Two-day comfort tour of St. Petersburg

This introductory guided tour takes in the main landmarks of St. Petersburg's historic center, including the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Winter Palace, Nevsky Prospekt and St. Isaac's Cathedral. During the tour, your guide will provide an overview of St. Petersburg's three-century history, including its political, cultural and architectural development, as well as the life of the city and its residents today. This tour can be made longer or shorter depending on the time you wish to start.

The fastest and by far the most impressive way to travel to Peter the Great's summer residence at Peterhof is by hydrofoil across the Gulf of Finland. The service departs from the embankment in front of the Winter Palace and takes you directly to the Lower Park at Peterhof.

Founded by Peter the Great and embellished by his descendants, Peterhof swiftly became known as the "Russian Versailles", one of the world's most magnificent residential estates. This tour covers the more formal Upper Gardens and the extensive Lower Park, which includes several beautiful baroque palaces and pavilions, as well as the world-famous fountains.

After lunch at Peterhof, a bus takes the group to the town of Pushkin, famous for the Tsarskoye Selo palace and park.

The Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo is a grand rococo palace that, like the Winter Palace, was designed by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli for Empress Elizabeth. It was then expanded and adapted by Catherine the Great, who used it as her main summer residence. The highlight of the tour is the Amber Room, an extraordinarily ornate chamber originally gifted to Peter the Great by King Frederick William I of Prussia.

The journey back to the city center includes a brief tour of the Saint Petersburg Metro, the deepest underground railway in the world. One of the greatest urban developments of the Soviet era, it is famous for its beautiful marble-clad stations and dizzyingly long escalators. The group also makes a short visit to a local farmers' market.

The Hermitage is rated among the top five greatest museums in the world, and this tour can only scrape the surface of its vast collections of art and historical artifacts. Nonetheless, it gives visitors the chance to view the spectacularly ornate state rooms of the Winter Palace, as well as masterpieces of the collection of Western European art by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Poussin, to name but a few. You then cross Palace Square to the General Staff Building to see what many consider the true highlights of the Hermitage's art collections, the works of the impressionists and post-impressionists, including Matisse, Monet, Gaugin and Picasso.

St. Isaac's Cathedral is St. Petersburg's largest and grandest church, and was the life's work of the French-born architect Auguste de Montferrand. Its monumental red granite neoclassical exteriors are matched by the rich decor inside, designed by the most prominent Russian artists and craftsmen of the day and executed using gemstones and minerals brought from every part of the Russian Empire.

The final stop of the tour is the Church of the Resurrection of Christ (popularly known as the "Saviour on the Spilled Blood"). Built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by anarchist terrorists, its riotously colorful Russian Revival architecture, reminiscent of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, make it one of the most popular and instantly recognizable landmarks in St. Petersburg.

An hour is left at the end of the tour that can be used to go shopping or explore any other parts of St. Petersburg that the group would like to see, as agreed with the guide.