Day Tours Russia
 

Hi,

My husband and I want to do independent travel to Moscow and St Petersburg in July 2007. I already have my air tickets (FF miles)and I have booked top hotels.
What I am really concerned about is getting train tickets since I will travel on a Saturday evening. I contacted a couple of agencies and since they do not do only train tickets I was willing to book one full day in each city with them. The breakdown for the full day is over $1000 per day and I think that is way too high considering one day is a walking tour (unless they are going to carry me:)) Of course visas, airport transfer etc was additional.
Does anyone know of guide in Moscow that is reasonable and willing to get the train tickets for me. I would then book airport transfer with them and a half day tour or two. I did read about Elena on this board and just sent off an email but any other suggestions would be appreciated.
I will also need a couple of tours in St Petersburg and wondering how realistic it would be to be able to book a tour once there.
Any and all suggestions and names of reputable guides for both cities would be most appreciated.
Thanks so much
Pat

Friends of mine have recently been on several trips which involved spending a lot of time shuttling between Moscow, St Petersburg & St P province (to adopt a child) and they just got their train tickets when they got there.

Mystic, take a look at this site. It will have lots of info for independent travel. We were in St Petersburg in August and learned everything necessary from this site--along with Fodor's.

http://tinyurl.com/ulwhk

Caroline
Thank you for the info but since I arrive on a Thursday and departing Saturday and I am afraid to wait until last minute with the train travel, not to mention the language problem.

Jane, thanks for the site - I will do some more reading.

In the meantime, Elena sent a very prompt reply and said she doesn't really do train tickets and normally is tied up with longer trips but if she is available are prices are so much more reasonable.
The prices I had been quoted were on the line of close to $100 per hour and that is out of my range. Elena charges only $25 per hour.

Pat

We bought train tickets at the RR station--didn't use a tour guide or a tour, but organized day tours were available. Your hotel will probably be glad to send someone to the RR station to buy train tickets (for a small fee). Actually, St P was very easy for independent travel. We did not go to Moscow this time but have been there on a tour.

I printed off the train schedule I wanted to purchase so that I would not have a language problem at the train station. I just showed them the schedule that I had marked to purchase--no problems. I think it was a week before the date we wanted to travel.

Thanks again Jane, my problem is we will only have two days before departing. This is a quick trip to see the basics and if we like it we plan to go back. In the summer we are based in Europe so it is not such a big deal to fly back - it's less than a 4 hr flight. Appreciate the help
Pat