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Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

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      Palace Bridge, the Spit and the Sphinxes

      ⏱ 1 h🚶 2.1 km🍽 0📍 3 stops
      🐢 A little — under 3 km

      Across Palace Bridge to Vasilyevsky Island, the Rostral Columns on the Spit and a finish at the Egyptian sphinxes. Nothing but the Neva and wide views.

      🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature⏱ An hour or so
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🌅 Palace Bridge
        Raised during the navigation season (April–November) at about 1:10
        To Vasilyevsky
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Palace Bridge
        © Vyacheslav Bukharov · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Palace Bridge
        © Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Palace Bridge
        © Safa.daneshvar · CC BY 4.0
        • The permanent bridge opened on 23 December 1916 unfinished, with “temporary” wooden railings.
        • The cast-iron railings replaced the wooden ones only in 1939.
        • The design by engineer Andrzej Pshenitsky of the Kolomna Works Society was chosen for construction.
        • Before opening, the bridge was tested by driving 34 loaded trucks onto all its spans at once.
        • From 1918 to 1944 the bridge was called the Republican Bridge.
        • The earlier floating Palace Bridge, moved to Senate Square, burned down in 1916 from a spark from a passing tug.
        • The tram tracks were removed from the bridge in 1997.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🌅 Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island (the Spit)
        The Rostral Columns and a view of the Neva
        The Rostral Columns
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island (the Spit)
        © A.Savin · FAL 1.3
        Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island (the Spit)
        © Kora27 · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • Until 1885 Petersburg's seaport worked on the Spit, then it was moved to Gutuevsky Island.
        • The 32-metre Rostral Columns were put up by Thomas de Thomon in 1805–1810; until 1885 they served as lighthouses.
        • The columns' name comes from the Latin rostrum, “ship's prow”: they are decorated with metal ship prows and anchors.
        • The version that the figures at the base of the columns are the Volkhov, Neva, Dnieper and Volga is recent and not confirmed by documents.
        • The Exchange building, shaped like an ancient temple, opened in 1816; since 2013 it has been handed over to the Hermitage.
        • From 1937 to 1989 the square on the Spit was called Pushkin Square.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🏛 Sphinxes by the Academy of Arts
        Университетская наб., 17
        A pair of granite Egyptian sphinxes on the steps down to the Neva by the Academy of Arts.
        Finish at the sphinxes
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Sphinxes by the Academy of Arts
        © Alex Fedorov (Florstein) · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Sphinxes by the Academy of Arts
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The sphinxes were made under the pharaoh Amenhotep III for his mortuary temple in Thebes; in 1825 they were found by the antiquities hunter Giovanni d'Athanasi.
        • Each sphinx, of pink Aswan granite, weighs 23 tonnes and is 5.24 m long.
        • Buying them was proposed by the traveller Andrey Muravyov, who had seen a sphinx in Alexandria in 1830.
        • The sphinxes had already been sold to France, but the July Revolution wrecked the deal — and Russia bought them for 64,000 rubles.
        • While being loaded onto the ship ‘Buena Esperanza’, one sphinx fell and damaged the headcloth.
        • The sphinxes arrived in May 1832, but for two years stood in the courtyard of the Academy of Arts while Konstantin Thon finished the landing stage.

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      Data: © OpenStreetMap · DB-IP · weather — Open-Meteo
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