Nearest metro: Sadovaya, Sennaya ploshad, Spasskaya
The Asteria Hotel has a fine central location on the embankment of the Fontanka River, within comfortable walking distance of Nevsky Prospekt and with excellent public transport links.The nearest metro station is the three-station interchange on Sennaya Ploshchad (Sennaya Ploshchad, Sadovaya, and Spasskaya Stations - on the blue, orange, and purple lines respectively) under ten minutes' walk from the hotel.
Moskovsky Station is around 2km from the Asteria, and can be reached by taxi in under 20 minutes. Vitebsky Station, with services to Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic States, as well as suburban trains to the Imperial estates at Pushkin and Pavlovsk, is even closer and can easily be reached by car in 10 minutes.
Pulkovo-2 International Airport is around 16km to the south of the Asteria Hotel, and the drive will take 30-50 minutes in normal traffic conditions. Pulkovo-1, the domestic terminal, is a further 2km out of the city. Public transport to the airports is also fairly convenient, with marshrutka minibus services (K-32) running direct to/from Sennaya Ploshchad.
Guests who are ordering or catching taxis to the hotel should be aware of possible confusion between the Asteria and the considerably more famous Astoria Hotel.
Local Sightseeing
The Asteria Hotel is well placed for sightseeing and it is possible to walk to nearly all of St. Petersburg's major visitor attractions, including the Hermitage (25 mins), St. Isaac's Cathedral (20 mins), and the Mariinsky Theatre (25 mins). However, the immediate neighborhood of the hotel, although very picturesque, does not have many sights of particular interest to foreign visitors.The stretch of the Fontanka River between the Asteria Hotel and Nevsky Prospekt makes for a particularly appealing walk, with architectural highlights including the Bolshoy Drama Theatre (Tovstonogov Theatre), which rivals the Alexandrinsky as St. Petersburg's premiere dramatic theatre and occupies a beautiful late neoclassical building dating from 1878 and originally built to house the Maly Imperial Theatre. The theatre is only 100m from the Asteria Hotel.
Another 100m walk will bring guests to Ploshchad Lomonosova and the impressive crescent built by Carlo Rossi. Rossi's ensemble continues up Ulitsa Zodchego Rossi, famous for its perfectly symmetrical proportions, to the magnificent Alexandrinsky Theatre, completed by Rossi in 1832. The theatre is undoubtedly the best place in St. Petersburg (and, arguably, in Russia) to see classic Russian drama. Also part of the theatre is the Russian Drama Museum, displaying props and costumes from the theatre's distinguished history.
Running across the Fontanka River next to Ploshchad Lomonosova is the Lomonosov Bridge, one of the two remaining bridges across the Fontanka to have been presereved almost completely intact since the 1780s. Originally a bascule bridge, its slender towers give it a particularly elegant silhouette.
