Karelia is a land of lakes, granite and forest, and most people spend a whole weekend getting there and back. This trip fits the highlights into one long day with your own car, driver and guide, so you can see the famous marble canyon at Ruskeala without overnight bags or a shared coach.
Expect an early start and a late return: you leave at 7 in the morning, cover about 500 kilometres in total and are back in the city around 11 at night. The guide talks along the way, so the hours on the road are part of the story rather than dead time.
Priozersk and the Korela Fortress, around 10:00. A Novgorod outpost on the Vuoksi River, with its first stone walls from 1364. It was Swedish Kexholm for a century until Peter I took it in 1710, and later it held political prisoners, including Pugachev’s family and Decembrists. You see the round gate tower and bastions from outside.
Sortavala, around 12:00. The main town of the northern Ladoga shore, which has changed both its name and its country three times. About ninety buildings remain from the Finnish era, many in the National Romantic style. This is the lunch stop.
The Ahinkoski waterfalls, around 13:00. Four low cascades on the Tohmajoki River, with an eco-trail and suspension bridges right over the water. The 1972 film The Dawns Here Are Quiet was shot here.
The Ruskeala Mountain Park, from about 14:00. The highlight of the day, with around three hours to explore. The flooded marble quarry is 460 metres long, up to 100 metres wide and more than 50 metres deep from the clifftop, with water clear to 15–18 metres. Marble from here faces St Isaac’s Cathedral and was used in Kazan Cathedral, the Hermitage and the Marble Palace.
A trout farm, around 18:00. A stop at the farm shop for fish, caviar and local souvenirs before the drive home.
Nature lovers and photographers, travellers with a week in St Petersburg who want to see something beyond the city, and anyone happy to trade a long day in the car for one of the most striking landscapes in north-west Russia.
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 1 | $851 |
| 2 | $439 |
| 3 | $302 |
| 4 | $233 |
| 5 | $192 |
| 6 | $164 |
| 7 | $145 |
| 8 | $130 |
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 9 | $118 |
| 10 | $109 |
| 11 | $102 |
| 12 | $95 |
| 13 | $90 |
| 14 | $86 |
| 15 | $82 |
| 16 | $78 |
| People | Free places | Price per person |
|---|---|---|
| 10–14 | +1 | $95 |
| 15–24 | +2 | $71 |
| 25–34 | +2 | $52 |
| 35–39 | +3 | $44 |
| 40+ | +4 | $41 |
Group rates apply from 10 people.
Skim across the Gulf of Finland by Meteor hydrofoil in forty minutes, then walk Peterhof's Lower Park with its 147 fountains. Boat and park tickets included.
A three-and-a-half-hour drive through the centre, ending on Hare Island where the city was founded in 1703, with entry to the Romanov burial cathedral.
A private two-hour walk through the Mikhailovsky Palace: a thousand years of Russian art, from medieval icons to The Ninth Wave and Repin's Barge Haulers.
Visit the Konstantinovsky Palace at Strelna, a working state residence that hosted the G8 and G20 summits, by car with a guide and entry arranged.