Tha Academy Garden A San Pietroburgo, Rusland

From Vasileostrovskaya metro station: On coming out of the metro station, turn immediately right onto the pedestrian boulevard (6th/7th lines*) and walk to the next intersection (corner of 5th/6th lines and Bolshoy prospekt), where the boulevard ends. Cross over the road and turn left up Bolshoy prospekt until the next intersection (corner of Bolshoy prospekt and 4th/5th lines). Turn right onto 4th/5th lines. Ours is the first residential building you come to on this street - number 10.

From the airport: First, change a little money at the airport. You'll need 30 or so rubles each for the minibus and 25 rubles each for the metro. Minibuses and buses leave from outside the arrivals building. Almost all services head for Moskovsky prospekt and the centre of town. The word for centre in Russian is 'tsentr'. The bus will take you down a three-lane highway (5 minutes' ride) and then round a large and gloomy square with a forbidding stele in the centre and into a built-up area. This is the beginning (or end) of Moskovsky prospekt, and at this point you should start looking for metro stations. There are three along the length of this avenue and any one of them will do. There's one almost immediately after the square, called Moskovskaya . The others are Park Pobedy . Once inside the metro station, buy some metal tokens at 25 rubles per token (if your baggage is bulky, you'll probably have to buy an extra token for that as well) and take the train to Gostiny dvor where you change and travel one stop along the Green Line to Vasileostrovskaya Then proceed to our house as in the directions above.