Peterhof is the one everyone has seen in photographs, with the golden statue of Samson tearing open a lion's jaws and the long canal running down to the Gulf of Finland. The Sobstvennaya Dacha, the Tsar's Own Dacha, is a quieter corner of the same ensemble, tucked into the parkland on the southern shore of the gulf. The ground here is the Izhorsky bench, a limestone shelf running east to west with a sudden step down toward the water.
That step is the key to understanding the whole landscape. Peter the Great chose to build his seaside residence at the top of it from 1710 onwards, so that spring water could be led downhill and made to fountain without any pumps. Later tsars added their own pavilions, cottages and chapels in the surrounding parks, each generation wanting a private retreat away from the formal palace. The whole estate was shattered in the Second World War, the great palace burned and the fountains dismantled or stolen, and the restoration afterwards is one of the great labours of Soviet and Russian conservation. Some of the smaller buildings are still catching up, which gives the lesser corners a quiet, slightly unfinished charm.
On a bike you arrive through Petrodvorets, a town of nearly sixty-two thousand people, where a petrol station and a meal are never far. The road from the city along the coast is fast and wide and rather dull, with heavy traffic at rush hour. Come out of season, or early, and the quieter side streets through the old residential districts, with their wooden houses and gardens, are far more pleasant. The shoreline woods are good for a short walk if the wind is not coming in cold off the gulf.
Be ready for crowds in summer. The fountains run from late spring to early autumn, and the parks fill with tour groups from midday. Early morning is the time to go, when the gravel is empty and the gilded statues catch the low sun. Winter has its own appeal, with the frozen canal and bare lime trees, but the roads then are icy and not for riders.