.

I've been using Lonely Planet for 20 years and will continue until I'm disappointed. Thank-you for a great resource on St Petersburg. Absolutely loved the city and this guide led us to what we wanted to see. The streets and street signs can be a little confusing when getting off beaten track but the maps in the LP guide are good.

This was a very useful tour book for St. Petersburg. It got us to all the major sites and the kindle made it very acccessible. the section on the Hermitage was especially useful.

Great insights before my trip there. I like the photos in the intro sections, but wish there were more in the detail section.

Only spent 2 days in St. Petersburg but this book was useful. Only downside is it is large for a brief trip especially with multiple destinations.

We took three guides to St Petersburg last week (Nov 2014) and this was one of them. The other two were the St Petersburg Map Guide and the Everyman St Petersburg guide. The problem with all of them is they are a bit old, so some of the items about shopping and craft fairs are out of date and the shops and fairs aren't there any more.This is the newest guide but even this one must have been researched in 2011. Its a useful guide though. Solid helpful information on many museums and other sites - we were really grateful at the Decorative Arts museum, which is in an Academy and you have to go past security and then without the guide we would never have found the museum. We like Lonely Planet and have found their Top Choices for restaurants to be pretty good in other countries - it also true of St Petersburg and we had some very nice meals.

A good introductory guide to the city but don't believe all that you read in it. You will not be stopped by the police and your passport checked because I never saw a policeman whilst I was there. Also the cafe in the Hermitage is not over priced and dreadful. It is a run of the mill museum cafe selling the usual range of snack food and drinks. Avoid the Hermitage first thing in the morning as the crowds are horrendous and make sure that you buy your tickets in advance to avoid the very long queues. Lastly avoid the tourist tat along the canal behind the church on the Spilled Blood. They are a rip off and be careful of trays of items on display which the unsuspecting can easy knock over and then be asked to pay for so called breakages.

St. Petersburg is larger than you can ever imagine and a guide is essential. It is not like, say, Paris, where you can just go to the hotel and rely on what the receptionist suggests.The city if vast and scary (in a good way), so you’ll find yourself needing the maps. Also, queues for places of interest in the city are huge, so leave yourself plenty of time.Don’t believe all of the facts in it though. Rasputin’s pride of joy is not on display in the Erotic museum. It is only an ‘alleged model’. I didn’t personally visit it (dismembered genitals are not my thing), but I asked my guide about the story. It is only a myth, so don’t believe the Boney M song.

This book very much does what it says, and gives a good guide to the main sights. It is an up to date guide to the city that does, as always with Lonely Planet, give a useful historical background and linguistic assistance.The only slight complaint I have is that the maps just cover the city core, and it would be helpful to have them cover a bit more, and it was not always clear how the various districts join up.Just wish I hadn't left it on the Electruska...

Bought this for our Honeymoon in St. Petersburg in April 2012. It was a brand new edition at the time and we utilised it mainly for restaurant and bar listings. We would have never found BarakObama Bar without it, as it was through about 5 dodgy carparks and alleys and I LOVED it there. Don't usually use guidebooks much but as we only had 5 days in the city we thought we didn't want to miss out on any of the highlights. Definitely would recommend, although some listings may be out of date by now possibly.