Beautiful Sunday: the Grand Cascade and the Lower Park on a snowy day

It was snowing in the morning, but the weather improved briefly in the middle of the day and I decided to take a little walk around the Lower Park in Peterhof. The Lower Park is the most popular of Peterhof's parks. It is the park that is usually meant when people say something like "We went to Peterhof yesterday", or "I'm going to take a walk in Peterhof Park this weekend". The main attractions of this park are the fountains and water cascades. On a hot summer day, a walk in this park is a great pleasure.

In winter, the fountains are not in operation. Park employees drain the marble pools and cover the statues and fountains in protective covers. Therefore, in winter there are fewer tourists and visitors in this park, but a walk in this park is also very pleasant. Silence, tranquility, clean air, purity and whiteness of just fallen snow - all this will be waiting for you if you come here in winter.

I entered the park through the central entrance, it is located next to the Great Peterhof Palace. This palace was built in the early 18th century by architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli. The main fountain of Peterhof is located on cascades that descend in steps down towards the bay. This complex system of fountains is called the "Grand Cascade". In the lower part there is a fountain-monument "Samson tearing the jaws of the lion".

I first walked along the palace to admire both the building itself and the views from the upper terrace. Then I walked down one of the staircases to the foot of the cascade. Most of the statues and fountains have already been removed in protective covers, but the bronze gilded statues of the Grand Cascade remain on view. The architects used the terrain for a grandiose masterpiece, and even in winter this monument of fountain art leaves a huge impression.

The earthen terrace is preserved in this place as a memory of the ancient seashore, it stretches across the entire park. I decided to walk through the park to the neighboring cascade. I walked along the foot of the ancient earthen terrace. Soon I came to the Great Orangery building.

The Great Orangery was built in 1722-1725 by the architect I.F.Braunstein. The building has a semicircular shape, this was done on purpose to protect the small garden in front of the central entrance from the wind. In summer a flower garden is laid out in this place.

The weather was beginning to turn bad, the sky above my head was quickly being overcast with gray clouds. I could go up one of the stairs. There are several of the most climbable gentle staircases near the Great Orangery; elsewhere the climb can be quite tedious. But it would have been a shame to end the walk so soon, so I decided to keep walking.

Soon I came to the "Chess Mountain" cascade. The steps of this cascade are decorated as a composition of black and white squares, they resemble a chessboard. But after the snowfall, the chess pattern was poorly visible under the fallen snow. The marble sculptures, made by Italian masters in the XVIII century, are covered for the winter. In such weather the cascade seems more like a fairy-tale cave, especially since the entrance to the upper grotto of this cascade is guarded by three winged dragons.

Two Roman fountains are symmetrically located on the square in front of the cascade. In summer, the water falls into marble bowls - which have now been drained so that ice and snow cannot damage them. But the fountains themselves remain open, although they do not operate in winter.

Meanwhile, the weather finally turned bad, it got dark - as if night was already approaching, and snow began to fall. I took a few pictures of the beginning snowfall and put my smartphone in my inner pocket, away from the precipitation unfavorable for its performance.

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Smartphone	Google Pixel 3a
Location	Peterhof, Saint Petersburg, Russia