Our guide and driver were excellent
Our guide and driver were excellent. Whatever we said we were interested in seeing they worked into our tour. For example, we wanted to buy a Russian-made gymnastics outfit for our grand daughter. Our guide took us to a store that specialized in these outfits Other examples were: going back to St. Isaacs and finding an angle to take photographs with telephone wires in the way; visiting the main synagogue; riding the subway and seeing the most ornate stations; replacing a palace with a visit to the Central Naval Museum and finding a curator fluent in english.. We loved skipping lines and walking straight into museums and palaces. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and our driver managed to drop us off and pick us up a few feet from entrances in spite of hordes of busses and ferocious traffic. The included hotel had a great location and lots of history. A private week-long tour is the best way to see St. Petersburg. It makes the two-night and parts of three days visits from a cruise ship look silly.