The Aurora, Trinity Bridge and the Summer Garden

⏱ 1 h 25 min🚶 3.1 km🍽 1📍 3 stops

🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

The cruiser on Petrogradskaya Embankment, a crossing of Trinity Bridge with a view of the Neva and the Summer Garden, and pastries at Eliseevsky to finish.

👶 With kids🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature⏱ An hour or so

👶 3–6, 7–12 years · ✓ stroller-friendly

The Peter and Paul Fortress has cobblestones. Gangways lead onto the Aurora — strollers aren't taken aboard. Trinity Bridge has an even sidewalk, but it's a long walk.

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps

1
🖼 Cruiser Aurora
Петроградская наб.
🎟 ticket
An early 20th-century protected cruiser by Petrogradskaya Embankment — a museum ship with an open deck.
The cruiser on Petrogradskaya Embankment; going onto the deck and into the museum takes about another hour.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The cruiser was launched at the New Admiralty on 11 (24) May 1900 in the presence of Nicholas II.
- She is named after the sailing frigate ‘Aurora’, which defended Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Crimean War.
- At the Battle of Tsushima in 1905 the Aurora took 18 hits from Japanese shells, but survived.
- A blank shot from the Aurora in autumn 1917 became the signal for the storming of the Winter Palace.
- In 1941 nine 130-mm guns were taken off the cruiser for Battery ‘A’, which defended Leningrad at Duderhof.
- The cruiser took up her permanent berth on 17 November 1948; naval cadets then lived and studied aboard.
- During the 1984–1987 repair almost the whole underwater part of the hull was replaced.
🚶 on foot
2
🌳 Summer Garden
🚪 entrance from Palace Embankment
🎟 partly ticketed · The garden is free; the Summer Palace is ticketed
Peter I's garden with marble statues, fountains, the Summer Palace and the famous railing on the Neva side.
Across Trinity Bridge — into the garden
🚪 exit to the Moika, by the Carp Pond
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© ElenaLitera · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Евгений Со · CC BY-SA 3.0
- The garden was laid out by order of Peter I in 1704, on the site of the manor of the Swedish major von Konow.
- Most of the marble statues are by Italian masters of the turn of the 17th–18th century; they were bought in Italy by Peter's agents.
- The sections of the Neva railing were forged in 1773–1777 at the merchant Denisov's Tula works.
- The storm and flood of 21 September 1777 destroyed the garden's fountains, and it was then decided not to restore them.
- Rossi's Coffee House (1826) was rebuilt from the “Grotto” pavilion, and Charlemagne's wooden Tea House (1827) is finished to look like stone.
- The monument to Krylov by Pyotr Klodt was put up in 1855; the pedestal is decorated with scenes from the fables.
- After restoration the garden had its grand reopening on 27 May 2012.
🚶 on foot
3
☕️ Eliseevsky Store
Невский пр., 56
▮▮▯▯▯
Dinner and pastries
🍴 A food hall in an Art Nouveau building from 1903 (now the Eliseev Merchants' Store) with a café by the display counters, a restaurant on the 2nd floor and “Warehouse No. 5” in the former wine cellar. What to order: cakes from their own pastry shop, tea, shchi in a bread loaf, chocolate as a gift.