CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
221 km from Gostilitsy to Gostilitsy, about 3 h 53 of riding. On the way it passes The Zubov's Estate «Otrada», Northern battery No. 7, The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo and back through Northern battery No. 7. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 24 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.
For 25 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.
Gostilitsy is a village on the Izhora Upland, west of Ropsha and south of Peterhof, and it is one of those places near St Petersburg where the imperial past hides behind fences and overgrown trees. The estate here is associated with Alexei Razumovsky, the Ukrainian Cossack singer who rose to become the favourite and, by many accounts, the secret husband of Empress Elizabeth in the eighteenth century. The palace and park ensemble that grew up around the manor included a house, a church, ponds and landscaped grounds fed by springs, and it is listed among the monuments of the historic centre of St Petersburg and related groups, a UNESCO site that includes many of the palaces and estates around the city.
Read the complete The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag is where the day begins. Next is The Zubov's Estate «Otrada».
Oranienbaum is the old name of Lomonosov, and the story of the town begins with a man who liked to build on a grand scale. Alexander Menshikov, one of Peter the Great's closest friends, laid out a palace here on the south shore of the Gulf of Finland in the early eighteenth century, and the place became a favourite residence of the imperial family. Today its park and palaces are part of the Saint Petersburg ensemble that UNESCO listed in 1990.
Read the complete The Zubov's Estate «Otrada» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Zubov's Estate «Otrada» comes up 26 km in. Next is Northern battery No. 7, 25 km on.
Not every stop on a route has a story that belongs to one fort, and this one belongs to a coastline. The north shore of the Gulf of Finland, between Sestroretsk and Lisy Nos, is a flat, sandy and pine-covered strip of land that was once Finnish territory, and the batteries and forts built on it, including the one the label calls Fort Constantin, were part of the same defensive system that guarded Kronstadt from the other side. The names Gorskaya and Tarkhovka belong to the settlements around, and the Dam, the huge flood barrier that links the island with the mainland, lands at this shore.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 7 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
51 km in you reach Northern battery No. 7. Next is The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo.
Anna Akhmatova is buried here. The cemetery of Komarovo is a small, quiet graveyard among pines on the Karelian Isthmus, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland about forty kilometres north-west of Saint Petersburg, and her grave, a simple stone with a cross, is the one that people come to find. She died in 1966, and loved the little cottage she was given in the village, which she called her Booth. The cemetery also holds the grave of the scholar Dmitry Likhachev, and a scattering of writers, artists and scientists who spent their summers in this dacha colony, once reserved for the Soviet cultural elite.
Read the complete The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo, about halfway. Next is back through Northern battery No. 7, 25 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Northern battery No. 7 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Northern battery No. 7 sits at 102 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Zubov's Estate «Otrada».
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Zubov's Estate «Otrada» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Zubov's Estate «Otrada» comes up 128 km in. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag closes the day.
The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag → The Zubov's Estate «Otrada» is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Zubov's Estate «Otrada» → Northern battery No. 7 is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Northern battery No. 7 → The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Cemetery of the Village of Komarovo → back through Northern battery No. 7 is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Northern battery No. 7 → back through The Zubov's Estate «Otrada» is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Zubov's Estate «Otrada» → The Palace and Park Ensemble of the Villag is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.