St Petersburg 5 Day Itinerary
Saint Petersburg’s fifth day is where the trip stops repeating the Hermitage and starts adding real breadth: the Russian Museum’s stand-alone collection and, cards permitting, an evening at the Mariinsky. None of that changes where Russia currently sits. The US State Department reissued its Level 4, Do Not Travel, advisory on 2 January 2026, the same tier as active war zones, and the UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to the country. There have been no direct flights between Russia and the US, UK or EU since 2022, and foreign-issued Visa, Mastercard and Amex cards do not work anywhere in the country. This is Saint Petersburg, Russia, not the Gulf Coast city of the same name in Florida. Read what follows as an honest account of what five days in the city actually contains, not a plan to book this month.
Five days covers the historic core, both signature imperial day trips, and one extra layer that shorter stays skip entirely: the Hermitage and Nevsky Prospekt on day one, Spilled Blood and the fortress on day two, Peterhof on day three, Catherine Palace’s Amber Room on day four, and the Russian Museum plus a Mariinsky evening on day five. See the 2-day , 3-day , 4-day , 6-day and 7-day versions of this itinerary for the shorter and longer alternatives.
| Day | Focus | Rough daily spend (RUB) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hermitage/Winter Palace, Palace Square, Nevsky Prospekt, St Isaac’s Cathedral | 3,000-6,000 (cash only; foreign cards don’t work) |
| 2 | Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, Peter and Paul Fortress, a canal boat | 2,500-5,000 (cash only) |
| 3 | Peterhof day trip: Grand Palace and the Grand Cascade fountains | 3,500-7,000 (cash only, incl. transport) |
| 4 | Catherine Palace and the Amber Room, Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin) | 3,500-7,000 (cash only, incl. transport) |
| 5 | Russian Museum, an evening at the Mariinsky (ballet or opera) | 3,000-8,000 (cash only; Mariinsky tickets are box-office cash) |
Day 1: The Hermitage, Palace Square and Nevsky Prospekt
Start at the Hermitage, the former Winter Palace on Palace Square overlooking the Neva. It’s one of the largest art museums on Earth, roughly three million items including Rembrandt, da Vinci and a full run of Impressionist work, and the palace’s own Baroque and Rococo state rooms are worth the visit before you’ve seen a single painting. Give it the whole morning at minimum. The museum’s own ticket site, tickets.hermitagemuseum.org, only reliably takes Russian-issued cards, so plan to pay in cash or with rubles loaded onto a MIR card, not a foreign Visa or Mastercard.
From Palace Square, walk south to St Isaac’s Cathedral: the colonnade around the gilded dome is a genuine panoramic viewpoint, and the interior’s malachite and lapis lazuli mosaics are worth the climb alone. Spend the afternoon on Nevsky Prospekt, the roughly 4.5 km spine running from the Admiralty toward the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, lined with 18th and 19th century facades and churches of several denominations. It orients you for the four days that follow, and it costs nothing beyond whatever you spend along the way.
Day 2: Spilled Blood, the fortress and a canal
Start at the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, the onion-domed, mosaic-covered memorial built on the site of Tsar Alexander II’s 1881 assassination, its color a deliberate contrast to the Winter Palace’s restraint the day before. From there, cross to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the islet where the city itself began in 1703 under Peter the Great. The Peter and Paul Cathedral inside is the burial site of Russia’s tsars, including the Romanov family, under a needle-thin gilded spire that anchors the skyline.
Close the day on the water: a canal boat along the Fontanka, Moika or Griboedov shows the same facades from a different angle. If your five days land in the White Nights window, late May through mid-July, when the sun barely dips below the horizon this far north, push this boat trip to the evening and stay out for the raised bridges instead of heading back early.
Day 3: Peterhof, the fountain palace on the Gulf
Peterhof is Peter the Great’s palace-and-fountain complex on the Gulf of Finland, roughly 25 to 45 minutes from the center depending on route, commonly reached by hydrofoil along the Neva and Gulf in season, or by road. The Grand Cascade, the fountain system running down the terrace in front of the Grand Palace, is gravity-fed with no pumps anywhere in the system, a genuine 18th century engineering feat that still works exactly as designed. Treat it as a half to full day depending on how much of the park you want to cover, and budget the boat or transfer as a separate cost on top of the entry ticket.
Day 4: Catherine Palace and the Amber Room
Catherine Palace sits in Tsarskoye Selo, the town of Pushkin, roughly 25 km south of the city center. The palace itself is extravagant Rococo, but the draw is the Amber Room: the original was looted by Nazi forces during the Second World War and never recovered, and the room standing today is a painstaking Soviet and Russian reconstruction completed in 2003, included in the standard palace ticket at no separate charge. It’s open Wednesday to Monday, roughly 10:00 to 18:00 from April to October, and timed entry slots sell out in summer, so this is one detail worth planning around even while treating the whole trip as aspirational rather than booked.
Day 5: The Russian Museum and a night at the Mariinsky
Spend the morning at the Russian Museum, housed in the Mikhailovsky Palace and easy to conflate with the Hermitage but distinct from it: this is the world’s largest collection specifically of Russian fine art, a genuine complement to the Hermitage’s more international holdings rather than a repeat of day one. It rewards two or three focused hours rather than a rushed pass.
Close the trip, and the five days, with an evening at the Mariinsky Theatre, one of the world’s storied ballet and opera houses and the training ground for generations of Russian dancers. The theater keeps a regular season outside its own summer closure (typically early August into September, worth confirming for your travel dates), and foreign visitors can attend, but mariinsky.ru only reliably accepts Russian-issued cards, so the realistic route is a cash purchase at the box office rather than booking online in advance. If your dates fall outside the season, or a night at the theater isn’t your thing, swap it for a slower closing day instead: a second, unhurried pass along the canals, or, in the White Nights window, staying out past midnight for the near-daylight sky over the water.
Can you actually get to St Petersburg right now?
Not directly. There have been no direct flights between Russia and the US, UK or EU since 2022, when both sides banned each other’s aircraft from their airspace. Getting there from the West means routing through a third country, commonly Istanbul on Turkish Airlines, or a Gulf hub, adding a connection and real time to the trip. Russia also remains at the US State Department’s Level 4, Do Not Travel, level, reissued 2 January 2026, with the UK advising against all travel.
Do foreign cards work in St Petersburg?
No. Visa, Mastercard and Amex suspended their Russian operations in March 2022 and have not reversed course. A foreign-issued card will be declined at Russian ATMs, in shops and on Russian websites, including the Hermitage’s own ticket portal and the Mariinsky’s own booking site. The only reliable options for the five days above are cash, in rubles or hard currency exchanged locally, or a Russian MIR card if a longer stay justifies getting one.
Do you need a visa, and does your passport matter?
Yes, and it matters a great deal. Russia’s unified e-visa covers around 64 countries for a 30-day stay near $52, but it explicitly excludes the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Travelers from those countries need a traditional consular visa, a slower process historically requiring an invitation and in-person consulate processing, not a same-day online form. Most EU passports remain e-visa eligible, though the same flight and card barriers above still apply regardless of visa mechanics.
One more legal reality worth knowing before you plan anything: Russia broadened its “gay propaganda” law in 2022 to cover any public promotion of “non-traditional relations,” and in 2023 its Supreme Court ruled the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organization. This applies to visitors, not only residents, and it’s a real legal risk that LGBTQ+ travelers should factor in rather than treat as a footnote.
For the advisory itself, travel.state.gov carries the current US position, and gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/russia carries the UK’s. The Mariinsky’s own site, mariinsky.ru , is worth checking directly for the current season and closure dates before building day five around it.
One concrete tip: if you’re set on the Mariinsky, go to the box office in person a day or two ahead with cash in hand rather than trying to reserve online, and change more rubles than a normal five-day city break would ever require, since a foreign card will not bail you out at the theater door.