"Welcome to the White Nights"

It is so hard to sleep when it is still light at midnight.

St Petersburg is unlike any city I have ever visited. It is a very charming city, cut through by canals lined with stately stucco-clad buildings. And dotted through the city are countless breath-taking buildings and monuments, such as the Winter Palace, St Isaac's Cathedral and the headquarters of the Singer sewing machine company. It is a much less brash city than Moscow, but all the more impressive.

We travelled up from Moscow by overnight train. This promised to be an interesting journey, with several hours of daylight in which to watch the Russian countryside passing by. Instead it was a trial of patience waiting for the boy to stop bouncing off the walls and go to sleep.

We're staying in a little apartment in the very heart of St Petersburg. It is on the 5-½ floor of a 6-½-floor apartment building. When we were let into the building by the apartment owner, it didn't look promising. The entrance was into a dirty, run-down stairwell, like we had stepped into some derelict factory space. However, the apartment itself is just great. It is owned by a slightly Bohemian couple – a doctor and a photographer, Sasha and Andrei, who are in fact now in Paris working on a fashion shoot. They have filled the apartment with all sorts of eclectic stuff – old bottles on every spare surface, seltzer bottles, a samovar, antique scales, musical scores papering the bathroom, a pair of antlers – making it a really homely place to stay. (Though perhaps not up to embassy staff standards, Row.) It think they live there themselves when they have no guests, though they have another apartment and sleep in the studio when both apartments are full. Before they left, Andrei marked his favourite places in town on a map for us, including the best jazz bar and a bar where every night is New Year's Eve. Very cool, but not that practical for people who are in for the night from about 6. We're currently sharing the apartment with a Finnish business woman (who reckons Bucky looks like a Finnish boy) and – due to a double booking – a student from Norway (who says Bucky looks Norwegian).

There is so much to do in St Petersburg that it overwhelms me. We've taken a cruise on the canals and walked about half the floor area of the Hermitage (while Bucky obligingly slept in his stroller). We might not do any more pure tourist activities however, as it takes time away from exploring the city. St Petersburg, which seems to be actively cultural at all times, is particularly buzzing at the moment, celebrating the White Nights. There are all sorts of exhibitions and shows on in the city and we hope to be able to catch some of the excitement.