Things to Do at Hermitage Museum

The Hermitage fills the mint-green and white Winter Palace along the Neva embankment, and walking up the Jordan Staircase for the first time tends to stop people mid-sentence. Gilded stucco climbs three storeys overhead, marble steps echo under your shoes, and somewhere above, a chandelier the size of a small car catches the light pouring through tall windows. The building competes with the art here. That's saying something when the collection includes two Leonardos, thirty-odd Rembrandts, and a Matisse room that practically glows red. Catherine the Great started buying paintings in 1764, mostly to one-up Frederick of Prussia, and her successors kept going until the imperial holdings spilled across five interconnected buildings. You'll find yourself in a Romanov throne room one minute and standing in front of a Picasso the next, a decent indication of how the place evolved. Less curated museum, more accumulated empire. The parquet floors creak in different keys depending on which palace you're in, and the smell shifts too: old wood and beeswax in the state rooms, then that particular cool-stone quiet in the antiquities galleries downstairs. It's enormous, obviously. Trying to see everything in one visit is the rookie mistake. Locals will tell you to pick two or three rooms and look at them properly, which is probably right. The Hermitage rewards lingering. Speed-walking past the Madonnas does not work.

The closest metro is Admiralteyskaya on the purple line, a five-minute walk through the arch onto Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt station sits slightly further. It's more scenic if you want to walk the length of the main avenue first. Taxis from anywhere central are cheap by Western standards, and the Yandex app works the way Uber does at home. In summer you can also arrive by boat along the Neva, which costs more but feels appropriately imperial. Avoid driving. Parking around Palace Square is a nightmare, and the museum sits inside a pedestrian zone anyway.