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.
A 303 km round trip from Kommunar - roughly 4 h 49 in the saddle. The stops in between: The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin, The Datcha of the Hospital, Izhorsky Bench and S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui». A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 Izhorsky Bench.
South of St Petersburg, the flat marshy plain of the Neva lowland suddenly steps up onto a limestone plateau. Geologists call the edge a glint or bench, and here, near Russko-Vysotskoye and Kipen, it forms a low but noticeable escarpment, the northern edge of the Izhora plateau. It is one of the natural features included in the wide UNESCO listing of St Petersburg and its surroundings, which recognises not only palaces and canals but the landscape the city was built against.
Read the complete Izhorsky Bench write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Izhorsky Bench, about halfway. Next is S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui», 34 km on.
Samuel Greig was a Scottish naval officer from Inverkeithing who rose to become an admiral in Catherine the Great's navy, and in 1788 he fought the Battle of Hogland against the Swedes in the Gulf of Finland, a few weeks before dying of fever at Reval. He is the S.K. Greig of the label, Samuil Karlovich in Russian style, and an estate on this coast called Sans Ennui is associated with the family, French for without boredom, a charming name for a country house. The site lies near Bolshaya Izhora, west of Lomonosov, where the land is flat, wooded and close to the water, and the Izhora river flows toward the gulf.
Read the complete S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui» sits at 136 km, about halfway. Next is back through Izhorsky Bench.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Izhorsky Bench write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Izhorsky Bench comes up about 189 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 229 km into the recorded legs you reach back through The Datcha of the Hospital. 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, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 303 km.
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 → Izhorsky Bench is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Izhorsky Bench → S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui» is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
S.K.Grieg's Estate «Sans Ennui» → back through Izhorsky Bench is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Izhorsky Bench → back through The Datcha of the Hospital is 40 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.