Day 6 - Saint Peterburg Day 3

We originally planned on just touring Saint Petersburg on our own.  Unfortunately we didn't check into things well enough to know that you have to have a Visa for Russia to go into the town unless you use a licensed tour guide.  At $300 apiece for the Visa we probably wouldn't have done it anyway.  As such we added on a tour which included a ride on the metro system into downtown and then 3 hours of free time in a shopping area.  We weren't particularly interested in shopping, but 3 hours of exploring suited us just fine.

The Saint Petersburg metro system is spectacular and puts most cities to shame.  It's artwork and architecture combined with cleanliness and no graffiti makes it extraordinary. These are just a few of the stations and sights we saw along the way.

We spent most of our time just sight seeing and having a fantastic lunch.  It's amazing to realize that all of these malls and shops have come to be since the fall of Soviet control in 1993.  20 years is a short time to develop this level of a free market.

Back on board we had dinner at one of the two on board gourmet restaurants on the ship.

Shortly before the above picture I took one of Tina that she didn't think I would take ... or certainly not post.  I take that as a dare ... and I never back down on a good dare.  She may be my princess, but she's got her humorous side too!  :)

Love you Tina!  Guess I'll be sleeping on the couch tonight.  :)

Day 5 - Saint Petersburg Day 2

On our second day in Russia we did a tour out to Peterhof Summer Palace outside of the town. This picture is of the front of the palace, but the truly amazing part was in the gardens and fountains behind.

As usual the most beautiful princess on the planet doesn't get to live in the lavish of housings!  :)

All of the palaces have Cathedrals built into them so they wouldn't have to go off grounds to attend church.  In this case this is only one of the two Cathedrals built into the palace.

After a tour of the palace (where we couldn't take any pictures) we reached what to me was the best part of the tour ... the rear garden and fountains.  The gardens included an amazing set of flowering plants and bushes.

From a technical viewpoint the fountains are even more amazing once you realize that all of them are gravity fed from rivers flowing down from above the palace.

Day 4 - Saint Petersburg Day 1

OK ... so we're home now and I'm trying my best to catch up.  Cruises make it hard to do a daily post, particularly when you're paying a ridiculous amount per minute for internet access.  Regardless, I'll persevere.  :)

After an overnight cruise from Helsinki we arrived in Saint Petersburg Russia in the early morning hours.  We had a tour set up with my parents for the morning which took us through all the major areas of the town itself.  Seeing some of the Russian Orthodox Churches that we'd only seen in picture before was simply amazing.

Tina, Mom andDad

Church of the Spilled Blood

In the evening Tina and I did a tour out to Catherine the Greats Summer Palace about an hour outside of downtown.  Although beautiful and definitely worth visiting, it's also easy to see why the "common" people of Russia got a bit tired of the Czars living in such lavish styles.

The Main Entrance to Catherine the Greats Summer Palace

Catherine the Greats "Small" Summer Palace

At the entrance to her palace we were greeted with a fabulous band.

The Welcoming Band

And finally, our favorite room of the palace was the amber room.  It's a room where all the walls are completely covered with amber stones.  Pictures can do no justice to this room.

The Amber Room at the Palace

Day 3 - Making Heck in Helsinki

After an overnight cruise through the Baltic Sea we arrived in Finland.  This is an amazingly busy port, but a beautiful one also.

The Waterway Leading Into Helsinki Port

Helsinki City Hall

Tina and I did our own tour since the afternoon activities were going to be more strenuous.  The tour started out through the city with a stop at what is called "Rock Church".  It's a huge active Lutheran church literally built into the ground into a huge granite rock.

Outside of Rock Church

The inside ceiling is made up of wound copper wires which would make it enormously expensive to build today. The walls themselves are the granite rock with a pipe organ built into it.

In the afternoon Tina and I took a shot at learning Nordic walking at a country spa and garden area about an hour outside of Helsinki.  The grounds were beautiful and learning the Nordic walking was pretty easy.

As might be expected, Tina's main exercising came from the muscles above her neckline.  :)

We spent some time wandering through town before finally heading back to the busy port and our own "tiny" cruise ship.

Day 2 - Stalking Stockholm

We took a shuttle into Stockholm and decided to tour it on our own.  It's a great city for walking around, people watch and sight see.  We started out walking through a large luscious garden and then made our way over the main river through the city.

 

The Parliament Building and the Royal Palace reveal some of the amazing architecture of the city.

We spent a good while visiting the Nobel Museum.  Opened in 2001 for the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prizes it contained pictures and details of all 850+ Nobel Laureates as well as a lot of information on Alfred Nobel himself.  It was a fascinating museum and well worth the visit.

After a quick lunch at an outdoor cafe we headed back to the ship for an early departure knowing that somewhere down the road we'll need to set aside 3 or 4 days to more fully explore Stockholm.  The waterway from Stockholm to the Baltic Sea goes through a whole slew of small to mid sized islands.

To handle the amount of traffic, parallel channels offered some interesting picture opportunities.

For a long ways from town most islands were populated with summer cottages.  Note summer only because the entire waterway is iced over in the winter.



 Almost getting run over by the ship was a family of swans including 4 youngsters.

 But finally the houses thin out and we quickly were in the Baltic Sea on our way to Helsinki.

And finally, after a long day, the happy cruisers set down for a well deserved dinner break.

Goodbye then until our next chance to post.

Day 1 - Our Scandanavia Adventure Begins

So, we've fallen a bit behind on posting the blog seeing as how we're a week into the vacation and haven't posted anything yet.  I should have anticipated some of this but found myself consumed with other things before we finally hit the road.  The cruise ship we're on wants 99 cents a minute for internet connection so I'm simply not going to sit online and compose a blog post every night.  There's been a couple of ports we've been in that had free wifi in the terminal areas, but you're sitting on hard cheap fold-up chairs with all the other internet blog addicts ... or worse yet, facebook junkies ... and it makes you feel like a disgusting techno-junkie-weenie!  But I've used the few wifi hotspots we've had to check our email a couple of times and finally downloaded a program that lets me compose a total blog entry offline and then post it.  If it doesn't work I may resort to joining the other internet blog addicts on cold hard fold-up chairs.

The flight over was long ... and then longer ... and the management of Heathrow Airport ought to be fired for having one of the most inefficient transfer systems between terminals that could ever be imagined.  We had 2 hours between flights from Chicago to Heathrow and then Heathrow to Stockholm.  We made the second flight with 5 minutes to spare.  A 1/2 mile walk from the gate to the bus ... TO THE BUS THAT TRANSFERRED YOU TO THE NEXT TERMINAL ... is simply ridiculous.  Then one of my parents eye drop prescriptions had leaked a drop into the baggie it was held in and that constituted a major security violation when entering the next terminal.  They had to empty all their bags and have everything inspected ... papers ... hankies ... magazines ... ... ...  I've become a big believer in profiling when you're putting 83 year olds through this sort of turmoil.  It is what it is, but Heathrows on the bottom of my list of places to ever transfer again.

We made it to Stockholm and transferred to the ship.  My parents took the cruise lines transfer at $99 a piece.  Tina and I braved the Stockholm taxi system at $75 for both of us and beat them onto the ship by 30 minutes!  :)  Nonetheless, everybody arrived satisfied and happy.

The Nautica in Stockhold Sweden

Tina the Welcoming Committee

So after Tina and I were on board and in fact had our luggage unpacked in our room, the slow pokes finally showed up.

The Older Senior Citizens Arrive

So after dinner onboard, Tina and I caught a taxi back in to town to check out the nightlife of Stockholm.  It's a great old downtown area with a lot of nice night life including a jazz band we listened to for a while.  Unfortunately we were wayyyyyy to tired to last long.  But fortunately I have a sworn rule to never take a camera with me for a night out on the town.  As such, I will simply tell everyone we had a good time and we're enjoying this whole area very much, and promise to try to catch up soon. 

Until then ...

... uhhhhhhhhh .... 

... does somebody know Swedish for goodbye? :)