Adventure Travel Trip Itinerary Christmas in Ukraine and Russia. Leader: Svetlana Ehrhart Day Date Day Activity (distances are approximate) Accommodation, Notes 1 12/17/16 Travel to Kiev. Officially, Christmas in Ukraine and Russia is celebrated on the 7th of January (following the Orthodox calendar). However, the new year holiday season, the most important holiday of the year, will have begun and everything should be beautifully decorated everywhere. Certainly, we will be spending OUR Christmas in Russia. 2 12/18/16 Arrival to Kiev. Transfer to the hotel. Accomodation in a hotel. Free time. Kiev is documented as going back at least 1400 years. It reached its Golden Age as the center of Kievan Rus in the 10-12th centuries. A Christian City since 988. It was part of Soviet Russia, and it got independance in 1991. 3 12/19/16 Breakfast at the hotel. Walking sightseeing tour of the city. We'll walk in the downtown area of the city, we'll see the famous Maidan Square, where the independance of Ukraine was proclaimed, we'll visit St. Sophia's Cathedral- one of the World Heritage List's landmarks, Andriyvski Uzvizwhich became known as Kiev's Montmartre (good for souvenir shopping), we'll see St. Volodymyr's Cathedral, Motherland Monument,
Golden Gate. Lunch and dinner on your After dinner walk on your own along the main street of Kiev, Khreshchetyk, which should be decorated for the holidays 4 12/20/16 Breakfast at the hotel. We'll go to see the suburbs of Kiev, an open air museum, Pirogovo, where you can see beautifully preserved original houses of the 18th and 19th centuries which were brought here from all over Ukraine. 5 12/21/16 Breakfast at the hotel. Kiev- Pechorsk Lavra. Since its foundation as the cave monastery in 1051 the lavra has been a prominent center of Orthodox Christianity in Eastern Europe. Lunch on your Getting to the railway station. Departure to Moscow by the night train which has sleeping compartments. Possible dinner on the train (not included in the price). 6 12/22/16 Breakfast on the train (not included in the price). Arrival to Moscow, the capital of Russia. Getting to the hotel and leaving the luggage there. Moscow is both a living monument to over 800 years of Russian history and culture and the most vibrantly modern city in the country. In the afternoon explore Moscow's mighty Kremlin with its golden domes, lustrous cathedrals and treasures of the csars, such as priceless Faberge eggs displayed in the Armory
Museum, which we are going to visit. Enjoy your walk on the spectacularly decorated Red Square, home of the beautiful St. Basil's Cathedral (We'll see it from the outside). We will also see the new Christ the Saviour Cathedral and will walk along the Moscow River. 7 12/23/16 Breakfast at the hotel. We'll have a tour of one of the suburbs of Moscow - Archangelskoe. It is a historical estate located 12 miles west of Moscow. In the 18th century it belonged to a very well known Galitzine family, and in the 19th century to the Ysupov family. We'll visit a museum and walk in the park there. 8 12/24/16 Breakfast at the hotel. Visit the Tretyakov Gallery, the largest collection of Russian icons and paintings. Free time in the downtown on Arbat street. Lunch and dinner on your Departure to the train station for either the evening or night train to St. Petersburg. 9 12/25/16 Getting to the hotel and leaving the luggage there. St. Petersburg was founded by the Russian Czar Peter the Great more than 300 years ago as a link to Western Europe. It was the capital of Russia for three centuries and today is one of the great cultural centers of the country. Majestic gold-domed cathedrals and canal-crossed
streets combine to make this city one of the most beautiful in the world. Sightseeing walking tour of St. Petersburg, visit to St. Isaak's Cathedral and Peter and Paul Fortress where all Russian czars of the Romanov dynasty are buried. 10 12/26 16 Breakfast at the hotel. Enjoy the world famous Hermitage Museum, the city's most famous landmark, once the Winter Palace of the csars, and containing nearly 3,000,000 works of art in numerous buildings, tour of Menshikov Palace, walking along the embankment of the Neva river and on the city's main street, Nevsky Prospect, which will be beautifully decorated. Stop at several local markets along the way. 11 12/27/16 Breakfast at the hotel. Today we'll go to the suburbs of St. Petersburg to see one of the summer palaces of the Russian csars, Catherine's Palace in Pushkin T A highlight of the Palace is the Amber Room, completely rebuilt after destruction by the Nazis. We'll also walk in the surrounding park. Catherine the Great was a German Empress who became the Russian ruler for 34 years in the 18th century. Free time. Lunch and dinner on your
12 12/28/16 Breakfast at the hotel. We'll go to see the suburbs of St. Petersburg again. We'll walk in Pavlovsk Park which was used as a hunting place for Catherine the Great's son Paul and we"ll visit Paul's Palace. Farewell dinner together (included in the price). (If the group decides to combine the Day 11 & 12 itinerarys, which can be done, the last day can be a free day to explore many other possibilities such as The Church of Spilled Blood, a banya experience, the Yusopov palace (where Rasputin met his end), Dostoyevsky's apartment/museum, shopping, etc.). 13 12/29/16 Breakfast at the hotel. Departure to the U.S.A. 14 Home or onward travel (Leader: add/delete rows as needed)