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 Lomonosov it runs 371 km to Lomonosov; allow about 6 h 41 of riding. The stops in between: The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate, Pulkovskaya Observatory, Park «The Menagerie» and The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 49 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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» is where the day begins. Next is The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate.
On the north shore of the Neva Bay, at the edge of the modern city, lies Lakhta, a district that was a village of Finnish and Ingrian farmers when Peter the Great first built his capital. By the nineteenth century the waterfront was dotted with country estates for the St Petersburg aristocracy, and the Steinbock-Fermor family held one of them, a park of old trees and lawns with a manor house by the Gulf of Finland. The estate park, shaded and quiet, is the kind of place where the city's dacha culture began.
Read the complete The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate comes up about 49 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pulkovskaya Observatory.
On the Pulkovo heights, the low ridge south of St Petersburg, an observatory has been watching the sky since 1839. It was founded by Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, the German-born astronomer who became its first director, and it quickly became one of the leading observatories in the world, with the largest refracting telescope of its day. The Pulkovo meridian, running through the observatory's main building, served as the reference for Russian maps for many years. Struve also led the measurement of the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of survey triangulations stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, which helped determine the size and shape of the earth and is now a UNESCO site.
Read the complete Pulkovskaya Observatory write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 90 km into the recorded legs you reach Pulkovskaya Observatory. Next is Park «The Menagerie».
Gatchina is one of the great imperial estates ringing St Petersburg, and the Menagerie, the Zverinets, is its wild back garden: a large walled tract of forest north of the palace that was laid out in the eighteenth century as a hunting reserve, with deer and other game kept for the court. Today it is mostly woods, ponds and paths, and on a hot day it is the coolest place within reach.
Read the complete Park «The Menagerie» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Park «The Menagerie», about halfway. Next is The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha.
Here the Neva is a working river, broad and fast, carrying barges and the outflow of Lake Ladoga past factories and housing blocks on its way to the city. Yet on the left bank near Ust-Izhora, among the industry, survive the traces of a much older riverside life: the country houses, datchas in the old aristocratic sense, that Saint Petersburg's wealthy families built along the Neva in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with parks running down to the water. The ensemble of the Zinoviev datcha is one of them, included in the long list of estates, parks and buildings that make up the World Heritage Site around the historic centre of Saint Petersburg.
Read the complete The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through Park «The Menagerie».
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Park «The Menagerie» write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Park «The Menagerie» comes up about 231 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Pulkovskaya Observatory.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pulkovskaya Observatory write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 270 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Pulkovskaya Observatory. Next is back through The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 371 km.
The Zubov's Estate «Otrada» → The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate → Pulkovskaya Observatory is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pulkovskaya Observatory → Park «The Menagerie» is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Park «The Menagerie» → The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Ensemble of the Zinoviev's Datcha → back through Park «The Menagerie» is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Park «The Menagerie» → back through Pulkovskaya Observatory is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pulkovskaya Observatory → back through The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Steinbok-Fermor's Estate → The Zubov's Estate «Otrada» is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.