The Maritime Channel and The Water-bringing system of Peterhof

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. The Maritime Channel

   Stand on the shore anywhere near Kronstadt and you are looking at a dredged highway hidden under the water. The Maritime Channel, the Sea Canal of St Petersburg, was cut through the shallow Neva Bay in the late nineteenth century, opening in 1885, so that large ships could reach the city's port directly instead of unloading at Kronstadt. Before it existed, the bay was too shallow for anything but small vessels, and cargo had to be transferred to lighters, a slow and expensive business. The channel runs for around thirty kilometres from the open gulf to the mouth of the Neva, marked by buoys and lights, and it remains the main artery for ships entering the city.

   Read the complete The Maritime Channel write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The Maritime Channel is where the day begins. Next is Gostilitskoe Highway.

2. 2. Gostilitskoe Highway

   Peterhof is famous for its fountains, and the road called Gostilitskoe runs along the high ground behind the palace, where the water begins. When Peter the Great decided in the early eighteenth century to build a rival to Versailles on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, the engineers had a problem, because the ground at the shore is flat, and a fountain needs a head of water. They found springs and ponds on the Ropsha heights, a few kilometres inland, and built a system of canals, reservoirs and pipes that carried water downhill to the palace by gravity alone, without a single pump. That system, the Water-bringing system of Peterhof, still works, and it is a marvel of its time.

   Read the complete Gostilitskoe Highway write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Gostilitskoe Highway comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Northern battery No. 4, 25 km on.

3. 3. Northern battery No. 4

   Kotlin Island lies in the Gulf of Finland, at the entrance to the Neva, and its job for three centuries has been to guard St Petersburg from the sea. Peter the Great founded the naval base of Kronstadt here in 1704, and the island, long and narrow, was ringed with forts, batteries and artificial islands. The northern batteries, of which No. 4 is one, belong to that long chain, built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the guns grew bigger and the ships more dangerous. They are low, grass-covered earthworks and brick casemates facing the water, and on grey days the place has a lonely, military feel. The sea is shallow here and often frozen in winter.

   Read the complete Northern battery No. 4 write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Northern battery No. 4. Next is The Water-bringing system of Peterhof.

4. 4. The Water-bringing system of Peterhof

   The fountains of Peterhof run without a single pump, and that is the cleverest thing about them. When Peter the Great planned his gardens in the 1710s and 1720s, engineers led by Vasily Tuvolkov worked out that the water of the Ropsha hills, about twenty kilometres to the south, stood high enough above the Gulf of Finland to feed the fountains by gravity alone. They dug canals, built ponds and laid pipes, so that the water flows from the heights to the Upper Garden and down to the Great Cascade, where it shoots high into the air. The system, still essentially the same, is part of the UNESCO listing for Saint Petersburg.

   Read the complete The Water-bringing system of Peterhof write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The Water-bringing system of Peterhof, about halfway. Next is back through Northern battery No. 4, 25 km on.

5. 5. back through Northern battery No. 4

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Northern battery No. 4 write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Northern battery No. 4 sits at 100 km, about halfway. Next is back through Gostilitskoe Highway.

6. 6. back through Gostilitskoe Highway

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Gostilitskoe Highway write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Gostilitskoe Highway comes up about 175 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Maritime Channel.

7. 7. The Maritime Channel

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete The Maritime Channel write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The Maritime Channel closes the day.