St. Petersburg

About St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg is a city on the Pinellas Peninsula on Florida's Gulf Coast, wrapped by Tampa Bay on the east and close to the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico on the west. It was founded in 1888 when the Orange Belt Railway arrived; its builder, Russian-born Peter Demens, named the town after his hometown of Saint Petersburg. Mild winters and a famous run of sunny days earned it the nickname the Sunshine City, and by the 1920s it had become a popular winter retreat with grand hotels such as the pink Vinoy on the waterfront.

Today St. Petersburg is a city of around 260,000 people with one of the most attractive downtowns in Florida. A chain of public parks lines the bayfront, sailboats fill the marinas, and the rebuilt St. Pete Pier stretches into the bay with restaurants, a beach, play areas and wide views. Central Avenue and the surrounding districts are covered with colorful murals and packed with galleries, craft breweries and independent restaurants.

Art is the city's calling card. The Dalí Museum holds one of the world's largest collections of Salvador Dalí's work in a striking glass-domed building, and the Museum of Fine Arts, the Chihuly Collection and the Mahaffey Theater are all within a short walk. Beyond downtown, Sunken Gardens offers a century-old tropical garden, Fort De Soto Park to the south has some of the best beaches in the country, and the soaring Sunshine Skyway Bridge carries travelers across the mouth of Tampa Bay.