Why this ride
65 km from Krasnoye Selo to Krasnoye Selo, about 1 h 08 of riding. It goes by way of The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag, Oranienbaumsky Springboard and back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Krasnoe Selo and Oranienbaumsky Springboard
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 65 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 08
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Scenic road chapters
Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 17 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 19 km
- Named road
- Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Krasnoe Selo
Readers of Anna Karenina will know Krasnoye Selo, even if they have never been within a thousand kilometres of it. It was here, at the summer camp of the imperial guards, that Tolstoy set the officers' steeplechase in which Vronsky rides his mare Frou-Frou to disaster in front of the court. For more than a century, from the early nineteenth century until the revolution, the guards regiments of the Russian army gathered each summer in this area south-west of Saint Petersburg for manoeuvres, parades and horse races, and the tsar and the court came to watch. It is listed as one of the monuments associated with the historic centre of Saint Petersburg.
Read the complete Krasnoe Selo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Krasnoe Selo is where the day begins. Next is The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag.
2. The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag
Ropsha is one of those places where the scenery is gentle and the history is anything but. The village sits on the low Izhora Upland southwest of St Petersburg, between Krasnoe Selo and the coast road at Lomonosov, and the palace that gives the estate its name looks down over a chain of spring-fed ponds and a slow, wooded park. It was here, in July 1762, that the freshly deposed Emperor Peter III was held after his wife Catherine seized the throne, and here that he died a few days later under circumstances nobody at court cared to explain. Catherine became "the Great"; Ropsha became a footnote with a chill on it.
Read the complete The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag comes up about 14 km into the recorded legs. Next is Oranienbaumsky Springboard.
3. Oranienbaumsky Springboard
The Oranienbaum Springboard is not a single building but a piece of ground, and once you know the story the low woods and fields south of the Gulf of Finland look entirely different. In September 1941, as German and Finnish forces closed the ring around Leningrad, a pocket of coast around Oranienbaum, today's Lomonosov, held out. It was cut off from the city by land, supplied across the water and under the guns of Kronstadt, and it never fell. In January 1944 the Second Shock Army broke out of this pocket as one jaw of the offensive that finally lifted the siege.
Read the complete Oranienbaumsky Springboard write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 33 km into the recorded legs you reach Oranienbaumsky Springboard. Next is back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag.
4. back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag, late in the day. Next is Krasnoe Selo.
5. Krasnoe Selo
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Krasnoe Selo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Krasnoe Selo. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Krasnoe Selo to The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag
Krasnoe Selo → The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag to Oranienbaumsky Springboard
The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag → Oranienbaumsky Springboard is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oranienbaumsky Springboard to back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag
Oranienbaumsky Springboard → back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag to Krasnoe Selo
back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag → Krasnoe Selo is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.