Suggested One Day Itinerary for St. Petersburg

Hi All,

We will be in St. Petersburg for one day on a private excursion through HAL. We will need to give them some ideas as to what we would like to do or see. We are a multi generational family of 7 who are traveling together with ages from 14 to 77. :)

We'd like to see The Church of the Spilled Blood, some of the Hermitage, see a local supermarket or market, do some shopping.

I would love your ideas and thoughts.

Thanks!

Kim

Catherine Palace was one of our brilliant moments ! You should see it!

You can check.the website of private tour operators like, SPB Tours or Alla or TJ , and check the sites included in their tours. You may have an idea from their description.

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For the kids I would try this:

Be aware that in one day you won't see much with traffic and things spread out. We did a two day tour with TJ for just the six of us and we had very specific things we wanted to see and things we didn't have time for. Artillery Museum was one the guide hadn't been to. Hardest part was what to skip.

sightcrr

We just returned from a Baltic cruise with HAL and used Alla Tours for both days we were in St. Petersburg. It was wonderful and there is just so much to see that even 2 days felt too short. If you are committed to only one day of touring, the highlights, in my opinion, that are simply "a must" would be:

1. Hermitage [hopefully you can get early entry and see this first thing as it makes a big difference in both enjoyment and time].

2. Church on Spilled Blood [it's simply stunning inside and out]

3. Peterhof [the fountains are amazing and the whole atmosphere of the grounds is beautiful].

**Narrowing down to these three main sights should give you enough time to have a nice lunch, do some shopping, and perhaps even squeeze in a canal cruise [which is worth it for the relaxing view of the city from the water].

**Others would add that Catherine's Palace is a "must" as well but I feel it makes for too exhausting of a day if you already are going to the Hermitage/Winter Palace in the morning. Our tour guide had to rearrange the order of our tour and we ended up doing both palaces on the same day. We did the Hermitage first [with early entry] and had an amazing experience. Catherine's Palace was in the afternoon and was terribly crowded with lots of waiting in line after line; it was palace overload and everyone was exhausted due to the crowds and lines at Catherine's.