Tsarskoye Selo, 26 kilometres south of St Petersburg, was the official summer residence of three sovereigns: Catherine I, Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II. Each rebuilt the palace to suit herself, and it is now on the UNESCO World Heritage list. We travel there by car with a guide who stays with you all day: the palace and the park in a single trip, about four hours including the road.
In 1717 it was “sixteen chambers” in the Dutch taste, a gift from Peter I to his wife Catherine. In 1752 Elizabeth handed the palace to Rastrelli, and four years later the building you will see appeared: 325 metres of late baroque, blue facades with white columns and gilded mouldings. The gilding of the facade and the roofline statues alone consumed more than a hundred kilograms of gold. Catherine II called the whole thing “whipped cream” and spent her life remaking the palace to her own, more restrained taste.
Rastrelli drew the state rooms out into two parallel enfilades running the length of the building, and the scale builds towards the centre:
The Great Hall — nearly a thousand square metres of mirrors, gilded carving and windows in two tiers. Balls were held here by candlelight: Count Sheremetev remembered the ball of 1863 as a spectacle impossible to forget.
The Amber Room — a Prussian gift from Friedrich Wilhelm I to Peter I, removed by the Germans to Königsberg during the war and vanished without trace. It was recreated from scratch by St Petersburg craftsmen and opened for the city’s tercentenary in 2003.
The Lyons Hall — walls hung with Lyons silk and decoration in lapis lazuli. The hall was closed from 22 June 1941 and has only received visitors again since 2019.
The palace church of the Resurrection of Christ — an interior destroyed under occupation; its first restoration in a century and a half took four years and 350 craftsmen.
107 hectares divided by the Great Pond: the formal Old Garden of Peter’s time and the English landscape park of Catherine II’s. We walk it unhurriedly and find:
The Cameron Gallery with its hanging garden and ramp, where Catherine walked in the mornings and talked with her grandchildren.
The Admiralty — red-brick Gothic towers by the water, where no ship was ever built.
The Grotto — Rastrelli’s azure pavilion with mouldings on marine themes.
The Hermitage — an octagonal pavilion for summer receptions, where guests were hoisted up along with the tables.
How Catherine II lived: what time she rose, what coffee she drank, where she rode down the slide and where she buried her dogs.
Whether the life of a lady-in-waiting at court was really as enviable as it sounds.
What became of the ensemble under occupation, and how the palace keeper Anatoly Kuchumov searched Germany for what had been taken: the parquet of the Lyons Hall turned up under a heap of grain in a Berlin granary, and the bronze statues from the Cameron Gallery in the yard of a copper smelting works.
Please note: the tour of the palace itself is made in a mixed group in timed slots; in the park your guide works with you alone. In summer, allow time for a queue at the Catherine Palace.
By arrangement
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 1 | $410 |
| 2 | $204 |
| 3 | $141 |
| 4 | $112 |
| 5 | $95 |
| 6 | $84 |
| 7 | $76 |
| 8 | $70 |
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 9 | $66 |
| 10 | $63 |
| 11 | $60 |
| 12 | $58 |
| 13 | $56 |
| 14 | $54 |
| 15 | $53 |
| 16 | $52 |
Jewish St Petersburg: the Grand Choral Synagogue in the Moorish style, the history of the community in the imperial capital, its bankers and philanthropists — and how it lives today.
The essentials of St Petersburg in three hours: Palace and Senate squares, the Summer Garden and the Field of Mars, the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island and the place the city began — told through stories rather than dates.
An hour along the rivers and canals with your own guide: the Venice of the North from the water, the bridges and their superstitions, Chizhik-Pyzhik, and the floods that reshaped the city.
On foot through the imperial capital: Palace Square, Nevsky Prospect and Gostiny Dvor, the well-yards behind the grand facades, and doughnuts in a historic cafe — two hours through the heart of St Petersburg.