Day 1
– Arrival in St. Petersburg
– Transfer to a hotel
– Traditional Russian welcome ceremony with Bread and Salt
– Check in to hotel in downtown St. Petersburg
– Free time

Day 2
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Departure for a city tour by coach (the tour includes visits to Petropavlovsky Fortress (burial place of Nicolas II remains and his family), and Isaak Cathedral)
– Lunch at the “Chekhov” restaurant
– Visit the Museum of Pushkin (the last apartment where Pushkin lived and where he died after losing in a duel)
– Free time (optional – visit to the ballet)

Day 3
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Departure for the tour or Usupov Palace (vast art collection;domestic theatre, but also the location of Rasputin’s murder)
– Boat trip tour with lunch
– Trip to the Museum of the Siege of Leningrad (a must to everybody interested in modern history!)
– Return to the hotel with an optional stop at Nabokov’s Museum
– Free time

Day 4
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Short walk to the State Hermitage Museum (tour inside the museum includes the famous Scythian Gold collection)
– Short walk back to the hotel
– Free time to explore St. Petersburg on your own

Day 5
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Departure to the town of Pushkin, – a summer residence of Russian tsars, founded by Catherine the Great
– Visiting Catherine the Great Palace and the Park
– Lunch at the famous restaurant Podvorie
– Tour of the Russian Museum (The second largest art collection of Russian art in the country; from icons to Russian expressionists to avant-garde like Malevich and Kandinsky)
– Short walk back to the hotel
– Free time

Day 6
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Short walk to the pier
– Hydrofoil to Peterhof, the summer residence of Peter the Great
– Visit Grand Palace and Low Park
– Return by hydrofoil
– Short walk to the hotel.
– Free time

 

Day 7
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Transfer to Pskov, a 1000 year-old Russian city
– Stop over at Rozhdestveno Memorial Estate (the country nest of Nabokov’s family)
– Lunch at a Restaurant-Museum The Station Master (called after Pushkin’s short story)
– Arrival in Pskov
– Check-in to the hotel
– Dinner

Day 8
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Time in Pskov
– Transfer by coach to Pskov’s – Pechery Monastery (founded in 14th century)
– Lunch
– Overnight train to Moscow (double occupancy only!)
– Dinner

Day 9
– 06:30 arrival in Moscow
– Breakfast
– Tour of the city including the Cathedral of Our Saviour
– Visit of Tolstoy museum (the home Tolstoy and his family occupied from 1881, when not at their Yasnaya Polyana country estate)
– Transfer to the hotel, free time

Day 10
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Trip to Kremlin (including Armoury and the Diamond Collection)
– Free time

Day 11
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Departure for Tratyakov Gallery (two additional exhibits: The foundations of Graphic Art: silk, paper, wood and glass. And: Vasnetzov, drafts for the frescoes on Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev 1885-1896 – (exhibits can change and have to be confirmed)
– Tour of Subway and Old Arbat (pedestrian historical street)
– Back to the Hotel

Day 12
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Melikhovo (Chekhov estate near Moscow)
– Lunch
– Back to the hotel, free time

Day 13
– Breakfast at the hotel
– Museum of Fine Arts (Pushkin Museum)
– Gala dinner at Cafe Pushkin Restaurant
– Back to the Hotel

Day 14
– Transfer to the airport