MOSCOW - VLADIMIR - SUZDAL – KOSTROMA – YAROSLAVL – ST. PETERSBURG
DAY 1 : MOSCOW
On arrival, meeting with our local guide and transfer to the hotel. Dinner in the hotel
DAY 2 : MOSCOW
08:30 Breakfast
09:30 Departure by coach for the sightseeing tour – “Moscow throughout centuries”.
The tour will start with Tverskaya (until recently Gorky Street), the former mail road, “the High Street of Moscow”. A short stop at the Novodevichy Nunnery for
a view of the exterior. It is a wonderful architectural ensemble of the 16-17th centuries surrounded with indented walls and towers. Lomonossov University wherefrom you can enjoy a splendid view of the whole of the city. Tour of the historic center of Moscow: the Zaryadye district, the former district of nobility, with the Palace of the boyars Romanoff, St. Trinity church in Nikitniki regarded as one of the masterpieces of Moscow architecture of the 17th century. The Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral (exterior) with its bulb-like domes, chiseled and playing with multi-coloured facets. It was built under Ivan the Terrible to commemorate his conquest of Kazan. Excursion to the Kremlin: It towers forty meters high on the left bank of the Moskva River; its red brick wall 2235 meters long is intercepted with 5 gates and marked with 19 towers. It covers the total surface of 28 hectares. The real historical cradle of the city, the Kremlin is a city within a city with its palaces, churches and administrative buildings.
13:30 Lunch at leisure
15:00 Excursion to the metro, an “underground palace” where all stations are spotlessly clean - some of them are just splendid. A walking tour of the Arbat district, “the Moscow Montmartre” with its painters, portrait-makers and real artists. Return to the hotel by metro.
Dinner in the hotel
Overnight in MOSCOW
DAY 3: MOSCOW / VLADIMIR
08:30 Breakfast
09 : 30 Departure for Vladimir (180 km)
12: 30 Arrival to Vladimir and check-in.
Vladimir was founded in 1108 by the Grand Prince Vladimir Monomaque who gave the city his own name.
Sightseeing tour. Excursion to the Assumption Cathedral (interior). Built in 1158 - 1189, this church remained the main holy place of Russia until the 14th century.
St. Dimitry cathedral (exterior), built in 1194 - 1197 of white stone, crowned with a gilded cupola and decorated with bath-relieves of exquisite beauty, was formerly part of the ensemble of the Prince’s palace.
13:30 Lunch in Vladimir
15:30 Continuation of the tour of Vladimir
19:00 Dinner in the hotel
Overnight in VLADIMIR
DAY 4: VLADIMIR – SUZDAL - KOSTROMA
08:30 Breakfast
09 :30 Departure for Suzdal (30 km)
Suzdal, governed by the prince Yury Dolgoruky, the founder of Moscow, was the capital of Rostov - Suzdal principality. As early as 1096, it was already mentioned in the chronicles as a “town”.
10:00 Sightseeing tour and excursion to the Spaso-Efimovsky monastery which is 600 years old; its magnificent stone wall, more than a kilometer long and decorated with twenty towers has been protecting the town for 3 centuries.
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Departure for Kostroma (170 km). A “technical” stop (15 min) in Ivanovo (90 km from Kostroma)
19:00 Arrival to Kostroma, check-in at the “Volga” hotel and dinner
Overnight in KOSTROMA
DAY 5: KOSTROMA
09:00 Breakfast
10:00 Sightseeing tour of Kostroma :
The origin of the name of the town founded in the 12th century by the prince Yury Dolgoruky is the “kostroma”, a wooden or straw doll that formerly used to be thrown into the waters of the Volga to celebrate the end of winter.
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Excursion to St. Hypatius monastery founded in 1330.
The legend has it that the monastery was founded by an ancestor of Boris Godunov. The monastery flourished in the 16th - 17th centuries with the construction of St. Trinity Cathedral (1652) whose walls are 11 meters high. The Green Tower was erected on the spot where the procession accompanying Michael Romanoff greeted the future tsar the last time before the coronation. Excursion to the Museum of Wooden architecture. A walk among the merchants’ galleries in the city center.
20:00 Dinner
Overnight in KOSTROMA.
DAY 6: KOSTROMA / YAROSLAVL / MOSCOW
08:00 Breakfast
09:00 Departure for Yaroslavl (75 km from Kostroma)
10:30 Arrival to Yaroslavl and departure for the sightseeing tour of Yaroslavl.
In 1010, the Prince of Rostov, Yaroslav the Wise founded a city that he named “after himself” .In this way the prince took over the whole of the waterway connecting Rostov with the Volga via the Nero lake and up the Kotorosl river taking there its source. Excursion to the Savior monastery (16th – 17th centuries).
13:30 Lunch in Yaroslavl
14:30 Departure for Moscow (262 km)
20:00 Arrival to Moscow and time at leisure
22:30 Transfer to the railway terminal
23:50 Departure by an overnight train (2nd class – 4-berth compartments) for St. Petersburg
OVERNIGHT ON THE TRAIN
DAY 7: ST.PETERSBURG
08:30 Arrival to St. Petersburg. Breakfast on the train.
Departure for the sightseeing tour, “the epoch of Peter the Great”, during which we will visit the three isles in the Neva River delta wherefrom the city started its existence…
The Vasilevsky island.
The Hares’ island. Excursion to the Peter and Paul Fortress founded in 1703 on the spot chosen by Peter the Great. The date of its foundation – 16 (27) May is considered the birthday of the city. The City Isle is often called the Petrograd side, as it is here that the first colonies of craftsmen and merchants appeared in the beginning of the 18th century. It is in this district that the house of Peter the Great is located, built during 3 days, next to the construction site of the Peter and Paul Fortress, for Peter the Great who personally supervised the works. At present, it is inside a brick pavilion protecting it.
13:00 Transfer to the hotel. Afternoon at leisure
Dinner and overnight in the hotel.
DAY 8: ST. PETERSBURG
08:30 Breakfast
10:00 Morning devoted to the excursion to the Hermitage museum.
The Hermitage museum is doubtlessly one of the most beautiful museums of Europe due to the splendor of its buildings as well as to its rich collections. Its complete visit would require a month’s stay, but its collection of Rembrandt, Matisse, Rubens and Picasso is enough to fill half a day’s tour.
Excursion to the gala rooms of the Winter Palace, the gallery of Italian paintings (Leonardo da Vinci, Rafael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio), the gallery of Spanish paintings (Murillo, Velasquez, Zurbaran etc), the gallery of the French art from the 13th to the 18th centuries (Limoges enamels, paintings by Simon Voue, Eustache Lesueur, Nicolas Poussin etc).
Dinner and overnight in the hotel.
DAY 9: ST. PETERSBURG – AIRPORT
Breakfast. Transfer to the airport and departure
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