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St Petersburg - what to see??


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We are booking a two day private tour in St Petersburg and I would like to hear opinions on the absolute essentials to see in St Petersburg?

 

Our tour seems to include all the major sights, except for the following:

Ysupov's Palace

Monplaisire Palace

St Peter & Paul Fortress

 

Are we missing out if we don't see these three?

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I haven't yet been on my tour - we leave for our cruise in a week! :D ...But I just wanted to mention that if you're booking a private tour, you should be able to adjust the itinerary to fit whatever you want to see. (Unless you're on Denrus' Value Tour, in which case you are stuck with their itinerary.)

 

Yusupov Palace is not one of the "top" sights, but we've included it in our itinerary because of the fascination of the place - it's where Rasputin was murdered, and evidently they have a whole re-enactment thing in the basement where it happened - plus it was a home of one of the wealthiest Russian families, so it shows how the top tier of pre-revolutionary Russian aristocrats lived. Peter & Paul Fortress, I should think SHOULD be on any itinerary, as it was the first building in St. Petersburg.

 

As for Monplaisir Palace, that's at Peterhof, and I believe if you are visiting Peterhof (which I'm sure you are, for a two day tour) that will be included in your visit. But don't take my word for it - check with your tour op. :)

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We drove by Yusupov, bit didn't go in. Not having seen it I cannot really judge, but i reckon that the Tsar had the best palace in town so we only when to the hermitage (Winter Place) and the Summer Palace. I believe that the Summer Palace.

 

Monplaisir Palace, Peterhof, and Tsarkoye Selo ALL refer to pretty much the same (big) place. We went there and recommend it. No sense going to St Petersburg and not seeing the Tsars' palaces. Monplaisir itself is pretty small. We walked past it, looked in the windows, but did not go in.

 

Peter and Paul fortress has a nice church, which is about all we saw. I don't know what else is in the fortress. In our 2-day tour we would not have had time to see much more anyway.

 

I assume you're seeing the cathedrals. We also asked to see a 'real', practicing church. We arrived on a Sunday so got to see (as snesitively as we could), real Russians at a real service. We recommend this.

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I haven't yet been on my tour - we leave for our cruise in a week! :D ...But I just wanted to mention that if you're booking a private tour, you should be able to adjust the itinerary to fit whatever you want to see. (Unless you're on Denrus' Value Tour, in which case you are stuck with their itinerary.)

 

Yusupov Palace is not one of the "top" sights, but we've included it in our itinerary because of the fascination of the place - it's where Rasputin was murdered, and evidently they have a whole re-enactment thing in the basement where it happened - plus it was a home of one of the wealthiest Russian families, so it shows how the top tier of pre-revolutionary Russian aristocrats lived.:)

 

There are sooooo many sights in St. Petersburg. You have to pick and choose. You can't do them all.

 

I insisted on Yusopov Palace being on our tour because of the Rasputin association. (Check out our review and pics at http://www.elite.net/~thehalls/baltic.html for a picture of the life size diorama in the dungeon.) However, the others in our party turned out to be charmed by it also. It is on a more believable scale than the grand palaces, more like a great English manor house. It is well worth seeing, but so are all the other things on your list. You just have to decide which are most interesting for you.

 

HAVE A GREAT CRUISE!

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Merced Mike - just wanted to thank you for your awesome reviews and pics, which I read quite a while ago when I was first planning this cruise. Your experiences helped me to come up with my own port plans and itineraries. :)

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It is confusing. Each venue requires a separate camera pass.

When we paid the camera fee (that is our guide did) the only place in the major attractions we were not allowed to photograph was the Amber Room in Catherine's Palace (but if you stand just outside and take a picture "of the door" you can get a pretty good idea) ;o)

 

Interestingly we were told the subway is a "military asset" and photographs were not allowed. We did not see anybody enforcing it, but we didn't try.

 

Check out our report and our photos at

http://www.elite.net/~thehalls/baltic.html

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