September 1-3 Stockholm, Sweden

We arrived in Stockholm early Monday morning and it was terrific. We caught a cab right at the dock and it took us the Hotel Stureplan which is a great trendy area in the middle of the city. More importantly our hotel room was ready when we arrived at 10 am. It’s a great small hotel, with about 100 rooms and very friendly staff. Our room rate even includes breakfast. A friend stayed at another hotel, I think it was a Radisson, and the breakfast was $35 extra per person.

The first day we paid for a tour on the Hop-on, Hop-off red double-decker bus, and the ticket was good for 2 days. We plugged in the earphones, tuned to the English channel and heard about the information at each stop, and other places of interest that we passed by.

Our first time off the bus was at the Vasa Museum. If you ever get to Stockholm, and don’t have much time, this is the one and only thing that you must do. You’ll see a real five story original wooden warship from the 1600’s. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Here’s a link to the information on their website: http://www.vasamuseet.se/en

 

On day 2 we used the Hop-on bus again, got off in “old town” and also did a free 90 minute walking tour at 6 pm. We are far enough north that it doesn’t get dark until around 9 pm.

On our 3^rd and last day here we took a 2 hour boat ride through the hundreds (maybe thousands) of islands that make up Sweden and got off at Sandhamn. It was a quaint town with some streets no wider than about 6’; that’s six feet. See the photos.

This last photo is a beach house on the island from about the 1600s

Tonight we pack and head back to Los Angeles.

Aug 31, Tallinn, Estonia

Never in my life would I have thought to visit Estonia, and I probably couldn’t find it on a map if my life depended upon it. The city of Tallinn is a lovely ancient walled city with the oldest Town Hall in northern Europe established in the 14^th century.

Here are some photos to give you a feel of the city:

Aug 28-30 St. Petersburg, Russia

If you cared to know, St. Petersburg is supposed to be the northernmost major city of the world. It has about 5 million people. Peter the Great began building here about 300 years ago, and I have to admit the palaces are stunning. While he attempted to have more canals than Venice, the problem is they all freeze in winter. As a young city, by European standards, there are still many legends and stories since it's founding in 1703.

My first taste of Russian hospitality was at the passport/customs window. I forgot to bring my "tourist ticket" with my passport, and boy, was that a problem. I could have gone back on the ship to get them for me and Dianne, but the tour guide said they could just issue new ones. This did not make the customs officer happy. I think they would have rather not let us in the country. We spend 3 days touring Russia, and you'd think they would welcome tourist dollars. I'm not sure I want to enter Russia, but we do.

And I'm glad we did. The Winter Palace is now the Hermitage Museum and contained art from all over the world; Picasso, Rembrandt, Cezanne, Van Gogh,  Matisse, and more. It was amazing.

Dianne booked our tour through SPB Tours, and not through the Oceania cruise ship. This worked out really great. We had our own tour guide for 14 people total. During our three days we saw the Summer Palace, amazing churches and monuments.

Here is a condensed list of what we saw in St. Petersburg:
            Day 1

1.      Walked along the Nevsky prospect/shopping area

2.      A visit to Peter and Paul’s fortress and cathedral

3.      Lunch at a local restaurant

4.      An inside visit to the Church on the Blood on the spot where some royal was killed

5.      A visit to the Russian Museum

Day 2

1.      Drive to Peterhof and take a subway ride

2.      Special early entrance to the Peterhof Grand Palace and a walk in the Lower fountain

3.      Visit the park and the Upper gardens

4.      Lunch at a different local restaurant

5.      Drive to Pushkin (Tsars’ Village)

6.      Visit Tsars’ village park, the Catherine’s palace with the Amber room

Day 3

1.      City sight-seeing tour by canal boat ride

2.      Special early entrance to the Hermitage Museum

3.      Lunch at another different local restaurant

4.      Excursion in the Yusupov Palace

5.      Inside visit to St. Isaac’s Cathedral

Wednesday Aug 27 - Helsinki, Finland

It's Wednesday, so this must be Helsinki, which is both the chief seaport and capital of Finland. Some king founded it about 500 years ago. This is common in Europe. Kings start cities.

The weather sucks this time of year in the Baltic region. When we left Los Angeles it was in the 90's (32+ celsius). Here' is rainy with a high of 17 celsius (63 fahrenheit). Sometimes it stops raining and the sun peeks out. Sometimes we see the sun, but it still rains on us.

While the days are long in the summer, with sunrise at 6 AM and sunset at 8:40 PM, in the winter, there's about 4 hours of daylight. I guess it's from 10 AM to 2 PM. That's got to be real depressing.

Anyway, Helsinki is so unusual for a European city. It has museums, art galleries and stores for tourists to leave their money. (That's sarcasm if you weren't paying attention.)

Our next stop is St. Petersburg, Russia and there is only an 80% chance of rain.

Lithuania and Latvia

Monday, August 25, 2014, Klaipeda, Lithuania

This city on the Baltic Sea is the third largest city in Lithuania. We were so, so, lucky to have decent weather while in Berlin a couple of days ago, we are now experiencing the typical weather. It’s grey, raining, and 60-65 degrees Fahrenheit. This is not a pretty down, but the ship needs somewhere to dock for the day.

Dianne was able to find a store that sells amber that’s been made into jewelry and purchased a lovely bracelet and earrings. I was able to sit on a couch for an hour, visit with some others from the ship, and read a book I had on my iPhone.

Today is Tuesday, August 26, 2014 and we are in Riga, which is the capital and largest city in Latvia. It’s the third largest city in the Baltic region, behind St. Petersburg and Stockholm. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site based on its extensive German Art Nouveau architecture.

At this point it feels like the movie, “If it’s Tuesday we must be in Belgium.” Dianne wanted to say thank you so someone in a shop and said, “Achoo,” which is Lithuanian, but we’re in Latvia now, and it’s not the same language.

Along Alberta iela there are the most wonder Art Nouveau buildings. I took some photos, see attached and purchased some postcards. The postcards look better than my photos because they can take them at better positions than I can from the street. Dianne did comment on how beautiful the city was, the parks, the flowers, and how clean the streets were. As will all European cities they have beautiful churches, which we saw on our walk back to the ship. Unfortunately, after a while it’s like, “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

By around 2 PM I’ve had enough touring and I’m ready to head back to the ship. Lunch sounds like a great idea and sitting down and reading a book is what I look forward to, not another museum or church.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; my wife likes to tour and I like to vacation. I define a vacation by the number of books I can read. So far, I’m almost finished with my first one.

Berlin, Germany

We left Copenhagen, Denmark, on Friday afternoon August 22, 2014, on the Oceania cruise ship, Nautica. Our first port Saturday morning was Warnemunde, Germany. But that was just the port. We took a 3 hour tour bus ride to Berlin from the port. Our group of 4 couples had a wonderful guide, Preston Meyer, from some town in Oregon. He had back-packed around Europe the end of the 1990s, and wanted to improve his German language skills. While in Berlin he fell in love with the place and decided to stay and became a tour guide.

He was very informative about the history of the country, the city, and was very witty. It appears while the city of Berlin shows off its charm and architecture it is about 95 billion Euros in debt. An example would be the airport which was scheduled to open in 2006, which was changed to 2008, 2010, and now they won’t even give a date for the opening.

During the reign of Friedrich Wilhelm I (1735ish), the city of Berlin was very welcoming to people who were being chased out of other countries, like the Jews. The city needed a labor force and this was a way of attracting them. An amazing Baroque synagogue sits on a main street in the city showing that the Jews did not need to hide in that era.

We were able to see a portion of the Berlin Wall that was left standing as a reminder of the Soviet era occupation of East Berlin, and a beautiful museum with an open air gallery. We also visited Check Point Charlie, which was the gate where American servicemen could enter and exit East Berlin. It appears to be controlled by some Russian mafia folks who are in costumes resembling US soldiers and charge for photographs.

After a day at sea, Sunday, August 24, 2014, our next stop was Klaipeda, Lithuania