Stockholm, Sweden
We slept late this morning, since our excursion was scheduled for the afternoon. We had breakfast in the Lido restaurant and then headed up to the Crow’s Nest on Deck 11 to work on notes for photos and this narrative. We had a nice view of the city, with a 270 deg. panoramic view. It was fun to watch the various commercial and pleasure water craft make their way past the ship in the harbor. Since it was the weekend, there were plenty of small motorboats and sailboats headed out for the day…or more. The weather was cool and sunny, a delightful day...again.
Another jigsaw puzzle was started, the one from the previous day was complete…with the exception of two pieces which had apparently jumped ship or found their way into the vacuum cleaner. Pam found a jigsaw puzzle without the box top…so no picture to use as a reference. This one is for those jigsaw puzzlers who claim that using the picture on the box top is cheating.
We had American Cheeseburgers and French Fries for lunch before departing for our Roof Top Walk. There were only 11 people in our group, so that was nice. Everyone was suited with hard hats & safety harnesses (Shell would be so proud!) It was a nice view of Stockholm from an uncommon vantage point. We had a walk through the old town with a narrative from our guide. Lots of old buildings and lots of old cobble stone streets. We even walked up the slimmest street in the old town. The street is named after a business man who was killed on a business trip to northern Sweden in the 1500s. We were also told about 500 meters of shore land that was built on garbage many years ago, and is now sinking.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
7 August 2009
Helsinki, Finland
We cruised overnight from St. Petersburg to Helsinki. These mobile hotel rooms are just great! We had breakfast in the “Lido” restaurant on deck 9 along with the rest of the thundering herd. If you are interested in a 90 minute breakfast in finest dining style, the Rembrandt Dining Room is a great option, but if you have an Excursion scheduled, the Lido conveyor belt feeding method is the best option. This is one of the great things about a cruise, you have tremendous choices of activity, style, people, and entertainment. No matter whether you spend $10000 on a Deluxe Verandah Suite or $1000 on a windowless inside micro-cabin, the public spaces and the food is the same for everyone. Since the excursions are an extra cost, if you stay on board, there are the pools, the gym, onboard activities, movies, TV, games, jigsaw puzzles, books, etc.
We checked in for our excursion in the Main Stage theater and were able to immediately leave the ship to get onto the bus. The ship uses as “personnel on board” system similar to those used on offshore oil and gas production platforms. They scan the bar code on your card and know that you have left the ship. This is the only way to keep track of 2000+ passengers who are going on 10 or 15 excursions in addition to those who are just wandering around in the town on their own. When it is time to leave, if your organized excursion is late arriving, the ship will wait for you. If you are on your own, the ship leaves and you get to find a way to get back to the ship. On a previous cruise, one couple missed the last ship’s tender trip and had to hire a local boat to chase down the cruise ship and to transfer while underway. It was probably quite exciting, but also a shock to the credit card. Better to be on time.
Helsinki is a relatively new city, with good support of bicycles and public transportation. We drove through the city center and headed north to to the village of Porvoo. Porvoo is a very old village with wooden buildings and narrow cobblestone streets. The area where we visited was quite small and is possibly organized more as a “trinket and toilet” stop rather than being of much historical significance. We are spoiled by our years in The Netherlands in that we are no longer impressed with 400 year old houses and narrow cobblestone streets. We boarded our bus again and headed to the Sipoo region of Finland, about another 20 minutes drive.
The farm of the Savijarvi family has been a working farm for four generations. The farm is operated by the extended family of about 20 family members including 3 generations of the family. They grow wheat, barley, oats, corn, and hay…but their main business is breeding horses.
We had lunch in the manor house, consisting of a nettle soup(!), a fish stew and a cake dessert with frozen berries with a hot caramel topping. Mmmm, good.
The tourist business is a summertime business only, and is a good way to supplement the income of the farm.
We then rode back to Helsinki and drove around the city a bit with two stops. One stop was at a church that was built by quarrying granite and building walls to construct a partially underground open space. The roof was then covered with a glass dome to provide light. We had about 15 minutes, including getting on and off the bus, so photos will be the main way we remember that stop. (OK, everybody off! Take pictures! Everybody on! We go. Isn’t Helsinki fun?)
The other stop was at another church square. The church building was impressive, but we could not go in as there was a wedding in progress. There was a brief rain shower to help us to learn who had umbrellas and who did not, and then we drove past some more statues and sights before returning to the Eurodam.
We skipped the formal dinner in the main dining room for the assembly line feed trough in the Lido. The food is just a good, but the presentation is a little different. After dinner, Pam went to the gym to work off the food she had just eaten and Jim tried to put some labels on the photos downloaded that day (and the day before). The casino was calling for us and so we were drawn to the “penny-slots” for an evening of spinning wheels, flashing lights, and the excitement of winning 2 cents by getting matching symbols on three of the 5 wheels on the slot machine. Wheee! Jim demonstrated how to turn $20 into $117 and then back to $31. Pam managed to provide entertainment for herself with $20 for about 2 hours.
We cruised overnight from St. Petersburg to Helsinki. These mobile hotel rooms are just great! We had breakfast in the “Lido” restaurant on deck 9 along with the rest of the thundering herd. If you are interested in a 90 minute breakfast in finest dining style, the Rembrandt Dining Room is a great option, but if you have an Excursion scheduled, the Lido conveyor belt feeding method is the best option. This is one of the great things about a cruise, you have tremendous choices of activity, style, people, and entertainment. No matter whether you spend $10000 on a Deluxe Verandah Suite or $1000 on a windowless inside micro-cabin, the public spaces and the food is the same for everyone. Since the excursions are an extra cost, if you stay on board, there are the pools, the gym, onboard activities, movies, TV, games, jigsaw puzzles, books, etc.
We checked in for our excursion in the Main Stage theater and were able to immediately leave the ship to get onto the bus. The ship uses as “personnel on board” system similar to those used on offshore oil and gas production platforms. They scan the bar code on your card and know that you have left the ship. This is the only way to keep track of 2000+ passengers who are going on 10 or 15 excursions in addition to those who are just wandering around in the town on their own. When it is time to leave, if your organized excursion is late arriving, the ship will wait for you. If you are on your own, the ship leaves and you get to find a way to get back to the ship. On a previous cruise, one couple missed the last ship’s tender trip and had to hire a local boat to chase down the cruise ship and to transfer while underway. It was probably quite exciting, but also a shock to the credit card. Better to be on time.
Helsinki is a relatively new city, with good support of bicycles and public transportation. We drove through the city center and headed north to to the village of Porvoo. Porvoo is a very old village with wooden buildings and narrow cobblestone streets. The area where we visited was quite small and is possibly organized more as a “trinket and toilet” stop rather than being of much historical significance. We are spoiled by our years in The Netherlands in that we are no longer impressed with 400 year old houses and narrow cobblestone streets. We boarded our bus again and headed to the Sipoo region of Finland, about another 20 minutes drive.
The farm of the Savijarvi family has been a working farm for four generations. The farm is operated by the extended family of about 20 family members including 3 generations of the family. They grow wheat, barley, oats, corn, and hay…but their main business is breeding horses.
We had lunch in the manor house, consisting of a nettle soup(!), a fish stew and a cake dessert with frozen berries with a hot caramel topping. Mmmm, good.
The tourist business is a summertime business only, and is a good way to supplement the income of the farm.
We then rode back to Helsinki and drove around the city a bit with two stops. One stop was at a church that was built by quarrying granite and building walls to construct a partially underground open space. The roof was then covered with a glass dome to provide light. We had about 15 minutes, including getting on and off the bus, so photos will be the main way we remember that stop. (OK, everybody off! Take pictures! Everybody on! We go. Isn’t Helsinki fun?)
The other stop was at another church square. The church building was impressive, but we could not go in as there was a wedding in progress. There was a brief rain shower to help us to learn who had umbrellas and who did not, and then we drove past some more statues and sights before returning to the Eurodam.
We skipped the formal dinner in the main dining room for the assembly line feed trough in the Lido. The food is just a good, but the presentation is a little different. After dinner, Pam went to the gym to work off the food she had just eaten and Jim tried to put some labels on the photos downloaded that day (and the day before). The casino was calling for us and so we were drawn to the “penny-slots” for an evening of spinning wheels, flashing lights, and the excitement of winning 2 cents by getting matching symbols on three of the 5 wheels on the slot machine. Wheee! Jim demonstrated how to turn $20 into $117 and then back to $31. Pam managed to provide entertainment for herself with $20 for about 2 hours.
Thursday, 6 August 2009
St. Petersburg, Russia
We went by bus to the Hermitage Museum. It was extremely crowded, as not only tourists come to visit but a lot of local students do as well. Fortunately, we used the same type of microphone and transmitter system as yesterday. There is not really that much to say about the Hermitage Museum, other than the fact that it contains a lot of art work from many famous artists.
We had dinner with a couple from Ireland and woman from Florida. The couple from Ireland was very entertaining and the woman was very funny. We could tell that she enjoys life in her own special way.
We went by bus to the Hermitage Museum. It was extremely crowded, as not only tourists come to visit but a lot of local students do as well. Fortunately, we used the same type of microphone and transmitter system as yesterday. There is not really that much to say about the Hermitage Museum, other than the fact that it contains a lot of art work from many famous artists.
We had dinner with a couple from Ireland and woman from Florida. The couple from Ireland was very entertaining and the woman was very funny. We could tell that she enjoys life in her own special way.
Wednesday, 5 August, 2009
St. Petersburg, Russia
The weather report suggested that we would have a sunny day with cool temperatures. But when we docked at the new facility in the St. Petersburg harbor, it was a typically dreary, cloudy Northern European day. Having misread the meeting time for our Excursion, we were a little late, but thankfully not the last people to check in and receive our little blue stickers for tour #20. Russian immigration is a little more bureaucratic than other countries (surprise!) and so we all had to fill out immigration cards and get our passports stamped by the officious Russian Immigration people, who are equipped with smiles, but they don’t mean it. Fortunately, we did not have to have gone through the month-long process of obtaining a Russian Visa for this trip. As long as we are on an organized tour from the ship, we only had to fill out the immigration form and get a stamp in the back of our passport.
We boarded the bus and only had to wait a few minutes for the last members of our group to catch up. There were only 24 of us on the tour, and so there was plenty of room in the coach to spread out. Some of the seats were permanently reclined, so that reduced the comfortable choices. St. Petersburg is no different than other Russian cities. It seems that a good number of buildings were in the process of being con-structed or de-structed…but it was hard to tell which one. It’s good that there is a lot of work going on, but the direction of movement should be more easily identifiable. We drove across the Neva River in St. Petersburg and 50 minutes later arrived at Catherine’s Palace. The front of the palace is almost 1000 ft wide and a beautiful blue, white and gold façade.
The Palace was significantly damaged and burned by the German army when they were driven back during World War II. It is only through the significant effort of the Soviet Union restoration experts, referring to black and white photos taken before the war that the Palace has been returned to its former glory. Some of the artifacts had been hidden as the German army approached, but only some. There was much looting and destruction by the occupying forces.
The process of moving through the palace is well orchestrated. Our tour guide has a microphone and transmitter and all of the members of her group have receivers and earphones. If reception starts to break up, we are falling behind and need to catch up. We moved from one room to the next, with a rather sour-faced Russian woman in a chair in each room to check that people taking photos had the little sticker on their camera, showing that they had paid for the photo permit….and giving a tsk-tsk if a flash was used when it was not supposed to be.
We had lunch in a restaurant near the palace, which consisted of borscht, a stroganoff and ice cream with some kind of a fruit goo. It was certainly more of a re-fueling event than fine dining. The restaurant is obviously a hot spot of activity for the locals, with Karaoke machine, mirror ball in the ceiling and a dance floor. There is probably much vodka and beer consumed on a regular basis there.
We had a short drive to Paul’s Palace. It was a gift from Catherine to her son Paul when his son Alexander was born. It is in a different style from Catherine’s Palace, but was designed by the same architect that designed two of the rooms in Catherine’s Palace.
Paul’s Palace was also mostly destroyed near the end of WWII, but again rebuilt through the use of photos which had been taken before the war. Many of the artifacts from the Palace had been hidden on the site as the German army approached and remained hidden during the war. As a result, more of the china, lamps, furniture, statues etc, are the originals instead of restored copies.
We had a nice drive back to the ship, with the sun finally breaking through the clouds. There are still a number of monuments and statues in St. Petersburg from the Soviet era. It’s interesting to hear the jokes that the locals tell about the statues of Lenin and Stalin. There is one of Lenin where his right hand is extended. The locals say it stays out because he is trying to flag down a taxi…and it never arrives.
After our long day, we had a quick dinner in the “Lido” restaurant (industrial, assembly-line food) and then Pam headed off to the Gym and Jim tried to catch up on personal email (NO work emails !!). We get to sleep late in the morning, as our excursion tomorrow does not leave until 12:30 pm.
The weather report suggested that we would have a sunny day with cool temperatures. But when we docked at the new facility in the St. Petersburg harbor, it was a typically dreary, cloudy Northern European day. Having misread the meeting time for our Excursion, we were a little late, but thankfully not the last people to check in and receive our little blue stickers for tour #20. Russian immigration is a little more bureaucratic than other countries (surprise!) and so we all had to fill out immigration cards and get our passports stamped by the officious Russian Immigration people, who are equipped with smiles, but they don’t mean it. Fortunately, we did not have to have gone through the month-long process of obtaining a Russian Visa for this trip. As long as we are on an organized tour from the ship, we only had to fill out the immigration form and get a stamp in the back of our passport.
We boarded the bus and only had to wait a few minutes for the last members of our group to catch up. There were only 24 of us on the tour, and so there was plenty of room in the coach to spread out. Some of the seats were permanently reclined, so that reduced the comfortable choices. St. Petersburg is no different than other Russian cities. It seems that a good number of buildings were in the process of being con-structed or de-structed…but it was hard to tell which one. It’s good that there is a lot of work going on, but the direction of movement should be more easily identifiable. We drove across the Neva River in St. Petersburg and 50 minutes later arrived at Catherine’s Palace. The front of the palace is almost 1000 ft wide and a beautiful blue, white and gold façade.
The Palace was significantly damaged and burned by the German army when they were driven back during World War II. It is only through the significant effort of the Soviet Union restoration experts, referring to black and white photos taken before the war that the Palace has been returned to its former glory. Some of the artifacts had been hidden as the German army approached, but only some. There was much looting and destruction by the occupying forces.
The process of moving through the palace is well orchestrated. Our tour guide has a microphone and transmitter and all of the members of her group have receivers and earphones. If reception starts to break up, we are falling behind and need to catch up. We moved from one room to the next, with a rather sour-faced Russian woman in a chair in each room to check that people taking photos had the little sticker on their camera, showing that they had paid for the photo permit….and giving a tsk-tsk if a flash was used when it was not supposed to be.
We had lunch in a restaurant near the palace, which consisted of borscht, a stroganoff and ice cream with some kind of a fruit goo. It was certainly more of a re-fueling event than fine dining. The restaurant is obviously a hot spot of activity for the locals, with Karaoke machine, mirror ball in the ceiling and a dance floor. There is probably much vodka and beer consumed on a regular basis there.
We had a short drive to Paul’s Palace. It was a gift from Catherine to her son Paul when his son Alexander was born. It is in a different style from Catherine’s Palace, but was designed by the same architect that designed two of the rooms in Catherine’s Palace.
Paul’s Palace was also mostly destroyed near the end of WWII, but again rebuilt through the use of photos which had been taken before the war. Many of the artifacts from the Palace had been hidden on the site as the German army approached and remained hidden during the war. As a result, more of the china, lamps, furniture, statues etc, are the originals instead of restored copies.
We had a nice drive back to the ship, with the sun finally breaking through the clouds. There are still a number of monuments and statues in St. Petersburg from the Soviet era. It’s interesting to hear the jokes that the locals tell about the statues of Lenin and Stalin. There is one of Lenin where his right hand is extended. The locals say it stays out because he is trying to flag down a taxi…and it never arrives.
After our long day, we had a quick dinner in the “Lido” restaurant (industrial, assembly-line food) and then Pam headed off to the Gym and Jim tried to catch up on personal email (NO work emails !!). We get to sleep late in the morning, as our excursion tomorrow does not leave until 12:30 pm.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
St. Petersburg, Russia
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The weather report suggested that we would have a sunny day with cool temperatures. But when we docked at the new facility in the
We boarded the bus and only had to wait a few minutes for the last members of our group to catch up. There were only 24 of us on the tour, and so there was plenty of room in the coach to spread out. Some of the seats were permanently reclined, so that reduced the comfortable choices.
The palace was significantly damaged and burned by the German army when they were driven back during World War II. It is only through the significant effort of the
The process of moving through the palace is well orchestrated. Our tour guide has a microphone and transmitter and all of the members of her group have receivers and earphones. If reception starts to break up, we are falling behind and need to catch up. We moved from one room to the next, with a rather sour-faced Russian woman in a chair in each room to check that people taking photos had the little sticker on their camera, showing that they had paid for the photo permit….and giving a tsk-tsk if a flash was used when it was not supposed to be.
We had lunch in a restaurant near the palace, which consisted of borscht, a stroganoff and ice cream with a fruit goo. It was certainly more of a re-fueling event than fine dining. The restaurant is obviously a hot spot of activity for the locals, with Karaoke machine, mirror ball in the ceiling and a dance floor. Probably much vodka and beer consumed on a regular basis there.
We had a short drive to Paul’s Palace. It was a give from Catherine to her son Paul when his son Alexander was born. It is in a different style from Catherine’s Palace, but was designed by the same architect that designed two of the rooms in Catherine’s Palace.
Paul’s Palace was also mostly destroyed near the end of WW2, but again rebuilt through the use of photos which had been taken before the war. Many of the artifacts from the palace had been hidden on the site as the German army approached and remained hidden during the war. As a result, more of the china, lamps, furniture, statues etc, are the originals instead of restored copies.
We had a nice drive back to the ship, with the sun finally breaking through the clouds. There are still a number of monuments and statues in
After our long day, we had a quick dinner in the “Lido” restaurant (industrial, assembly-line food) and then Pam headed off to the Gym and Jim tried to catch up on personal email (NO work emails !!). We get to sleep late in the morning, as our excursion tomorrow does not leave until 12:30 pm.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Arrival in Copenhagen
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Our flight to Copenhagen was uneventful, which is good. We hired a taxi to take us to the port, where we met our ship, the Holland America Eurodam. The taxi driver was from Lebanon, but had been in Denmark for 19 years. He liked listening to classical music (Vivaldi). We registered and were allowed to board around 13:15. The registration was a lot smoother this year. We were on the Maiden Voyage for this ship last year and went to ports in Denmark, Norway, Scotland and England. We got settled into our room and made early dinner reservations, so that we could get to bed early for our 6:00 AM excursion in Warnemunde, Germany.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
The ship docked just before 6:00 AM. We exited the ship to get on a 3 -hour train ride to Berlin. We took a city tour including Check Point Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag. Then, we had lunch at a local restaurant. Finally, we were off to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which was our main attraction to this 13-hour excursion. Although it was a very depressing place, it was very interesting and definitely makes the torture that took place there come alive. Those who deny what happened here should be required to come on a tour. Our tour guide definitely add to the history behind this place, as he is East German and Jewish. We returned by motorcoach to the train and started our journey back to the ship. We arrived back at 21:00 very tired. The Lido Restaurant was still open...so we had dessert.
Monday, 3 August 2009
We arrived in Tallinn, Estonia at about 0730 hrs. The view from our balcony on the way into the port was really nice, with the spires of the churches from the skyline of the old town. We did not have to change clocks last night, which was a good thing after our long day yesterday. Our group was the second group off the ship. It was a cool and partly cloudy day, which was a welcome relief from the heat of yesterday. We first visited a distillery museum in Rakvere, where we got to start our day with a vodka tasting..nothing like a shot of vodka and a bit of pickle to start the day! Our next stop was "The Citizen's Museum" with furnishings from the late 19th century and early 20th century. The main event was the castle ruins (partially rebuilt) on the hill above the town. The Rakvere castle was in use from the 14th to the 17th centuries, but fell to ruin in the 18th and 19th centuries. It has been repaired and partially rebuilt with modern materials and has a lot of participatory activities to help you to understand what it was like to live there in those days. Our lunch was salas, barley mash, chicken, water, beer, and wine. We drove for about 1 hour back to Tallinn to tour the old town including the Alexander Nevski Russian Orthodox church. After a short stroll around the old town, we had a short drive to the ship. There, we had to re-connect with the communal jigsaw puzzle on deck 11 in "The Crow's Nest".
We had a light dinner and then headed for bed. Our hotel room will deliver us to St. Petersberg in the morning.
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