DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: St Petersburg

Eyewitness Travel Guides once again lives up to its motto: "The guides that show you what others only tell you." While other guides are long on talk about St. Petersburg, this guide adds hundreds of photos, detailed illustrations, diagrams, maps, and time-lines to bring the city and its surrounding areas to life. Paging through it is like vacationing in St. Petersburg without the cost of going there. Fortunately, the book also includes what you need to know and how to manage when you are there.

In the past year I have used Eyewitness Guides for trips to Thailand, China, and St. Petersburg, and I have not been disappointed. They are extremely well-made and durable. If your vacation time is limited and you must narrow your choice from among many attractions, then this is an important guide for you to use in your planning. Each guide is loaded with full-color photographs of the most important attractions at each site, thereby permitting you to make an intelligent decision whether or not you want to add it to your itinerary. And, after the trip is over, the Eyewitness Guide serves as well as most coffee table books in assisting you to recall your trip to others and revive important memories. Because of its superb construction, it is not light to carry, but it won't fall apart with use. If you are not interested in a guide book full of tips about where to find gay bars and cheap hotels for backpackers, but rather want a quality book with serious sightseeing in mind, the Eyewitness Guide is the one to choose.

This Eyewitness travel guide is everything a person needs to not only to survive, but to have fun and see a lot of the St. Petersburg fantastic sights. The city is divided into 5 main areas and there is detailed information about all of them in later chapters. The book has numerous photos and the map of the city is great. The books also has information about beautiful palaces scattered around SPB and how to get there. A couple things that I think were missing. First most museums are closed on the last Tuesday of the month for maintenance (I came from SPB last week). The museums also charge more from foreigners (virtually everywhere entrance tickets cost 100 roubles for a Russian (or Russian-speaking) person and 300-350 roubles from everyone else). So learning a few words of Russian is advisable. This book was very useful while exploring the city and is definetely worth buying.

Just returned from nine days in St. Petersburg. Utilized three guide books while there. This book was by the far the most useful. Given the significant language barrier, the maps and pictures were a tremendous help. The cross-referencing very worthwhile. I have not utilized this publisher for guide books in the past, but certainly will again. Highly recommended!

I studied at Novgorod State University, somewhat outside St. Petersburg, last summer and needed a really good guide to the city to map out where to go during my limited off-time (hmm... that would be what a travel guide is generally used for, eh?) I did a LOT of browsing in stores and was really enchanted with Eyewitness. Their guides are usually the best ones, but I especially enjoyed this one. Reading it before I left really excited and prepared me for what to expect, and is still interesting to look through.One of the best features, in my opinion, is a "what to buy in St. Petersburg" section, which includes pictures and ideas of neat Russian stuff to buy and give as gifts (or keep for yourself). This was helpful to think of things ahead of time to give to people, or even let them choose themselves. Also a great feature is the section on Russian food, which includes pictures, so you know what the stuff actually looks like. There's naturally a detailed guide to the city and sections devoted to museums and shopping. It's very simple to navigate through, if you're looking for specific references, e.g. bookshops or anything pertaining to Tchaikovsky. There's notes on historical spots and significances, as well as a detailed street and metro map, accomodations and dining guides (with prices and directions), information and tips on traveling to other spots in Russia, day trip ideas, basic safety info (pictures of Russian police officers and cars, codes to street signs, etc), Russians terms and pronunciations, as well as any other pertinent information and "Stuff you'd never think of but really need to know" about travelling in a foreign country. This guide probably costs a little more than most (I actually bought mine for full price in the store, I liked it so much) but it is TOTALLY worth it. This is the perfect companion to plan a dynamite trip in St. Petersburg.