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To start the day, we take the train towards Tsárskoye Seló. The Vitebsk station is beautiful, with its old structures like Austerlitz station. There is the statue of the man who made the first railway line in Russia, in 1837 (the one we are going to take): The knight Franz Anton von Gerstner.

Here is the door of the palace park, all brick, with behind, the tea house. Several canals cross the park. And at the end of a very long drive ... the palace is offered to the view.

The palace originated in 1717, when Catherine I of Russia hired a German architect, Johann-Friedrich Braunstein, to build a summer palace for her entertainment. The Empress Isabel remodeled the palace to her taste in 1752, making it more luxurious and using more than 100 kilos of gold for the facade and statues of the roof.

However, the Palace is associated with Catherine II of Russia (called the Great), who stopped the work when she learned the high costs and who criticized the imprudent extravagance of the Empress Isabel in her memoirs.
The Palace was ransacked by Nazi troops during the Second World War, but was rebuilt for the tricentenary of the city of St. Petersburg in 2003.
The outside is really huge (300m long for the main building), as is the park (a hundred hectares!).

For the interior, the gold and the mirrors are everywhere, the big ballroom, worthy of a disney castle with its almost 900m ².
Among the most interesting pieces of the palace are the ballroom and, above all, the amber room, a luxurious Tsar room whose walls the floor and the furniture are composed of thousands of pieces of real amber (a precious stone composed of plant resin). This room was dismantled by the Germans and transferred to Königsberg Castle, where it was exposed in 1941.

No pictures of the amber room unfortunately, the photos are prohibited, just a few pictures of photos during the restoration.

Finally, the time to eat! And a little extra drink: Russian beer! As for the menu, there is an olive salad and beef stroganoff (yum) ... Besides the olive salad, which we call macedonia in France and Russian salad in Spain, is a festive dish here! You must know that this dish was created around 1860 by the chef Lucien Olivier for the tsar. And his name stayed.

For the afternoon, head for the large park and its more than 100 hectares! There is a small lake, forests, an area dedicated to Asian architecture (China, Japan), and even a pyramid-like tomb-memorial for the dogs of Tsarina Catherine II.

The Alexander Palace (Tsar's Palace), the last home of Tsar Nicholas II and his family where he lived recluse and under the guard of the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution. It is the only building that will not be destroyed by the Germans during the Second World War.

And here for the 4th day, a lot of walking, we come home very tired of our escapade.

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