My two weeks in St. Petersburg were a great delight. The metro is a terrific form of transportation to get to where you want to walk or to get home from where you have walked to. The escalator down is lengthy, 3 minutes or more and gives you time to watch the hundreds of people coming up (or down). I never had to wait more than a few seconds for my train and while they were crowded, it was orderly and polite. The city is a delight to walk in, hours were spent in the Hermitage, the Russian Museum, Peter and Paul fortress, St. Isaac's, Andrew Prospect, the Russian Orthodox churches, the cemeteries and parks and just walking on Nevsky prospect or along the canals and Neva river. The city is either very dusty and congested or wide promenades or empty streets. While I never had a run in with any authorities, I saw several times police shaking people down (or enforcing rules through the collection of fines directly at the time of detention) and felt as though it always possible that I would be caught doing something wrong that I had no knowledge was wrong or required. The confusing layout of the streets and canals, the completely alien alphabet and language and the constant daylight was disorienting, but the palaces, churches, museums and restaurants made it all worth while.
