Greg et al: It's a great itinerary. Ngaire, thanks again for setting up similar tours for us last summer. They were just great!!

A few suggestions:

(a) bring some rubles with you. When you go inside most of these places, they have you pay a camera and video camera fee that was on the order of $3 to $6 each. If you don't want to pay it, you have to leave your cameras in a check room and they will insist upon it. They didn't take $$ and our guide wasn't willing or able to give us the rubles. The killer was the exchange booth was in the bookshop that was at the END of the tour, and there's no way you've got time to go back without your guide to get any pictures that may have been important to you.

(b) consider adding the gold room in the Hermitage. I'd put it in the "very nice to do" but not a "must, must, must do" sight. I think I was expecting aristocratic and royal jewelry; instead, it's a collection of a lot of very old treasures unearthed in digs that (don't hold me to this - the memory doesn't always get it right) took place up near Siberia. The complexity and quality of the artifacts were a big surprise. It reminded me of some of the wonderful treasures we saw from Peru and I'd love to go back to see more of the ancient cities they are finding in Russia. It took about 45 minutes and involves having a guide who only works in that room work with your guide to tell you about the exhibits. I got itchy with the double translation process, but all in all I'm still glad I voted to include it in the Hermitage tour.

(c) If you have the option to do the all-day Moscow tour, it's also great. I think that was the highest point in a cruise that had a whole bunch of high points.

Cheers, Anne