5-Hour St. Petersburg Hermitage State Museum Small-Group Guided Tour

Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product

Stop At: The State Hermitage Museum, Palace Square, 2, St. Petersburg 191055 Russia

Start your excursion with the unique Faberge Halls of the Hermitage. The Diamond Room has the biggest collection of the Russian Emperor's fine jewelry and the Gold Room is a spectacular collection of gold, silver, and royal jewels that belonged to the Russian tsars. It has the best and the biggest collection of Scynthian Gold in the world. The Romanovs (the Russian Emperor's dynasty) were the richest family in the world at the beginning of the 20th century, and their collections are really worth seeing.

The Gold Room houses a significant collection of archeological finds - the famous Ancient Greek gold, the best and the world's biggest collection of Scythian gold, oriental jewelry items from India, Iran and China, as well as superb examples of ceremonial oriental weapons. It consists of around 1,500 works in total, made from gold and dating from the 7th century B.C. to the 19th century A.D.

Access to the Diamond and Gold Rooms (also call Treasure Galleries) is usually by pre-arranged appointment only, with no exceptions, and a regular tour usually lasts for 30 minutes and you would have to be part of a large group. Due to extremely high demand usually you cannot visit both Galleries on the same day either, so this small group, 2.5 hour tour is really a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and not to be missed!

Your small-group tour of the Diamond and Gold Rooms will take place with curators, who actually curate the rooms themselves. All of the curators at the museum have a Ph.D. in art history and are real connoisseurs of art. They are also extremely enthusiastic about their collection. You will have 1 hour,15 minutes for each room to look at the unique jewelry masterpieces. The curators will share details with you that you won't find in the guidebooks.

You will also have a 1 hour and 20 minute guided tour of the other exhibitions at one of the best museums in the world: The State Hermitage Museum. The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, is the biggest museum in the World (together with the Louvre in Paris, they are in competition for the World's "No 1" in terms of exhibition space, number of items and collections etc). The buildings that the Hermitage occupies are brilliant examples of European architecture. Every visitor can feel the force of Russian history here. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items, including the largest collection of paintings in the world. 

Your tour also includes an all-day entrance ticket, so after the guided tour you can stay at this marvelous museum as long as you wish (closing time is 6pm; and on Wednesdays it is 9 pm). There is a cafe inside the museum, where you can take a break for lunch if you wish (own expense).

Duration: 5 hours