St. Petersburg Highlights Day Tour Including Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk

Come and discover during this St. Petersburg Highlights Day Tour including Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk. Step back to the days of Russia’s 18th-century on a 4-hour tour of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Travel from St Petersburg by private vehicle on the same road as Catherine the Great did at her time. Visit the Palace interiors, including the Amber Room, spectacularly coated in amber and mirrors. You will also get to admire the gardens and garden pavilions.

Formerly known as Tsarskoe Selo, Pushkin is home to one Russia’s grandest royal estates — the Catherine Palace, built in the 1700s as a residence for Catherine I and once called the Palace of Tsarskoe Selo. Originally modest, the palace was remodeled by Catherine’s daughter, Empress Elizabeth, in the mid-1700s, who turned it into the extravagant baroque residence of today. On arrival, absorb the blue-and-white facade and take a guided tour inside. Marvel at the rococo state rooms and halls embellished with stucco, frescoes, marble and visit the showpiece —the extraordinary Amber Room. Covered in amber panels that replicate the originals looted by the Nazis in World War II and subsequently lost, this spectacular room is a vision of shimmering amber work, gold leaf and mirrors. The original room was dubbed the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’ and today’s replica was made using 13,000 pounds (6,000 kilograms) of amber.

After a traditional Russian lunch, continue your tour. Pavlovsk is little known to tourists but it deserves no less attention. Catherine, happy with the birth of his first grandchild (the future Emperor Alexander the 1st) gave this land to her son Paul and his wife. They have turned this country house and Park in a sample unsurpassed taste and harmony. Suffice it to say that the collection of ancient sculpture in Pavlovsk is considered second, after the Hermitag.