At 10.00 am we caught a hydrofoil down the Neva river and across the sea to Peterhof, a ‘holiday’ palace built by Peter the Great on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. Peterhof is famed for its gardens and marvellous fountains. It’s remarkable to learn that these amazing fountains were commissioned without the use of pumps – they are all fed and driven by gravity. There a several small but grand houses in the huge grounds used for different purposes. We visited one that was built as a bath house for the imperial family. This contained a number of elaborate baths, showers and steam baths for their use. A separate house contains the same facilities for senior courtiers. Some of these contraptions are incredibly sophisticated even by today’s standards e.g. a bath that lowers its user directly into the water – saving him or her the effort of having to step in or out of the bath. I have included a couple of photos. All through the huge gardens are different fountains, pavilions, statues and gorgeous garden beds and trees – mist of which were on the verge of blossoming when we visited. The photography will be stunning when everything’s in full bloom. The main palace at Peterhof, which is a beautiful yellow colour, sits on the crest of a hill overlooking the gulf. Beneath this beautiful baroque structure is a stunning arrangement of gold statues built into an amazing cascading fountain called, fittingly, the Grand Cascade. Words cannot really do this justice and you need to take a look at my photos to get a sense of the true splendor of this sight. Simply breathtaking! We didn’t go inside the palace at Peterhof as we’d be doing a fair bit of schlepping around palaces elsewhere in our itinerary.