Pushkin (Tsarskoye Selo) with the Catherine Palace

Tsarskoye Selo, 26 kilometres south of the city, was the summer home of three empresses, and each remade the palace to her own taste. It is the residence most visitors put at the top of their list because of one room: the Amber Room. This tour gets you there by car, through the palace and around the park in about four hours, with tickets arranged.

The route

The palace. It began in 1717 as a modest house for Peter I’s wife Catherine. In 1752 Empress Elizabeth gave it to Rastrelli, and four years later it had become 325 metres of late baroque, blue with white columns and gilded mouldings. The gilding alone used more than a hundred kilograms of gold. Catherine II called it “whipped cream” and spent years toning it down.

The state rooms. Rastrelli’s enfilades build towards the centre. The Great Hall is nearly a thousand square metres of mirrors, gilded carving and two tiers of windows, where balls were held by candlelight. The Amber Room was a gift from Prussia to Peter I, taken to Königsberg during the war and lost without trace; it was recreated by St Petersburg craftsmen and opened in 2003. The Lyons Hall, with silk walls and lapis lazuli, was closed from 1941 and reopened only in 2019. The palace church, destroyed during the occupation, took 350 craftsmen four years to restore.

The Catherine Park. 107 hectares divided by the Great Pond, with a formal garden from Peter’s time on one side and Catherine II’s English park on the other. You see the Cameron Gallery, where Catherine walked in the mornings, and the red-brick Gothic Admiralty, where no ship was ever built. Then come Rastrelli’s azure Grotto and the Hermitage pavilion, where guests were once lifted to the upper floor together with the dining tables.

Your guide also tells the story of the palace keeper Anatoly Kuchumov, who searched post-war Germany for the stolen treasures and found the Lyons Hall parquet under a heap of grain in Berlin.

Good to know

• The tour lasts about four hours, including the drive. The meeting point is agreed at booking.
• The car and tickets to the Catherine Palace and the park are included; meals are not.
• Inside the palace you join a mixed museum group with a timed entry slot. In the park your guide works with your party alone.
• In summer, allow for a queue at the palace entrance.
• The tour can be booked privately or as part of a group.

Who it suits

First-time visitors who want to see the Amber Room, lovers of baroque interiors and landscape gardens, and anyone who prefers to have transport and timed tickets handled for them.