Where to Stay in Gatchina, Leningrad Oblast

What is Gatchina known for?

The Gatchina Palace holds the high ground above White Lake, the Priory Palace stands on a shore of its own below, and the Gatchina Museum-Preserve keeps both of them along with the follies scattered through the grounds. Sylvia park adjoins the Priorate park. Saint Paul Cathedral and the Pokrovsky Cathedral give the town its two large churches, and the Connetable obelisk belongs to the same imperial set.

What are the main landmarks in Gatchina?

The Gatchina Palace leads. Below it the park holds White Lake and Chyornoe Lake, the Priory Palace on its shore, the Eagle Column, the Pavilion of the Venus, the Birch Gate, the Berezovy Domik and the Chesmensky obelisk, all of it administered as the Gatchina Museum-Preserve. Churches account for the town.

Saint Paul Cathedral, the Pokrovsky Cathedral, Saint Nicholas Church, the Kolpanskaya Church and the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Carmel are the named ones, with the Shcherbov House, the Connetable and the Monument to Paul I of Vitali among the rest. Ekatherinwerder's Tower closes the list.

What is the history of Gatchina?

Imperial ground, then a town. The Gatchina Palace and its park set the pattern, and the Priory Palace, the Ménagerie, the Pavilion of the Venus and the Birch Gate all belong to that period of building rather than to the streets outside. Paul I is the name attached to it.

Vitali's monument to him stands in the town, and the Chesmensky obelisk and the Eagle Column come from the same taste for marking a park with stone. Water was part of the design. White Lake and Chyornoe Lake sit inside the grounds, and the Priory Palace was placed on a shore of its own, with the Priorate park laid out around it.

Rails reached the town next. Gatchina ended up with two terminals, the Varshavsky and the Baltic, which is more than most towns of its size ever acquired and a fair measure of the traffic moving between Saint Petersburg and Pskov. The record also carries the name Trotsk.

Parish building went on through all of it, leaving Saint Paul Cathedral, the Pokrovsky Cathedral, Saint Nicholas Church, the Kolpanskaya Church and the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Carmel to divide the town between them. The Shcherbov House survives among those streets, and the palace complex is held as the Gatchina Museum-Preserve, which is what keeps Ekatherinwerder's Tower and the Connetable standing. Gatchinsky District is run from here.

Where is Gatchina?

Lakes sit inside the town. Gatchina covers about 29 square kilometres of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, some 45 kilometres south-southwest of Saint Petersburg, with White Lake and Chyornoe Lake held within the palace park rather than pushed out to the edge. The E95 passes through.

That road runs between Saint Petersburg and Pskov, and Gatchinsky District spreads around the town on every side of it.

What is the climate of Gatchina?

White Lake freezes over. Winters here run dark and long, and the park paths between the Gatchina Palace and the Priory Palace become a walk for the well-wrapped rather than an idle hour among the trees. Summer opens the water.

Chyornoe Lake and the Priorate park draw people out through the light months, while the Museum-Preserve rooms take the days when rain settles over Leningrad Oblast.

How do you get to Gatchina?

Two terminals serve the town. The Varshavsky terminal and the Baltic terminal both stand in Gatchina, and either one links the palace park with Saint Petersburg, which lies 45 kilometres off along the same corridor. The E95 does the rest.

That highway runs between Saint Petersburg and Pskov, so a car reaches the Gatchina Palace gates about as directly as a train reaches the platforms.