Entry after hours into the Winter Palace and adjac...

Entry after hours into the Winter Palace and adjacent palaces (the Hermitage) for a private tour made the whole trip worth it; it was extraordinary in every sense of the word. Exeter provided us with a string quartet playing at the foot of the main Palace staircase and champagne at the end of the visit. That evening would not have been possible but for Exeter. We were in Russia at the end of April, beginning of May, not White Nights, and both Moscow and St. Petersburg were throbbing with tourists. Sometimes the crowds were unavoidable, but Exeter made certain we did not wait in line, something that catered to our backs and made good use of our time.

Exeter made everything very easy for us from the moment we landed in Moscow, all the way to emigration at the airport in Saint Petersburg as we were leaving Russia. We did not have to worry about logistics for a second.