Peterhof is the tsars' answer to Versailles, strung along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland about thirty kilometres west of St Petersburg, and Sergievka belongs to its quieter western fringe. Think of it less as one famous building than as a country estate in the old Peterhof manner, with a house, an overgrown park, ponds and lawns, laid out when noble families built summer retreats close to the court.
The ride out follows the shore road from St Petersburg, the old Peterhof highway, which runs more or less straight past Strelna and into the town, and it is a dull road made worse by traffic, lorries and a surface that holds puddles. Sunday evenings out of the city can be slow. Summer is the season for it: the white nights make a ride at ten in the evening entirely practical, the sky holding a soft pink glow over the bay long after midnight. In winter the gulf freezes and the park is bare, snow-streaked and very quiet.
Peterhof town has some seventy thousand people, which means petrol stations, cafes, a market and no shortage of places to sit, and the neighbouring old quarter, Petrodvorets, has the faded grandeur you expect from a place that was nearly razed in 1941 to 1944. The Germans held it for nearly three years, the fountains were looted and the Great Palace burnt out, and the post-war restoration took decades. The sight of those gilded statues glinting again is a small triumph of obstinacy.
Parking is the one practical hurdle. The main palace grounds charge entrance and have their own queues, while Sergievka and the neighbouring parks are more relaxed, and a bike can usually slip in where a car cannot. Take water, because the walk through the grounds is longer than it looks on a map, and bring a rain jacket, since the Baltic weather can turn within the hour.