Glorious St Petersburg

Travel Insurance and Safety

Travel insurance is compulsory for all tours with 50 Degrees North. The safety of our travellers, staff and operators is a major priority of 50 Degrees North. With an operational office in Norway, 50 Degrees North has access to an up-to-the-minute flow of information regarding the countries we work in. We are also in regular contact with the various operators we use. Their in-depth knowledge and understanding of their various areas is vital.

Visa Requirement

Please note for China, Mongolia and Russia, you will need to arrange your visa before you go. We have supplied links to these visa applications within our Visa section. It is your responsibility to do this before your trip but please don't hesitate to speak to us if you need any assistance. It isn't unusual for our guests to have questions particularly about the Russian visa so please call us if you are in any doubt.

The Hermitage can be very busy to visit with large crowds during summer and little control of the movement of people. We suggest that you try to visit either before the opening hours which can be arranged with us or on a Wednesday evening. The museum stays open until 9pm. Any extra time available will help you enjoy the tour. Our guides will help you navigate the entrances and the best way to see everything you can to see.

The security staff will not allow water bottles into the building but if you have a small bottle in a big pocket, you will usually be fine. There is a free cloakroom to use if needed.

The top 20 things to see in the Hermitage and where to find them:

1. Cézanne's Girl at the Piano

An unusual, intense and relatively early work (1867/8) which depicts the artist’s sister and mother. The emphasis on pattern and rhythm seems to anticipate Matisse. (Room 318).

2. Juan Pantoja de la Cruz's Diego de Villamayor

The Hermitage’s Spanish Collection includes El Greco, Velázquez and Goya, but this vibrant portrait of a 17-year-old courtier in burnished black and gold armour by a much less-well known artist is a remarkably successful study of power and character. (Room 240).

3. Francesco Melzi's Flora

There are two early paintings by Leonardo, both madonnas, but this portrait by one of his followers which hangs in the same room is more immediately appealing - something of a page-three Mona Lisa. (Room 214).

4. Henri Matisse's The Red Room

A fascinating painting, saturated in the deep red of the wallpaper and tablecloth, which saturate the room, while through the window the landscape is clear blue, green and white. (Room 344).

5. Michelangelo's Crouching Boy

Rough and unfinished, the tightly contracted muscles strain with repressed energy. Originally intended for the Medici mausoleum in Florence. (Room 230).

6. Athena, Aphrodite and Eros

Just three exquisitely drawn faces and some flowing drapery have survived in this fragment of a line drawing dating to the 4th-century BC. It is the only surviving example of graphic art of the period. (Room 115).

7. Roger van der Weyden's St Luke drawing the Virgin

Look carefully at this gorgeous study of an artist at work (possibly a self portrait) and you can see a vertical join running down the centre of the canvas. The right half was bought by Tsar Nicholas I in 1850, the left by Alexander III in 1884. Only later was it realised that they were the two halves of the same painting. (Room 262).

8. Picasso's Portrait of Soler

A very early work (1903) from the “blue” period, which is strongly represented in the Hermitage. Soler was a Barcelona tailor and a friend of Picasso's. This powerfully melancholic portrait is distinctly Spanish in tone, echoing El Greco and Velásquez. (Room 348).

9. Veronese's Conversion of Saul

An enormous canvas of chaos and confusion and no obvious subject until you focus on Saul laid low in the composition. (Room 237).

10. Rembrandt's Old man in red

No one has captured the impact of old age on the human face more profoundly or effecitvely, both in his own self-portraits and in rheumy-eyed portraits such as this - just one in a gallery full of major Rembrandts. (Room 254).

11. One-horse carriage

This bizarre contraption dates from 1780 and is loaded with gadgetry, including a milometer and a mechanical organ. (Room 167).

12. Scythian Gold

This is a wonderful and unique collection of ornamental goldwork, much of it produced for the semi-nomadic Scythians by Greek goldsmiths from the 7th century BC onwards. Among the most striking pieces are a stag, a panther and a wonderful comb capped by a battle scene. (Room 44).

13. Rubens' Descent from the cross

The highlight from a room full of some of his best work. The mostly muted colouring, the ordered, stylised composition and the stillness it evokes is unusual for such a flamboyant colourist. (Room 247).

14. Head of Athena

The tilt of the head and serene gaze emanates power and wisdom. The polished marble has been preserved in immaculate condition ( Room 110).

15. Giorgione's Judith

Only a handful of paintings by the great Venetian artist survive and the serene, dream-like quality of this usually grim and bloody scene (she has just beheaded Holoferenes) is typical of his work. (Room 217).

16. White Dining Room

It’s not the finest room in the Palace, but it has a fascinating history. The clock on the mantelpiece is stopped at 2.10am on the night of October 25,1917, when Kerensky’s provisional government, which had held power since the February revolution, was arrested by the Bolsheviks - it is the moment when Russia succumbed to communism. (Room 188).

17. The Pavilion Hall

One the many rooms in the Hermitage palaces that stand out for their sheer extravagance or historical importance. Mosaic floors , 23 glittering chandeliers, two tiers of fluted columns, gold leaf - this is a stunning room and is flooded by light from windows on both sides. The centre piece is an extraordinary English clock (c1760) in the form of gilded peacocks which spread their tails while a cockerel still crows the hour and a mushroom rotates. It still works, though normally only once a week - check with the excursion bureau for performance times. (Room 204).

18. Hidden Treasures

This haul of paintings looted from post-war Germany includes 10 Renoirs, six Cézannes and works by Manet, Monet and others. They were shut away until 1993, and are in a remarkably fresh state of preservation. (Rooms 200-202).

19. Gonzaga cameo

This is the highlight of Catherine the Great’s collection of antique cameos - tiny medallions delicately carved from coloured stone. Look out too for a two-inch diameter head of Zeus. Both are circa 3rd century BC (Room 121).

20. Gainsborough's Lady in a Blue Shawl

The Hermitage has the best collection of English art in continental Europe (much of it acquired by Catherine the Great in 1779 when she bought many of Robert Walpole’s paintings, which used to hang in Houghton Hall, Norfolk, from his cash-strapped grandson. The swirling, uplifting quality of this portrait of an unknown woman marks it out as one of the artist's best. (Room 298)