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.
From Pavlovsk it runs 344 km to Pavlovsk; allow about 4 h 57 of riding. It goes by way of Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov, The Road of Life and back through Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 58 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Pavlovsk's great park spreads over several hundred hectares along the Slavyanka river, a valley of meadows, groves and winding water that was designed as a landscape garden for the family of Tsar Paul I, with the palace by the Scottish architect Charles Cameron as its centrepiece. The name Mariental, meaning Maria's valley, recalls the empress Maria Feodorovna, who spent decades shaping the grounds after her husband's death. Little of it was left in 1944, when the retreating German army burned the palace and felled thousands of trees, and its restoration after the war took years of patient work.
Read the complete The Park «Mariental» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Park «Mariental» is where the day begins. Next is Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov.
Lomonosov was called Oranienbaum until 1948, and its history is a story of ambition. Prince Alexander Menshikov, Peter the Great's close friend and favourite, began a grand palace here in the early eighteenth century, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, and the name, meaning orange tree, came from its greenhouses. Later, the estate passed to the imperial family, and in the 1760s Catherine the Great had the Chinese Palace built in the park, a small, richly decorated pavilion with painted ceilings and exotic interiors. The ensemble is part of the UNESCO listing of Saint Petersburg and related monuments.
Read the complete Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov comes up about 58 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Road of Life.
On the south-eastern shore of Lake Ladoga, east of Saint Petersburg, a road ends at the water. This is the start of the Road of Life, the supply route across the ice that kept Leningrad alive during the siege of 1941 to 1944. The siege lasted 872 days, from September 1941 to January 1944, and it cut the city off from nearly everything except the lake. In the first winter, when Ladoga froze, trucks and horse-drawn sledges began to cross the ice with food and fuel, and on the return journey they carried out women, children and the sick. Lorries broke through the ice, and bombing and artillery attacked the route, but it kept going.
Read the complete The Road of Life write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 168 km into the recorded legs you reach The Road of Life. Next is back through Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov, late in the day. Next is The Park «Mariental».
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Park «Mariental» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at The Park «Mariental». That is the ride.
The Park «Mariental» → Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov → The Road of Life is 110 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Road of Life → back through Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov is 120 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Historical Centre of the Town of Lomonosov → The Park «Mariental» is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.