CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
211 km from Kommunar to Kommunar, about 3 h 45 of riding. The stops in between: The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin, The Datcha of the Hospital, Fort «Seraya Loshad» and back through The Datcha of the Hospital. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 39 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Two imperial palaces lie at either end of this road, and between them the flat country south of Saint Petersburg still carries the scars of the twentieth century's worst siege. At the northern end is Pushkin, the former Tsarskoye Selo, where the Catherine Palace stretches its blue and white façade for hundreds of metres and the reconstructed Amber Room glows inside. At the southern end is Gatchina, Paul I's palace, grey and fortress-like, in a park of lakes and islands. The historic road between them is one of the many components of the World Heritage Site of the historic centre of Saint Petersburg and its related monuments.
Read the complete Highway Pushkin - Gatchina write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Highway Pushkin - Gatchina is where the day begins. Next is The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin.
On the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, between St Petersburg and Peterhof, the old road runs past a string of palaces and estates that the Russian elite built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to be near the sea and the court. Among them, near Strelna, stands the Trinity-Sergius Hermitage, a monastery founded in the eighteenth century as a dependency of the great Trinity Lavra of St Sergius near Moscow. It is part of the wide UNESCO listing of St Petersburg's historic centre and the monuments around it.
Read the complete The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Datcha of the Hospital.
Somewhere between Bolshaya Izhora and Lomonosov, along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, stood a summer house known as the Datcha of the Hospital. The name suggests one of the many country retreats built along this coast in the nineteenth century, when the road west from St Petersburg was lined with the estates of the aristocracy, merchants and institutions. Few of these houses survive intact, and the exact remains of this one are hard to pin down; it is better to take it as a pause on one of the most historic stretches of shore in Russia.
Read the complete The Datcha of the Hospital write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 75 km into the recorded legs you reach The Datcha of the Hospital. Next is Fort «Seraya Loshad».
Along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, west of Saint Petersburg, a low strip of pine forest and sand runs for kilometres between the road and the sea. Fort Seraya Loshad, the Grey Horse, stands in this coastal country, eleven kilometres from the village of Lebyazhye, among a group of forts built for the defence of the capital and the naval base at Kronstadt.
Read the complete Fort «Seraya Loshad» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort «Seraya Loshad», about halfway. Next is back through The Datcha of the Hospital.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Datcha of the Hospital write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Datcha of the Hospital sits at 137 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin comes up about 176 km into the recorded legs. Next is Highway Pushkin - Gatchina.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Highway Pushkin - Gatchina write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Highway Pushkin - Gatchina closes the day.
Highway Pushkin - Gatchina → The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin → The Datcha of the Hospital is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Datcha of the Hospital → Fort «Seraya Loshad» is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort «Seraya Loshad» → back through The Datcha of the Hospital is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Datcha of the Hospital → back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin → Highway Pushkin - Gatchina is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.