Why this ride
128 km from Krasnoye Selo to Krasnoye Selo, about 2 h 23 of riding. It goes by way of The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag, Oranienbaumsky Springboard, The Maximov's Datcha and The Alexandriysky Park.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Krasnoe Selo and The Alexandriysky Park
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 128 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 23
- 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
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 17 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go — slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 17 km
- Named road
- Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore
Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore
For about 16 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 16 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 16 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 The Maximov's Datcha.
4. The Maximov's Datcha
The south shore of the Gulf of Finland west of St Petersburg is a strip of dachas, palaces and old military ground, and the place marked here as Maximov's Datcha sits within it, a couple of kilometres from the town of Lomonosov.
Read the complete The Maximov's Datcha write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The Maximov's Datcha, about halfway. Next is The Alexandriysky Park.
5. The Alexandriysky Park
The garden at Alexandria is a nineteenth-century romantic dream laid out at Peterhof for Tsar Nicholas I and his wife, Alexandra, a place of Gothic towers, winding paths and a small cottage palace by the sea. It lies a little to the west of the great fountains of the lower park, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, and its mood is quite different: quiet, wooded and slightly melancholy. The Gothic Chapel, designed in the style of an English country church, stands among the trees, and the Cottage Palace beside it was a family retreat where the emperor could escape the formality of court life.
Read the complete The Alexandriysky Park write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The Alexandriysky Park sits at 66 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Maximov's Datcha.
6. back through The Maximov's Datcha
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Maximov's Datcha write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through The Maximov's Datcha comes up about 81 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Oranienbaumsky Springboard.
7. back through Oranienbaumsky Springboard
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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 97 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Oranienbaumsky Springboard. Next is back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag.
8. 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.
9. 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
The route ends here after 128 km.
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 16 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 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oranienbaumsky Springboard to The Maximov's Datcha
Oranienbaumsky Springboard → The Maximov's Datcha is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Maximov's Datcha to The Alexandriysky Park
The Maximov's Datcha → The Alexandriysky Park is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Alexandriysky Park to back through The Maximov's Datcha
The Alexandriysky Park → back through The Maximov's Datcha is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Maximov's Datcha to back through Oranienbaumsky Springboard
back through The Maximov's Datcha → back through Oranienbaumsky Springboard is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Oranienbaumsky Springboard to back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag
back through Oranienbaumsky Springboard → back through The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag is 17 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 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.