Just as splendid as Peterhof, the Catherine Palace is St Petersburg's other dazzling summer residence, built as a surprise for Peter the Great by his wife Catherine on land he had gifted to her. This episode tells the story of the two great empresses who made it their own, starting with Elizabeth, daughter of Peter and Catherine and moving on to her niece-in-law, another Catherine, who succeeded to the Russian throne after the timely, not to say highly convenient, sudden death of her husband Peter III. She ruled for over thirty years as Catherine the Great. Learn something of the lives both empresses lived in the Catherine Palace, and then hear a few pointers on what to look out for on a visit.

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