June 30, 2018 - As we finish our time in St Petersburg, why not go out with a bang. When Peter the Great, the son of Pete ‘the Mostly Ok’, visited Paris he wanted to build a palace that rivaled Versailles. What you see above is the result. This is Peterhof Palace, one of many summer residences of the King. All the fountains run by gravity alone.
Peter the Great was a ferocious builder. Despite completely transforming the city of St Petersburg he rarely stayed anywhere long. In fact, he built the opulent summer residence above, but did not live in it. He stayed in a much smaller residence that was rather humble by these standards. So he only used the Peterhof Palace for entertaining.
In WWII, when Germans laid siege to what was then Leningrad, they occupied and razed this place to the ground. It was a very Nazi thing to do. This is the rebuilt Palace and fountains surrounded by a park that spans hundreds of acres.
The same is true for the 'cottage' you see below. This is the summer palace of Catherine the Great. Remember, her 'Winter Palace', shown earlier, was the Hermitage. Unbelievably, this building was even bigger. These structures are enormous and so over the top compared to the poverty of the peasants that surrounded the area that I found it little wonder that there was an uprising and overthrow of the monarchy.
Tomorrow we leave for Helsinki Finland
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