Is Yusupovs Palace a must see?

[dcl]

Our Cruise is in St. Petersburg for 3 Days.

The Travel Agent has setup a group tour with Red October.

- 1st Day - Puskin Palace then The Hermitage Museum

- 2nd Day - I'm going to take flight to Moscow, so will miss Yusupovs Palace.

- 3rd Day- Peterhof Palace

 

Is Yusupovs Palace a MUST-SEE ?

I do have the afternoon of the 3rd Day available to try to arrange a separate (private) tour.

 

Thanks

David

[dileep]

I liked it. Definitely worth seeing. I would rather spend 3 days in St. Petersburg than rush out to Moscow for a day. St. Basil's is a pretty sight and the Kremlin is interesting, but both palewhen compared to the sights in StP!

 

Are you going to visit St. Isaac's, Spilled Blood, and Peter & Paul Cathedrals in StP?

 

My Moscow pictures are at http://community.webshots.com/user/dileepann

[dcl]

This will be my second visit to St. Petersburg. My first visit we saw St. Isaac's, Spilled Blood, and Peter & Paul Cathedrals, and The Hermitage as well as Moscow, but it was over 30 years ago.

 

This visit I definitely wanted to see some of the Palaces and more of the Hermitage. Weither the Flight to Moscow is considered the best use of my time for Day 2, I'm still debating that.

[talyanka]

From my point of view quick one day visit to Moscow doesn’t look like the best use of time in St. Petersburg. Most of the day you will spend in transportation – bus/taxi-airport- plane-another bus/taxi and the same way back. For this purpose overnight train looks more preferable – at least you can sleep there.

Those few hours that you have in Moscow probably will be enough to see some places around Red Square and Kremlin. Nothing much changed in Kremlin during the last 30 years. They rebuilt a few cathedrals in the central part of the city but I am not sure that they really worth a special trip. I am afraid you will get really tired from this tour and won’t be able to enjoy your last day in St. Petersburg.

You definitely can find many interesting places in Petersburg to fill more than 3 days. Buy the way 30 years ago the Church of Spilled Blood wasn’t open to public. Now you can go inside and see all the beautiful mosaics there. So it is worth to repeat a visit. You still can walk along Nevsky Prospect, go to Summer garden, Michailovsky castle, Russian Museum, Usupov Palace, Kazansky cathedral and many other fascinating places, even Museum of Vodka. Petersburg had a good facelift by its 300 anniversary in 2003 and looks very nice now. So think twice before you decide to book your Moscow tour.

[Bill S]

I was more impressed with Yusupov Palace than the Hermitage. The ostentatious display of wealth was almost overwhelming, IMO. I would rank it as a "must see" in St. Petersburg. I agree with the above posters that two days in St. Petersburg isn't enough if you want to see all the "must see" attraction.

[JodiBB]

We were also impressed with Yusopov's Palace....the history behind it is incredible!!