St. Petersburg Guided Tours

We had a private tour of three days organised by St Petersburg Guided Tours. Valerie was v helpful in assisting us to create the itinerary that we wanted. Zara, the guide, is very knowledgeable about art, Russian history, and the country. She has a lovely personality, and great sense of fun. She took great care of us during the tour. She gave us good recommendations for where to eat in the evenings, how to get around and what to see in our time after the tour. Pavel is an excellent and safe driver.

The advantage of the private tour was that we were able to see all of the main sites in three days. It was tailored to our interests and we learned so much about St Petersburg and Russia. It was at our pace, and had flexibility each day, to spend more or less time at various places. We are keen walkers and Zara happily tramped miles thru various parks and along avenues.

We visited as part of a Princess Cruises Baltic Cruise. After reading rave reviews of ToursinStPetersburg.com, I contacted them by email and was pleased with the response and suggested 2 day tours. During several discussions, Valeria offered a tour that covered the sights we were interested in, as well as some that she thought were important. There were 6 retirees in our party. We were met at the port by Nadia, who was an excellent tour guide with a delightful personality. She had been an exchange student in the US so was especially good with our American English. The van driver, Michael, was superb, managing to park immediately near the sights, and to get pick-up locations so our walking was minimal. We visited the Church of the Spilled Blood, St.. Isaacs, the Faberge Museum and the Hermitage on day 1, then drove to the Catherine Palace and Peterhof Garden with a brief shopping stop on day 2. Nadia suggested lunches in lovely local restaurants which offered great food and atmosphere. We felt secure the entire time of our visit. Valeria, the company owner, made a point of meeting us in person to thank us for the reservation. The prices for our private, customized tour was just over half the cost of the ship's offerings. I heartily recommend St. Petersburg Guided Tours.

We were picked up on time by Olga our guide for Peterhof Palace on day 1 and a city tour on day 2, the car was excellent and both trips went smoothly. Olga is a font of knowledge which she imparted in perfect English making it both interesting and fun, we were shown a grotto in Peterhof which was a special additional extra to the tour and was truly magnificent.
Day 3 saw Valeria, an owner of the St. Petersburg Guided tours, take us to Catherine Palace where once again we were amazed by both the buildings and the stories behind them.
I would thoroughly recommend you use their services, reasonably priced for what we received and with delightful guides.

Absolutely fantastic tour. Everything was easy and professional. Our guide Valerie was outstanding with a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm for the history of St Petersburg and the places visited.
I could not recommend this more highly.

Family of 4, and are so pleased we booked with Valeria. Customised tours over 2 full days with flexibility to add in some extras. Picked up in a 7 seater van with driver and Valeria as the guide. We went straight into the tour driving around St Petersburgh, followed by the full tour of all the places on our itinerary. Winter Palace was great with Valeria taking us to the parts we were interested in, you can spend days in the Hermitage so I suggest you let her know what you are interested in. We loved the Romanov history and Valeria made the 2 days focus on the Tsars and Royal history including the Yusopov palace where Rasputin was killed. We visited Peter & Paul Fortress, Church Spilled blood and the Tsars village with the amazing St Catherine Palace which was WoW. (Note if you do not book with a tour guide you wait wait till midday to get in and them may still have to queue for 4 hours and that's out of season.
Wherever we went, whatever we saw Valeria's passion and knowledge was very apparent, in fact astonishing to be frank.
If you want to do a lot in a few days, save up your money and book with Valeria, its well worth the money.

Thanks again Valeria, see you soon.

Our tour was managed by Valeria who I think owns the company. We had a three day tour but for a little extra Dimitri, our driver, also picked us up and dropped us back at the airport at the beginning and end of our tour. Valeria was terrific: very knowledgeable and pleasant. The itinerary was suggested by her and it really made the city accessible. Highly recommended!

What a remarkable tour with such a beautiful. Intelligent guide Olga. Taken and shown over two days all the remarkable sights of this magnificent city. Olga took her time and we had two unforgetable days exploring. The highlight was a stop off unscheduled of the memorial to The Seige of Leningrad. It brought years to my eyes. What courage citizens. My Hotel Belmont Grand Europe hotel 5 stars as well
I can't thank Olga and your company for giving me such a delightful and interesting fascinating video.
Sincerly
Anthony Aron Hyatt. London & Cardiff

If you want to see St Petersburg from a cruise ship and have only 2 days then the people to contact are St, Petersburg Guided Tours. We had 2 days full of information, we saw all the sites and travelled on the Metro (London tube needs to learn). From our first contact via email with Valeria who put our tour together, who arranged our 2 day visas, to meeting Nadia our guide and our driver Dmitri everything went like clockwork. Nadia was a mine of information especially in the Hermitage Museum. The price we paid was far less than the same type of tour organised by the ship and we had the benefit of one to one, not mixed in a group trying to hear the guide. At all sites that admission charges were required Nadia went of to get the tickets and then said follow me and walked us to the front of the queue, we never had to wait. We had lunch breaks both days , we had said we only required a snack and they took us to small fast food cafes which was ideal (we paid for both their meals). Would we go to St.Petersburg again, definitely, and we would certainly use St.Petersburg Guided Tours, Excellent.

We took a two-day tour with St. Petersburg Guided Tours. They procured our group visa, met us at the cruise ship and took us to all of the major attractions in St. Petersburg. We avoided all of the lines at the Hermitage, the two palaces, and the major churches. Some of the lines were two-three hours in length so it was a real benefit to be with a small group. The guide, Nadia, was extremely knowledgeable, spoke perfect English and tailored our tour to our group’s (5 of us) needs. Our driver, Michael, was terrific and always found parking close to the attractions. I highly recommend this organization.

I can go on and on on how this company was the best choice for my 3 days cruise stop in St. Petersburg but I’ll try to do it as short as possible.
Daria was our tour guide and was very energetic, full of knowledge and passionate about every place we went, she wanted to transmit every single detail of all the historical places we visited. We did the Hermitage, Faberge Museum, St Issac Cathedral, Catherine Palace, cathedral of the savior on spilled blood, a river cruise and the Peterhof gardens and fountains were we were treated to a VIP view of the grottos. We had the opportunity to meet Valeria for a personal tour of the Yusupov Palace. I have to say that we never waited on any line to enter any of this places and our driver was always waiting for us at anytime we came out of this places, his car was new and very clean. We were a group of four adults and had the best experience anyone can have wile visiting St. Petersburg.

I do not hesitate to recommend this tour company!! This is the most amazing company to deal with! Valeria communicated promptly and professionally, dealing with all our queries and requests by email. We saw EVERYTHING we wanted to see in our one day and more. Nadia, our tour guide for the day was wonderful. Patient, so knowledgeable, efficient and professional.Our driver was very efficient and knew where to go and how to get there easily and negotiated the roads very safely. I would totally recommend this tour company if you want to see lots in St Petersburg. They will even buy tickets to performances and get you into the palaces so quickly ( to the top of the queue everytime!!! NO waiting!!) We had the most incredible day!!

We were a party of 4 (one being totally wheelchair bound) on a cruise. No tours available off the boat to suit disabilities so I contacted this company and arranged the trip prior to our visit. Valeria my contact was brilliant and it allowed us to plan the trip to our requirements. On the day our guide and driver met us as arranged with a Mercedes vehicle with tail lift. The tour was amazing and our guide Nadia superb not only extremely knowledgeable but also amazing at clearing a path for the wheelchair. I cant thank this company enough they made something which was impossible possible..

Since St.Petersburg is visited by over 7 million tourists (of which 3.5 m foreigners, most of which package tours) picking the right tour guide can be tricky. I was lucky to find Valeria of St.Petersburg Guided Tours (not to be confounded with similarly named Tour-in-StPetersburg). I booked a 3-day private tour and everything went smoothly and as promised. The communications by by email and also by WhatsApp during my visit was rapid and efficient. I wanted to see Moscow after my 3 days in St.P. and she advised how to get there best (by Sapsan high speed train) and booked tickets and seats for me since international reservation on Russian Rail did not work. Also, Valeria showed flexibility according to the weather and knew how to skip long queues of mass tourism.
A memorable experience I can warmly recommend to other individuals or small groups. I wish Valeria much success with her small sympathetic enterprise.

Ho avuto la fortuna di poter visitare la meravigliosa San Pietroburgo con una guida competente come Valeria. La sua capacità di coinvolgere nel corso delle visite unitamente alla sua innata simpatia hanno senza dubbio reso ancora più indimenticabili i giorni da me passati in questa splendida città. La raccomando assolutamente!

È stata un'escursione fantastica! Valeria è un'ottima guida e, grazie a lei, la visita è stata molto interessante e divertente!

Ho fatto un viaggio a San Pietroburgo e dintorni..ho contattato una guida locale Valeria Grigoryeva mi sono trovata benissimo oltre a parlare perfettamente l italiano ha una conoscenza e preparazione eccellente..ci ha dato consigli e moltissime informazioni

Siamo stati a San Pietroburgo per dieci giorni quest'anno in maggio. Non conoscendo la città abbiamo deciso di rivolgerci ad una guida.E abbiamo trovato Valeria,una persona semplicemente squisita!!! Valeria ha organizzato per noi delle escursioni nella città, come ad esempio alla Fortezza di Pietro e Paolo, al Museo Russo e all'Ermitage. Non essendo dei veri e propri amanti dell'arte non volevamo "perderci" nell'Ermitage e Valeria è riuscita in sole quattro ore ad organizzarci un tour completo e molto interessante.oltre a questo siamo andati anche nella città di Pushkin per vedere la camera d'ambra, il palazzo e i giardini.eravamo in sette e avevamo con noi un bambino di due anni.Valeria ha organizzato per noi tutto il viaggio, accompagnandoci e facendoci anche qui da guida.le uniche cose che posso dire sono: non perdetevi un'escursione o una passeggiata per la citta' con Valeria, lei riuscirà a farvi sentire,anche se per poco tempo,dei veri pietroburghesi! Scrivo questa recensione proprio da San Pietroburgo, ci siamo tornati a distanza di pochi mesi per rivederla in inverno.