Wednesday Walk to the Belvedere Palace

This imperial palace is located away from the popular tourist trails. You are unlikely to get to its walls together with a sightseeing tour of Peterhof. Even an individual guide will suggest that you choose some other palace to see, and only if you insist, will agree to take you on this route.

The difficulty of the route is that if you use a car, your way will pass through the countryside. You will drive for a long time past new cottages, which are very convenient for country life, but can hardly be considered architectural masterpieces. Such a road will not prepare you for visiting the palace - you will just get tired and bored.

The right route to see this architectural gem - a route that will help you feel the atmosphere and mood of the place - is through the park alleys. You will have to walk through the whole park and come out to its outskirts, and then climb up a rather high hill.

On the way you will be able to admire nature - but only just. There are very few sights in this park, except for the natural ones, and the unfortunate guide will not be able to tell you: "look left, look right". It doesn't matter which way you look: you'll see the lake anyway.

Eventually you will come to a distant lake, on the opposite shore of which you can see a hillock topped by an elegant multi-columned building. This country house bears the name "Belvedere Palace". It was built by the architect Andrei Shtakenshneider for Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Emperor Nicholas I.

The palace was built on the highest point of the Babigon Hill, and from the terrace of the palace you can enjoy beautiful views of the surrounding lakes and meadows. The park we traveled through towards the palace has the double name "Meadow Park" or "Lake Park". Both of these names are used by locals - and both perfectly capture the essence of this park.

Meadow Park, or Lake Park, was created around a hydraulic system organized to supply water to the fountains of Peterhof. Water runs by gravity for many kilometers along straight channels, and on the way fills ponds and feeds lakes. The main attraction of this park is the hydraulic system itself. The redistribution of water between the canals and lakes is regulated by a series of dams and locks.

There are only two architectural attractions in this park. The main one is the Belvedere Palace and the other is the ruins of the Tower Pavilion. After seeing the palace, I reached these ruins. I chose a road that started at the palace walls and was paved with old cobblestones. But, as it turned out, it was not a good choice.

I almost got lost along that way. The map showed a trail leading from the hilltop to one of the lakes, but in reality the trail turned into barely mown grass pretty quickly. Do you see the trail in these photos? It's there. I made sure I didn't lose my way when I had to ford the ditch - the bridge over the ditch had recently been upgraded and the crossing was easy.

Fortunately, this section of the trail was quite short and I soon came to an old park alley. And then it was just a couple steps to the canal that carries its waters to the fountains - walking along the bank of a perfectly straight canal, it's hard to lose your way.

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Smartphone	Google Pixel 3a
Location	Peterhof, Saint Petersburg, Russia

This is my entry for the #WednesdayWalk challenge by @tattoodjay.