Wednesday, 24 July (continued).  Our tour group arrived at Peterhof (Petrodvorets) about 2:00. This magnificent complex of buildings and gardens is situated on the south coast of the Gulf of Finland, 18 miles from St Petersburg. It was named by and for Peter the Great, who began developing an imperial summer residence here as early as 1710. His relatively modest palace was inaugurated in 1723, but most of this structure was replaced by the Grand Palace built by his daughter, Elizabeth, over a ten year period (1747-1756). Remarkably, the building we see today was built under Stalin after the original was almost totally destroyed during World War II. The restoration effort took 17 years (1947- 1964).

The Grand Palace stands roughly in the center of a natural incline that slopes north down the Gulf of Finland. To the south lies the Upper Park; to the north, the Grand Cascade and the Lower Park. These are replete with canals, pools and 144 fountains of every description, all supplied with water by a gravity-fed water system almost 14 miles long. No pumps!

Grand Palace & grounds seen from the north

West tower of Palace

Grand Palace from the south (Upper Park)

Our tour approached the palace from the south side where we had a limited view of the fountains and statuary of the Upper Garden. We were greeted there by musicians in period costumes. We spent an hour and a half seeing the interior of the Grand Palace. How many times can I say magnificent? This palace, like the Winter Palace and the Catherine Palace, equaled or surpassed the opulence of anything we'd seen in the rest of Europe. The pictures here give some idea of the rooms we visited, though I'm sure I photographed less than a third of them.

Musicians welcome us

Ballroom

Throne Room

Oriental Room

Picture Room

View from window

Dining Room

Alcove for bed

Small Tea Room

While we were impressed by the interior of the palace, the view as we exited on the north side was absolutely breathtaking. We were at the top of the Grand Cascade, looking out over the Lower Park, bisected by the Marine Canal. The Grand Cascade consists of several successive levels resplendent with gilded statues and glistening fountains. And fortunately we had the sun to help show them off in their full glory. The Cascade was even more impressive from below, if that's possible. 

Part of Lower Park seen from Palace terrace

The Grand Cascade

Jane

Palace & Grand Cascade

We walked north parallel to the Marine Canal and crossed it at the first bridge. The view back to the palace was magnificent. The Lower Park was filled with smaller palaces, statues, flowers, and fountains of all kinds. One fountain had six mechanical ducks in it, swimming in a circle and spouting water from their bills.

Darrell & mechanical ducks

View back toward Palace

Jane in Lower Park

Some of the fountains were "hidden" and came on suddenly to spray anyone stepping on a certain stone. Of course, no one had to worry about getting a surprise shower from them because mobs of screaming kids had found all the secret stones and were stepping on them to get themselves sprayed. At one point along the shore where a fountain rose from a solid rock, we had a view of St. Petersburg in the distance across the Gulf of Finland. 

View back to St. Petersburg

Sun Fountain

Roman Fountain

We had to head back to the bus at 4:45. Although we saw only a small fraction of the Lower Park, we thought it exceeded any other palace gardens we'd seen. 

Church near Peterhof

The bus stopped briefly at a large and very ornate church just off the Peterhof grounds. Then we took off for the city, arriving at the Tolstoy at 6:00. Our suitcases had been delivered to our cabin for the morning's departure for the U.S., but there was little time to pack. It was a rush just to eat dinner and get changed for the evening ballet at the Hermitage Theater.

We were on the last bus, and the two-hour performance of Giselle, arranged specifically for the Tolstoy passengers, began at 8:00, about 30 seconds after we were seated.

Hermitage Theater "Giselle"

After the performance, our bus took us back to the Tolstoy by a different route and made it in 25 minutes. Many of us wondered why we'd been taking the 60-minute route down Nevsky Prospect on all our other rides to and from the Winter Palace area.

As Jane and I boarded the boat, Marina approached us. She said our son Larry had phoned earlier and would call back shortly. We knew it had to be very bad news. Around 11:00 Marina brought her cell phone to our cabin and we spoke to Larry. He informed us that my niece and her son had been murdered. But there was nothing we could do to hasten our return since we already were scheduled to depart early the next morning. We packed until midnight, then went to bed.