Russian czar Peter the Great imported Italian architects and French sculptors to build his 18th-century Enlightenment city. Today, his gilded churches, pale pink mansions, and the aquamarine Winter Palace are still reflected in the waters of the Neva River. Peter thought St. Isaac’s Square a bit lacking in style, so he had his friend Prince Lobanov-Rostansky build a grand yellow mansion with a white colonnade and marble lions out front. That structure is now the restored Four Seasons Hotel Lion Palace, and during the White Nights around the summer solstice, you can sit at the bar and sip vodka as clouds drift across an amethyst sunset sky. From the guest-room windows, the vibrancy of the city is in plain view—there are parties all night in bars on boisterous Rubinstein Street and on boats that cruise past New Holland Island, currently being redeveloped as a cultural center by oligarch Roman Abramovich.

  

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