Peterhof: the Fountain Parks and the Palace

Peterhof is the residence Peter I meant to outshine Versailles, and its fountains still work without a single pump. This tour takes you there by car along the old Peterhof road, combines a palace interior with the Lower Park, and brings you back to the city in about an hour.

The route

The Peterhof road. The drive is part of the tour. Country estates of the St Petersburg nobility once lined this road, and you pass the Konstantinovsky Palace at Strelna on the way.

A palace. Either the Grand Palace, whose 268-metre facade Rastrelli rebuilt in exuberant baroque for Empress Elizabeth, or one of the small palaces. Monplaisir, Peter’s favourite, stands right at the water’s edge and holds Russia’s first collection of European paintings. Marly, named after Louis XIV’s residence, has just twelve rooms. In the small palaces the tsars lived without ceremony, and their everyday objects are still there.

The Lower Park. An unhurried walk along two and a half kilometres of park by the Gulf of Finland, with 147 fountains fed by gravity from the Ropsha heights. You see the Grand Cascade with more than two hundred gilded figures, and Samson, raised for the victory at Poltava, whose jet reaches twenty metres. Then come the black-and-white Chessboard Hill with its dragons, the paired marble Roman fountains and the Pyramid with its 505 jets. The Lion Cascade, the Golden Hill with its gilded steps and the Favourite, where a little dog chases ducks, complete the walk.

The trick fountains. The oldest have been catching visitors out since 1723. Children love them; adults tend to get wet.

Your guide also explains how the park was smashed in 1941, how more than eight thousand objects were evacuated, and how Samson was running again by 1947.

Good to know

• The tour lasts about five hours, including the drive both ways. The meeting point is agreed at booking.
• The car and tickets to the Lower Park and to the Grand Palace or a small palace are included; meals are not.
• In the park your guide works with your party alone. Inside the palace you join a museum group.
• The fountains run from late April to mid-October. Which cascades you see depends on the palace you choose and how long you spend inside.
• The tour is private.

Who it suits

First-time visitors who want the classic Peterhof day with a palace interior, families who would rather not handle trains and tickets, and anyone who prefers a guided walk to finding their own way around a very large park.