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Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

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      Gatchina: Paul I’s castle and the Priory

      ⏱ 10 h🚶 6 km + 🚆🍽 3📍 6 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      By train to Gatchina: a palace-castle, a lake park and the Priory Palace made of earth.

      🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature🚆 Out of town
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps (with transit)
      1. 1
        ☕️ Civil
        Волынский пер., 6 / Большая Конюшенная ул., 19
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        Breakfast in the city
        🍴 A coffee shop with strong coffee (filter, funnel) and all-day breakfasts a couple of steps from Nevsky. What to order: brioche with bacon, poached egg and dor blu sauce, syrniki with cherry and whipped condensed milk, pancakes with bacon.
      2. 🚆 metro to Baltiyskaya, then a train from Baltiysky Station to Gatchina-Baltiyskaya at 08:55 or 10:55 (≈1 h), ≈10 min on foot from the station
      3. 2
        🖼 Gatchina Palace
        Гатчина, Красноармейский пр., 1
        🚪 entrance from Krasnoarmeysky Prospekt
        🎟 ticket
        Paul I's castle-residence with state rooms, an arsenal and an underground passage to Silver Lake.
        Closed on Mondays
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Gatchina Palace
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Gatchina Palace
        © Tsyganov Sergey · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The palace was built in 1766–1781 to Antonio Rinaldi's design for Grigory Orlov, Catherine II's favourite.
        • After Orlov's death Catherine bought Gatchina from his brothers in 1783 and gave it to her son, the future Paul I.
        • The monument to Paul I on the parade ground in front of the palace was unveiled on 1 August 1851.
        • The museum opened on 19 May 1918, and before the war the palace was called the "suburban Hermitage".
        • In 1944, while retreating, German troops burned the palace: the decoration of all the halls was lost, and the interiors have been restored since 1976.
        • The 18th-century tower clock was recreated and started on 12 December 1993.
        • The palace was a film location for Poor, Poor Paul, The Three Musketeers (2013) and War and Peace (2016).
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🍽 Tsarskaya Usadba
        Гатчина, Красноармейский проспект, 1 (Кухонное каре Гатчинского дворца)
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Lunch in the palace’s Kitchen Wing
        🍴 A Russian-cuisine restaurant in the Kitchen Quadrangle of the Gatchina Palace itself, opened in autumn 2025; there is a business lunch on weekdays. What to order: borscht with salo and vegetable tincture, Pozharsky cutlet, duck leg, pâté of young hen liver.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🌳 Gatchina Palace Park
        Гатчина, Красноармейский пр., 1 (вход через плац у дворца)
        🎟 ticket · the Palace Park requires a ticket; the Priory Park and the Menagerie are free
        A landscape park with lakes, islands, pavilions and the Humpback Bridge around the palace.
        White Lake and little bridges
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Gatchina Palace Park
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Gatchina Palace Park
        © Artem Topchiy · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The park covers 143 hectares and is the oldest of the Gatchina parks.
        • In 1766 Grigory Orlov wrote to invite Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Gatchina, praising its lakes and hillocks.
        • The Eagle Column is the oldest structure in the park: it is first mentioned in 1770.
        • The Pavilion of Venus on Love Island is a copy of the pavilion at Chantilly and has been under construction since 1792.
        • The amphitheatre of 1797, designed by Nikolai Lvov, was built for knightly tournaments — "carousels".
        • Under Paul, the park's Admiralty built and housed the ships of Gatchina's "toy" fleet.
        • In 1794 a single contractor received an order to plant 16,500 lime trees.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🖼 Priory Palace
        Гатчина, ул. Чкалова, 22
        🎟 ticket
        The only surviving rammed-earth palace in Russia, on the shore of Black Lake, built for the Order of Malta.
        A palace made of rammed earth
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Priory Palace
        © Alexander Konovalenko · CC BY-SA 2.5
        Priory Palace
        © Елена Нечипоренко · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The palace was built by the architect Nikolai Lvov; the emperor accepted it on 22 August 1799.
        • The rammed-earth walls were raised in three months of 1798 and cost 2,000 roubles against 25,000 for stone ones.
        • Before construction, the strength of rammed earth was tested on the trial corner of a cottage: ladies poked it with umbrellas, officers hacked at it with broadswords.
        • From the Black Lake side the palace looks as if it stands on an island; its appearance has no symmetry.
        • In the 1880s singers of the Court Chapel were housed in the palace — it was adapted to accommodate 50 people.
        • Restoration went on from the early 1980s and was mostly completed by 2004.
        • According to legend, an underground passage led from here to the Grand Palace; restorers did find a stone tunnel, but where it goes has not been established.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🍽 Dubok
        Гатчина, проспект 25 Октября, 2, корп. 2
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Dinner before the train
        🍴 An old restaurant at the edge of the Palace Park: a grill, European and pan-Asian cuisine, a terrace and tables with a view of the park. What to order: lamb or beef shashlik, borscht, stroganina of bonito.

      ↩️ Getting back: From Gatchina-Baltiyskaya to Baltiysky Station (≈1 h 5 min): daily 17:55, 18:56, 21:59, on weekdays also 19:38 and 21:05; at 20:29 from Gatchina-Varshavskaya (timetable for October 2026)

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      Data: © OpenStreetMap · DB-IP · weather — Open-Meteo
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