Natalia Hanson

Review of European leisure France (le pa...

I grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia, and spend tre...

I grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia, and spend trenendous amount of time in my younger years visiting various world class museums and palaces. I am very accustomed to seeing extreme royal luxuries. Visiting Peterhof's summer palace I always knew it was built by Russian Tzars as a copy of Versailles and assumed that the original supposed to be more extravagant and spectacular. Versailles is, no doubt, one of the most beautiful examples of an extraordinary architecture, garden and interior design. However, I think truly cosmopolitan experts could agree that a lot of features of Peterhof's palace are more impressive: barocco exterior of the palace, gold Samson fountain with water cascade in the background, amount and quality of marble statues in the garden and in general design of the garden, the view of the open water at the end of the waterworks of the palace - all that is superior to the Versailles. It makes me extremely proud to be Russian and to belong to the culture which could successfully compete even with these riches that brought about French revolution. On a more practical note, the public bathrooms at Versailles are embarrassing, with broken faucets and no soup, far from being fit for a king. They abruptly bringing you down from enjoying the beauty of the palace.