Russia: Moscow, St Petersburg, ??

Diane,
I haven't been back to Russia since the early 1990s, but on my two trips there back in the day, the common stop overs in the region were cities of the "Golden Ring" surrounding Moscow. As part of student tour groups, I've toured the cities of Vladimir, Suzdal and Novgorod en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg. (Novgorod, or Velikii "Great" Novgorod in particular can be reached between the two giant Russian cities. Search guidebooks or online to see if their sites interest you, but be sure to not confuse "Great" Novgorod with Nizhnii Novgorod, known during the communist era as "Gorky"). I have co-workers who have traveled to Yaroslavl and Rostov and they spoke highly of these cities, too.

I would recommend at least 4 nights in Moscow. I had a tip from another traveler who said "Moscow is a huge city not used to tourists. Plan on seeing one major sight a day, and anything else is gravy." At first I did not really believe this, but after visiting, it is true. The distances are massive and even if you make good use of the metro, there is still often a hike to wherever you are going. It is a fabulous city, however. PM me if you would like more information, we were there in 2008.

In St. Petersburg take a few walking tours from Peter's walking tours - got to places that we would never have found with out them.

Here is a tentative tour itinerary for a four days' stay in St. Petersburg and three days' stay in Moscow: St. Petersburg – Day 1 – a panoramic city tour with visits to Peter-and-Paul fortress, St. Isaac's cathedral and the Church-on-Spilt Blood (approx. 6 hrs.) Day 2 – a trip to Catherine's palace in Pushkin (Tsarskoye Selo) and the palace of Paul the First in Pavlovsk (approx. 6 hrs.) Day 3 – a day at the Hermitage – a tour of the museum and the two Gold Rooms (approx. 5 hrs.) Day 4 – a trip to Peterhof to visit the Grand Palace, the fountain park, upon return downtown – excursions at Usupov palace and/or the Russian museum (7-8 hrs.) Two more summer palaces of the Russian Tsars are located in the towns of Gatchina and Oranienbaum, about 1.5 hrs. drive from the center of St. Petersburg. Moscow – Day 1 – a panoramic city tour with a visit to Novodevichy convent (approx. 6 hrs.) Day 2 – a tour of the Kremlin with the Diamond Fund and the Armory, the Red Square and Kitai-gorod tour (approx. 6 hrs.) Day 3 – Pushkin Art Gallery and Tretiakov Art Gallery (approx. 5 hrs.) A few days can be spent visiting the ancient Russian towns of the Golden Ring.
Novgorod can be visited either on the way from one city to the other, or on a day trip from St. Petersburg.

I was in Petersburg for 2 days (way too short). We found it pretty difficult because almost no one spoke English and we spoke no Russian. Many (if not most) taxi drivers neither speak English nor read the Latin alphabet. At the Hermitage, even some of the ticket sellers didn't speak English. Almost none of the exhibits were labeled in English. Unless you speak and read Russian, I would imagine it would be near impossible to visit anywhere outside of Moscow and Petersburg. Do spend the time to learn to read Cyrillic - at least you will be able to read the names.

Yes, I found having the hotel front desk write little notes for me in Cyrillic very helpful. They would write "Two Metro 10 Ticket booklets please" and other things down for me. It was invaluable.

Thank you so much everyone!! As I now have looked a bit more into this idea of combining Russia with Air France tickets to Paris, I am getting sold on it. I think that I have a handle on the visa situation and can deal directly with the office in Ottawa for it. I hadn't given any thought to learning the Cyrillic alphabet, so I appreciate the encouragement to do so, especially if the phonetic word can make a bit of sense. I have been in situations before of dealing with important language barriers, so every little bit helps! I spent 10 weeks traveling solo in Iran, but learning to read anything in Farsi beyond the numbers was not helpful in that case. It looks like I'll be able to add enough time to both cities and more, so 2-3 weeks will be likeliest. I will post again when more specific questions come up. I will probably not find out until June or July, as to when I will need to schedule the next trip to France (to include Russia).