Hermitage Museum: A Visit to the Winter Palace of the Tsars, St. Petersburg, Russia

The Hermitage Museum was at the very top of my must-do list in St. Petersburg. Being one of the biggest museums in the world, it not only holds one of the best collections of European art, but the palace has also witnessed some of the most important events in history.

The Hermitage Museum opens Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:30am to 6pm, although they offer extended opening hours on Wednesday and Friday until 9pm. 

For those wanting to visit on their own, tickets have a price of 600 rubles when bought directly at the museum. You can also buy them online from the hermitagemuseum.org website. This will save you some waiting time at the ticket office, but note that if bought through the English website, tickets are considerably more expensive: $17.95 for a one-day entrance ticket, or $22.95 for a two-day entrance ticket; almost twice as much as buying them at the museum or through the Russian version of the site. 

With over 300 rooms to visit and more than three million items on display, it's easy to spend hours or even days wandering around this incredible museum. Before arriving in St. Petersburg, we decided to book a private tour so we could cover the main highlights in half a day. For me, this was the wisest option to fully enjoy one of the most fascinating museums in the world.  ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).