Day 1. Arrival in St. Petersburg

In the afternoon, you arrive in St. Petersburg, also known as the Venice of the North. After a welcome at the airport, you take a transfer to your hotel. On a guided tour, you get to know the main sights of the city, including the promenade, the palace square, the stock exchange, the old port and much more.

Overnight: Hotel Park Inn Nevsky (or similar). Meals included: dinner (D)

Day 2. Palaces and Art Treasures

Today you visit the Peter and Paul Fortress and Cathedral, the final resting place of the Romanov imperial family, where you can see sarcophaguses of practically all Russia’s tsars and tsarinas. You go on a guided tour through the world-renowned Hermitage Museum, where you can to see paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. The museum itself is housed in the former Winter Palace of the Tsars. Tonight you can take a stroll through the city, go to the theatre, or take an atmospheric boat ride on the Neva River.

Overnight: Hotel Park Inn Nevsky (or similar). Meals included: breakfast (B), lunch (L)

Day 3. St. Petersburg – Moscow

In the morning, you are transferred to the train station. The Sapsan high-speed express train takes you to Moscow, where you are brought to your hotel. In the evening, you can visit the Bolshoi Theatre.

Overnight: InterContinental Tverskaya (or similar) / Hotel Grand Marriott. Meals included: (BL)

Day 4. Welcome to Moscow

After breakfast, you visit the Tretyakov Gallery, which holds one of the country’s most important art collections, made up of about 150,000 exhibits. You can spend the rest of the day as you wish. In the evening, you enjoy a welcome dinner where you meet guests starting their journey in Moscow and your team of tour guides. Upon request, you can enjoy the bright lights of Moscow at night on our City of Lights tour. You can also enjoy a metro ride with a visit to two of the city’s most beautiful train stations. Afterward, you comfortable hotel room awaits!

Overnight: InterContinental Tverskaya (or similar) / Hotel Grand Marriott. Meals included: (BLD)

Day 5. The Beauty of Moscow

In the morning, you take part in an exciting guided tour of the city, which includes sights such as the impressive Kremlin grounds and its beautiful cathedrals, some of which you can view from the inside as well. In the evening, you are welcomed aboard the Zarengold private train for departure. You have the opportunity to meet up with fellow guests in the restaurant car and explore your private train!

Overnight on board. Meals included: breakfast (B), lunch (L), and dinner (D)

Day 6. Kazan

In the morning, you reach Kazan, capital of the Tatars. Here you experience a guided tour of the Kazan Kremlin, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated amid stunning panoramas of the Volga River, where much of the turbulent history between the Tatars, Cossacks and Russians took place. Your train continues east later that evening.

Overnight on board. (BLD)

Day 7. Yekaterinburg

At noon your train stops in Yekaterinburg, the historic capital of the Urals. The city is also known as the location where the Tsar Nicholas II and his family were assassinated in 1918. On a short guided tour, you see sights such as the Church on Blood, which commemorates the event, and the gorgeous city centre. Back on board, your journey continues through the endless steppes of Western Siberia.

Overnight on board. (BLD)

Day 8. Novosibirsk

You arrive in Novosibirsk, the heart of Siberia, where you are received in traditional Russian fashion, with bread and salt. You get to know the city, the most Soviet-style metropolis of your trip, on a short guided tour, which includes the impressive Trans-Siberian Monument and the immense Ob River.

Overnight on board. (BLD)

Day 9. On to Irkutsk with Vodka Tasting and Presentations

Your train, by now your home away from home, continues on over the great Yenissei River through Siberia. The train’s chefs demonstrate their delicious skills with a tsar-style feast of specialties. During an informal vodka tasting on board, you can enjoy typical Russian snacks and red caviar. Along the way, your train continues through beautiful Siberian landscapes, filled with typical villages, birch forests, and hopefully, ample sunshine. You enjoy the rest of your relaxing day on board and look forward to the next stop!

Overnight on board. (BLD)

Day 10. Irkutsk: City Tour

Today your train arrives at the central station in Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia in tsarist times. On a guided tour, you see many sights, including picturesque Siberian wooden houses and the Monument to the Tsars where the Trans-Siberian obelisk once stood. After lunch, you can go on an excursion to an informative open-air museum dedicated to life and work in old Siberia. You spend the night in a hotel in Irkutsk.

Overnight: Hotel Irkutsk (or similar). (BLD)

Day 11. Panoramic Route Along Lake Baikal

Today you head to Listvyanka by bus. From this village on the banks of Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater reservoir on Earth, you take an hour-long boat ride across the deep waters of the lake to Port Baikal, where your private train is waiting. The journey continues for several hours along the original route of the Trans-Siberian Railroad on the shores of Lake Baikal. Your train stops at a special panoramic spot, where you can really take in the majestic calm of this unique natural wonder. Weather permitting, you enjoy a shoreside picnic dinner. You spend the night in your compartment on the Zarengold.

Overnight on board. (BLD)

Day 12. From Lake Baikal to Ulan Ude and Mongolia

Your journey takes you once again along endless Lake Baikal then through the beautiful Selenga Valley and the wild, secluded steppes of Eastern Siberia. During a stopover in Ulan-Ude, you can enjoy a guided tour if you wish. Your day ends with an atmospheric dinner. Formalities at the Russia-Mongolia border take place quickly and painlessly on board.

Overnight on board. (BLD)

Day 13. Ulan Bator

Today, early risers can experience the idyllic landscapes of central Mongolia with their colourful yurt camps and sparsely populated mountainsides. In the morning, you arrive in Ulan Bator, capital of Mongolia. On a guided tour, you discover the city’s unique architecture, including the impressive Buddhist Gandan Monastery and the curious Choijin Lama Temple, with its unique depictions of a Buddhist conception of hell. Beer gardens are very popular in Mongolia, and you tour guide will show you the city’s best. In the evening, you can enjoy a Mongolian folklore performance that features throat singing, the horse-head fiddle, traditional dances and costumes (tickets are € 14/ $ 15, to be paid on site).

In the evening, you can spend the night either at a centrally located hotel in Ulan Bator or in a yurt amid the gorgeous Mongolian Alps, a dream for nature lovers

On request, we can organise alternative lodging in a yurt in the beautiful landscape of the Mongolian Alps (supplement of € 35/ $ 40, please let us know upon booking). This is a rare experience and a dream come true for nature lovers.

Overnight: Ramada Hotel (or similar). (BLD)

Day 14. Ulan Bator and the Mongolian Alps

If you spent the night in Ulan Bator, this morning you can either tour the city on your own, or enjoy breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast, you can either head straight to the beautiful landscapes of east of the city, or tour the capital on your own, then head to the Mongolian Alps by bus in the afternoon. If you spent the night in a yurt, you will wake to breakfast in gorgeous scenery. Later you enjoy a private Mongolian horse riding show surrounded by yurts, horse herds and wild yaks. Lunch is served as a picnic amid the beauty of nature. Afterward you visit a nomadic family. In the evening, you enjoy a luscious dinner in a yurt restaurant, then spend the night in your private yurt.

Overnight: Yurt in Terelj (BLD)

Day 15. Ulan Bator

After breakfast, you take a stroll and visit the enormous Genghis Khan statue, the tallest equestrian statue in the world. Afterward you head back to Ulan Bator, where you visit the History Museum for an excellent review of Mongolia’s exciting history. The afternoon is spent at your leisure.

Overnight: Ramada Hotel (or similar). (BL)

Day 16. Departure from Ulan Bator for Home

After breakfast, you take a transfer to the airport for your flight home. Your rich experience on the Trans-Siberian Railroad will be a great memory for many years to come. (B)