Strelna lies at the beginning of the road to Peterhof, on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, and its main feature is the Konstantinovsky Palace, begun in the reign of Peter the Great and named for a later grand duke, Konstantin. Like Peterhof, it was heavily damaged in the Second World War and later rebuilt, and in the early 2000s it was restored for the three-hundredth anniversary of Saint Petersburg. The park, with its canals and ponds, runs down toward the water, and the view across the gulf is wide and grey.
The dacha of P. K. What can be said is that the district was a favourite summer retreat for Petersburgers from the nineteenth century, with villas, gardens and small ponds among the trees. The nearby forts, such as Seraya Loshad and Konstantin, stand out in the sea as part of the defences that once protected the capital from the Baltic, and they are visible on clear days.
Strelna, a town of nearly thirteen thousand people, has fuel, shops and cafés, and Gorbunki and Ol'gino are small places farther along the coast. Pushkin, with its Catherine Palace and the Amber Room, lies inland and makes a good partner for a day out. The Peterhof Highway is the main route, broad and fast, and it is lined with trees. Go early on a weekday to avoid the traffic jams that build on summer weekends.
For riders, the coast is flat and the roads are straightforward, with the pleasure lying in the light. In June the sun sets slowly and the sky stays pale blue and pink until after midnight, while in winter the gulf freezes at the edges and the sea haze is silver. Spring and early autumn are the best seasons, with fewer mosquitoes and fewer crowds, and the smell of the sea, a mix of salt, wet sand and reeds, drifts over the road.