Saint Petersburg, Russia, Day 1 (Part Two) - Peterhof Park, Cherdak (Чердак) Cafe

11am Woke up and had breakfast which was home made pancakes with jam and cheese.  Remember I didn't sleep much the night before, so I was still pretty tired.

1pm Left the apartment and caught the metro from from Pionerskaya to Avtovo.  Here's what Avtovo station looks like, where the platforms are.  Price of the metro for 1 trip is 27 rubles.

Avtovo station.

From avtovo station we caught the bus to Peterhof also known was Petrodvorets.  The journey took about half an hour.  Our point of destination was the Peterhof gardens.  Price of the bus was 70 rubles and the entrance fee to the gardens was 450 rubles for non-Russians ("special price for you!" anyone?) and 200 rubles for Russians.

Peterhof is very popular, I wanted to visit this area earlier this year but it wasn't the right season for it.  It's better weather now.  It's known as the "Russian Versaille".  The park and garden can be described in one word, huge.  Here's an aerial view from Google maps.  The gardens extend all the way to the baltic sea, which you can see partially from the map, top right quadrant.


View Larger Map

The entrance is along Sankt-Petersburgskiy prospekt.

Here are photos taken in the gardens, I took over 200 and couldn't upload all of them so here's just a sample.

The palace, taken from the upper gardens.

Poseidon in front of the palace.

Statues, lots of them around the park.

A short walk off to the right you come to the lower gardens, and this is where you have to pay before you can continue.

There's a loooot of people.  I overheard some Chinese them saying (translated) "Ooooh this spot is good, let's wait for the lao wai (foreigners) to leave and then we'll take photos there".

Lots of people and it's a weekday!  Much more crowded on weekends.

The Grand Cascade fountains leading to the baltic sea.  Notice the checkered tiles which is illuminati symbolism.

The Grand Cascade from the bottom of the steps, with the palace at the back.

Some Greek God, not sure who though.

Samson tearing the lion's mouth.

Fancy water outlet.

Another view of the Grand Cascade from a bridge.

The other side of the bridge.

One of many fountains.  This is Adam, or rather, a view of his behind.

Another fountain.  This was taken near a shop that sold ice cream.  We stopped here for ice cream, it was a good time to have ice cream as it was pretty warm.

Fancy gardens, and lots of them.

This blue train arrived out of nowhere.

Charming.

This area had little fountains that sprayed water out, it's manually activated by employees hiding in the bushes.

People getting sprayed.  We got sprayed too, well we didn't want to take the long way to the other side, so we took the short way and got sprayed!!

People playing music in the park.  I have a short recording of this.

Another fancy fountain where you have to get wet in order to get a picture!

Sundial fountain.

Taken along the coast.  The park stretches all the way along the coast.

Another garden.

Along the coast.

Poseidon, God of the sea, and an old man who wants to be him.  There were so many people around this statue it was impossible not to take a picture without anyone in it!

I think this is Eve, and on the other side of the park was Adam.

Another massive fountain surrounded by a massive column structure.

Another area of the park.

Me and pigeon.

Some column remnants.

Squirrel!  There was a little girl wanting to feed it, so it came down the tree and posed for me.

Close to 7pm they started to turn off the water for the fountains.  So we started to make our way back to the city.

No more water!  This was the last fountain we saw before making our way back to the upper gardens.

Part of the upper gardens.

The Cathedral of Peter and Paul (Собор Петра и Павла (Петергоф)), which is located nearby.  It took 10 years to build, from 1894 to 1904.  A's grandmother has a jigsaw puzzle of this cathedral in Latvia.

Walking to the bus stop to catch the bus back to the city, I saw this.

Spotted bulldozer.

The Baltic Pearl, St. Petersburg's Chinese-built "urban glamour zone", this is the administrative building.  The project is financed by by a Chinese consortium.  I took this from the bus.

6:45pm Caught the metro!

Metro station.

Inside the train.

7:20pm Arrived at our dinner stop, "Cherdak" or Attic.  They have a cool URL, check it out here.

The interior, not smoking area.

Chicken salad and buckwheat with mushroms.

Mulled red wine and non alcoholic mojito.

We also had pelmeni dumplings with salmon fillings and borsch as well, but I didn't take any photos.  After a filling dinner, it was back home.  Lights out was around after midnight.