Curving colonnades
Around the court.
Александровы АГ — CC BY-SA 4.0 · MartinPutz — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Александровы АГ — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Александровы АГ — CC BY-SA 4.0 · GAlexandrova — CC BY-SA 4.0
Pavlovsk Palace is an 18th-century yellow and white imperial residence with a low dome and curving colonnaded wings. It stands in a vast English landscape park along the winding Slavyanka River. In 1777 Empress Catherine II gave about a thousand hectares of forest here to her son and heir Paul and his wife Maria Feodorovna, to mark the birth of their son Alexander. In 1780 the Scottish architect Charles Cameron designed the palace on a hill above the river in the Palladian style. After Paul's death it became his widow's home, and today it is a state museum and public park. You tour the palace rooms, then walk for hours in the park among bridges, classical temples and tree-lined paths; it is loveliest in autumn. It is about 29 km in a straight line south of central Saint Petersburg, and you reach it by train. The UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to Russia, and non-Russian bank cards may not work, so read the current advice before you plan.
Around the court.
Vast and wooded.
By the river.
Pavlovsk, south of Saint Petersburg
By train from Saint Petersburg.
Half a day for palace and park.