Oh to be in St Petersburg for the White Nights of the summer solstice. With a latitude of nearly 60 degrees, Russia's second city celebrates its White Nights in the last 10 days of June when the Sun sets for only a few hours.Even at the end of May, when Frank McDonald was lucky enough to be there for the city's 300th birthday bash, it was still relatively bright as late as midnight.
Conversely, of course, it is gloomy in winter. And bitterly cold, too. There's a price to be paid for everything. I always thought that Finland's high suicide rate was due to Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD), induced by the dark days of mid-winter. After all, Helsinki is at the same latitude as St Petersburg and it's about as far south as you can go without falling into the Baltic.
Think of what it must be like way up in You'll or beyond the Arctic Circle, where the sun barely shines at all when the snow is thick on the ground. It's no wonder, then, that the Finns - like the Russians - dance in the streets to celebrate their White Nights and drink lots of vodka, too, while they're at it. Many take their summer holidays to coincide with the festival.
But let's forget about the Finns and return to St Petersburg, where there's so much to see in the city and its hinterland that you could easily while away two weeks and still not get bored. Even a full day would not do justice to the Hermitage. The biggest museum in the world, its collection extends to three million items and attracts 20,000 visitors per day.
Russian Ark, Aleksandr Sokurov's extraordinary film at the Irish Film Centre in Dublin, shows the Hermitage and Winter Palace in all their gilded grandeur. And it's not just that stunning sequence of magnificent rooms, but also the awe-inspiring art on the walls, mostly from western Europe, and the evocative vignettes of Russia in the time of the Tsars.
Apart from touring museums, churches and monuments, pleasant diversions in St Petersburg include boat trips on its famous canals, or up and down the River Neva, past such landmarks as the Finland Station, where Lenin arrived in 1917. Numerous other excursions are also on offer, such as a hydrofoil to Peter the Great's palace - Petrodvorets.
Located on the Gulf of Finland, 30 kilometres west of St Petersburg, this overblown palace was modelled on Versailles, though Peter I preferred to live in a smaller house nearby. The palace was greatly enlarged by Bartolomeo Rastrelli for his daughter, Empress Elizabeth, and its spectacular setting includes a grand water cascade and a vast geometrically-arranged park.
More beautiful is the Summer Palace in Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoye Selo), 30 kilometres south of St Petersburg. Looted by the Nazis during the long siege of Leningrad, its restoration is a testament to the skills of a whole generation of Russian craftsmanship. Unmissable is the Amber Room, now fully restored with financial aid from a conscience-stricken Germany.
Getting around is quite easy too. St Petersburg has a metro, of course, and the flat fare of seven roubles equates to just 20 cent. The first line, opened in 1955, has a string of stations in opulent Stalinist style, just like the Moscow metro, at a depth of 60 metres (nearly 200 feet). But beware - there isn't a single Latin letter anywhere; all of the signage is in Cyrillic script.
Like everywhere in the former Communist countries of central and eastern Europe, taxi drivers in St Petersburg are shameless about over-charging. One way round this problem is simply to hail a private car on the street. Usually, drivers will stop and take you wherever you want to go - within reason, of course - for 100 or 200 roubles (€3 to €6). A bargain.
The city now has a sizeable number of hotels in every category and it's also possible, via the Internet, to rent an apartment or stay with a Russian family. My "studio apartment" for €67 per night turned out to be a single room with an en suite bathroom, admittedly with hot water, in an otherwise derelict building at the back of a dank courtyard off Nevsky Prospekt.
Food is quite varied and mostly very good, even from little kiosks selling crepes at tourist sites. We had memorable meals in Khalif, an Uzbek restaurant near the Hermitage and in Matrosskaya Tishina, with its bizarre boat-like interior. Black caviar is available everywhere, though one may feel guilty about eating it given that the sturgeon is now so endangered.
One of St Petersburg's finest restaurants is Dvorianskoye Gnezdo in the Yusupov Palace where Rasputin was assassinated in 1916.
The evil genius, who had the ear of the Tsarina, was sequentially poisoned, shot, beaten and finally drowned in the frozen river outside. You can also visit the cellar where he had his last meal, with Prince Yusupov as his murderous "host".
Alcohol is relatively cheap, and we quickly got used to drinking straight shots of ice-cold Ruski Standart STET vodka for just €2, or Georgian dry white wine for €10 per bottle.
A return flight from Dublin via Amsterdam costs €480 (including taxes). Guided tours are also available through Harry Cahill Travel, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin 2 (telephone 01-670 5123).