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 168 km round trip from Gatchina - roughly 3 h 20 in the saddle. It goes by way of The Park «Alexandrova Datchs», The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha, The Palace and Park of the Mikhailovskaya and back through The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha. The line favours views over speed.
22 km on A-121 Ladoga and Sortavala.
Gatchina is the kind of town you reach by flat, straight Ingrian roads, and the first impression is of birch, pine and wide skies rather than anything dramatic. Forty-odd kilometres south-west of St Petersburg, it sits on land that was once swampy and sparsely settled, until the eighteenth century decided otherwise. Catherine the Great gave the estate to her favourite Grigory Orlov, and the architect Antonio Rinaldi built him a severe, castle-like palace of local limestone beside a lake. After Orlov died it passed to her son Paul, who made it his private kingdom, drilled his soldiers on the parade ground and added the odd fortress-style touches that suited his nature.
Read the complete Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina is where the day begins. Next is The Park «Alexandrova Datchs».
Pavlovsk is among the largest landscape parks in Europe, and it began as a gift. In 1777 Catherine the Great gave the land to her son Paul, and he and his wife built a palace and a park here, which was designed by the Scottish architect Charles Cameron and then expanded over decades. The park covers more than five hundred hectares, and its mix of woods, meadows, rivers and pavilions is a model of the English landscape style adapted to the Russian plain.
Read the complete The Park «Alexandrova Datchs» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Park «Alexandrova Datchs» comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha.
Here the Neva is a working river, broad and fast, carrying barges and the outflow of Lake Ladoga past factories and housing blocks on its way to the city. Yet on the left bank near Ust-Izhora, among the industry, survive the traces of a much older riverside life: the country houses, datchas in the old aristocratic sense, that Saint Petersburg's wealthy families built along the Neva in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with parks running down to the water. The ensemble of the Zinoviev datcha is one of them, included in the long list of estates, parks and buildings that make up the World Heritage Site around the historic centre of Saint Petersburg.
Read the complete The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 62 km into the recorded legs you reach The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha. Next is The Palace and Park of the Mikhailovskaya.
Carlo Rossi did not design a palace so much as a piece of a city. Between 1819 and 1825 he built the Mikhailovsky Palace for Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, younger brother of Alexander I, and at the same time laid out the square in front of it and the streets leading to it, so that the façades all answer one another. Today the palace houses the Russian Museum, which holds one of the greatest collections of Russian art anywhere, from medieval icons through Repin's huge canvases to Malevich and the avant-garde. Behind it the Mikhailovsky Garden runs down to the Moika, shaded and calm in the middle of the city.
Read the complete The Palace and Park of the Mikhailovskaya write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Palace and Park of the Mikhailovskaya, about halfway. Next is back through The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha sits at 103 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Park «Alexandrova Datchs».
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Park «Alexandrova Datchs» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Park «Alexandrova Datchs» comes up about 140 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina closes the day.
Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina → The Park «Alexandrova Datchs» is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Park «Alexandrova Datchs» → The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha → The Palace and Park of the Mikhailovskaya is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Palace and Park of the Mikhailovskaya → back through The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha → back through The Park «Alexandrova Datchs» is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Park «Alexandrova Datchs» → Historical Centre of the Town of Gatchina is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.