Day 1
Friday | Arrival in St. Petersburg. Transfer from the airport to the hotel, accommodation. Breakfast. Panoramic city tour - all major city highlights in the course of three hours tour including Peter & Paul Fortress - the first building of the city, a gorgeous monument of architecture. Free time. |
Day 2
Saturday | Breakfast. Excursion to Hermitage Museum - one of the major museums in the world. Its collection consists of nearly three million art treasures. Exhibits are displayed in the world famous Winter palace as well as the Small, Old and New Hermitages. Pushkin (Tsarskoye Selo - Catherine Palace). Tsarskoye Selo, or the Tsar`s village, about 25 kilometres from St. Petersburg, was the home of the imperial family from the days of Peter the Great until the time of the last tsar, Nicolas II. It is a fascinating monument of world architectural and gardening art during the 18th and 19th centuries. Tsarskoy Selo is quite different from Peterhof. Here, there are no massed fountains and no vistas over the sea. Here, you are much inland, in a beautiful English-style park, unrestrained by the geometrical formality of the "Russian Versailles." The centre of the ensemble is the Catherine Palace, containing exquisite objects d`art, furniture, paintings and unique collections of porcelain, amber and bronze. The Tsarskoselsky Liceum, an elite school established in Russia in the early 19th century for noble offsprings and which the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin attended, is next to the palace. |
Day 3
Sunday | Breakfast. Tour to Petrodvorets (Petergoph) - official summer residence of the Russian Emperors in the past. It is one of the most known palatial complexes in the environs of St. Petersburg. In good weather it is well worth spending here minimum 4-5 hours, enjoying the various palaces, the parks and the sea view. The history of Petrodvorets begins in 1704 when Peter I built a wooden house on the Gulf while overseeing the construction of the nearby Kronstadt Fortress. In 1713 he began transforming the area into an imperial residence. Petrodvorets includes several other mini-museums of interest which are also worth seeing due to it’s architectural and historic importance. Airport transfer. Departure from St. Petersburg. |