Poland

Sunrise at Poland

Day 17 (8/17/2010) Day 10 Baltic Sea Adventure

Today we went to Gdynia, Sopot and Gdansk, Poland. We originally had decided that we weren’t going to take another tour today. To be honest, we are getting a little tired of tours. But we received a note on our bed, when we got back to our room from Tallinn, that they were going to pressure wash all the balconies on the ship today. We figured that it might be better if we were out of the room and off the ship so we booked yet another tour. It turned out that perhaps we should have taken our chances with staying on the ship. Although there were some high points, much of the tour was quite hectic. It was an hour ride through the three cities which, it turns out are all connected. Since there is no express way it was all stop and go traffic. Everywhere you went everything was covered by Graffiti. The guide assured us that it was not gang related but rather mischief. Apparently, some of the graffiti is promoted and certain areas are designated for graffiti art. Once we got to the old part of Gdansk it was very scenic and interesting but there was a festival going on and it was almost impossible to go anywhere much less try to keep track of our guide. Again I was amazed with the beauty of the architecture. If I understood correctly though, most of it had to be rebuilt after World War II because the city of Gdansk was leveled. In spite of the long ride and hassles associated with the tour Gdansk was beautiful and there were many interesting tidbits of history. For example I was not aware that at the time of World War II the city of Gdansk was known as Danzig and the site of the start of the war. The shipyards of Gdansk are also where Lech Walesa started the solidarity movement which many people feel led to the fall of the Soviet Union. We went past Lech Walesa's house but unfortunately it was somwhat obscured by trees. It is interesting how you can tell what the people in the country are proud of by what they show you on the tours. In Poland it is definitely their revolutions and struggles to stay free. Stay free Poland.

Port of Gdynia

Old town Hall

Old Town Gdansk

More Old Town

Astronomical Clock at St. Mary's

Solidarity Monument

Leaving Poland

Estonia

Sunrise over Estonia

Day 16 (8/16/2010) Day 9 Captains Log Star date (8/16/2010)

Again we are awoken to another beautiful sunrise. We have taken to leaving our curtains open just so we will wake up to enjoy the sunrises which seem to be better each day. What is weird is that we usually are able to catch the sun sets from our balcony as well. We will soon be arriving in Tallinn, Estonia. To stay with our theme of Peter the Great we have booked a tour called “In the footsteps of Peter the Great” or as we call him “The Great Peter”. Tallinn is probably the most rustic city we have been in so far. Like most of these European port cities we have been to there is an old town and a new town. In Tallinn the old town is actually a walled city with massive towers for protection which just sort of got surrounded by the new city. It is very interesting from port though because you can see this little medieval city nestled into the modern city. When entering old town it is like stepping back in time. The streets are very narrow with cobblestone and everything has the feel of the 17th century. It was definitely one of my favorite places. You are also reminded how different another country can be. While we were visiting the palace of the current president of Estonia, which has no fences or gates, a girl on a bicycle goes riding through within yards of the front doors of the building. Many of the people on the tour were from the U.S. and were astonished with the lack of security. I would imagine that he has greater things to fear than his own people. This is definitely a place where I would love to spend more time. I can’t wait to post the pictures from here.

Old town Tallinn

The Walled City

The Gate into Old town Tallinn

Ramparts

Eileen wanted this Estonian Kitten

Pühavaimu kirik

In the Footsteps of Peter the Great

Fat Margaret

Old Palace Restoration

New Presidential Palace with Biker

Sunset leaving Estonia

Comrades

Sunrise over St. Petersburg

Day 15 (8/15/2010) Day 8 Baltic Sea Adventure

Day two in Russia was quite intense. Again we did a tour but this one spent more time exploring some of the buildings. The one area that I wish I would have had more time to explore is the Hermitage. It has over three million works of art and is contained in four huge buildings, one being the Summer Palace of Peter the Great. We didn’t do it because it is so huge. From what we heard, even if you spent four days you would only scratch the surface. The people who did go complained that it was unbearably hot, since they have no air-conditioning, and terribly crowded. Apparently it rarely gets as hot in St. Petersburg as it was for our stay. We went past some of the same buildings today as yesterday, the Cruiser Aurora, Cabin of Peter the Great, Admiralty, Stroganovsky Palace and the Hermitage, but this time we had more photo opportunities. The biggest part of today’s tour was going to the Peter and Paul Fortress which also contains there cathedral. Here many of the Russian leaders have been buried including the Romanov family with Anastasia. After a four hour tour we had an hour to ourselves which most people used for shopping. Eileen and I did some shopping but spent most of our time walking around the Court yard of the Summer Palace which again houses part of the Hermitage. Even though it is one of their most cherished treasures the buses don’t stop there because there is no place to park. We noticed the sky was starting to grow dark so we started making our way back to the bus. Soon after our group had loaded we had a huge storm which made several buses late back to the ship because of downed trees.

The problem with tours is that there is a lot of hurry up and wait time. It seems like there is always that one person or group that is always holding everything up. There is also the attention seeker who is always either asking stupid questions or trying to outwit the guide. It can also be kind of hectic trying to follow somebody who you can barely understand through large throngs of people often with their own guides going in different directions who they can barely understand. Eileen and I found it best to sit in the back of the bus, keep our mouths shut and stick to the guide like glue when in busy places. The problem with not taking a tour, however, is you have to find your own transportation and unless you are very good at preplanning everything probably won’t know where you are going or what you are seeing anyway. As you can tell by now I am kind of at that point where I need a little vacation from vacation.

Same Sunrise later

St. Isaac's Cathedral

Monument to Emperor Nicholas 1

Winter Palace from across the River

Light towers

The Cruiser Aurora

Fortress of Peter & Paul

Cathedral of Peter & Paul Fortress

Palace Square

Tomb of Romanovs

Tchaikovsky with Pigeons

St. Petersburg

Me at Church of the Spilled Blood

Day 14 (8/14/2010) Day 7 Baltic Sea Adventure

Here we are in Russia. I really never thought growing up in the heart of the cold war that I would ever be setting foot in Russia. Today started at 5:30 with breakfast in the Buffett. We had to be ready to catch a tour of St. Petersburg by 7:45. Even though Russia has come a long way since the cold war there is still a feeling of oppression that runs under the surface. Unlike other ports where you just have to show your cruise card, in Russia you have to go through and have your passport stamped and be with a tour group to get beyond the port. Only people with Russian Visas are allowed outside the port area without being with an organized tour group. To my surprise St. Petersburg is what we grew up knowing as Leningrad. After the fall of the Soviet Union it went back to being called St. Petersburg after the clergyman who brought christianity to Russia.There is still a large military presence around St. Petersburg. There are old weapons from warships to canons all over the city. Some people we met from Russia, but now living in Toronto, told us that the people are still very scared of the KGB after the tour guide had kind of deferred answering a question about the KGB headquarters in St. Petersburg. The city is beautiful though. Unlike many older cities which would have torn down the old buildings and built new, St. Petersburg has retained the original facades. Even though the buildings are often gutted and totally remodeled, the front still looks like it did when it was first built. This has left a very beautiful authentic looking city. Unfortunately, two days only allows you to scratch the surface of a place like St. Petersburg. Fortunately, the tour we were on took us to most of the important land marks even though we were only able to see them from the outside. The weather was beautiful but hot so after our tour we came back to the boat and went to the pool.

Church of the Spilled Blood

Churc of the Spilled Blood (detail)

Eileen in the Market

Building at Church of Spilled Blood

The Academy of Arts

Helsinki

Antti

Day 13 (8/13/2010) Day 6 Baltic Sea Adventure

Today we were reminded that when all is said and done, travel is still about the people. Sailing into Helsinki was nothing like the beautiful trip in through the Archipelagoes of Stockholm. We passed a few somewhat nondescript islands and landed in an industrial area. You could see some of the city off in the distance but it had none of the initial awe inspiring beauty of Stockholm or even Copenhagen. But it was here in Helsinki that we had two of the highlights of our trip so far. We had no real tour planned so we had decided to just take the shuttle into town and have a look around. We had a foreign exchange student from Finland at Cedar Grove last year that I had told him that if we came to Helsinki I would give him a call. As these things go he probably thought he would never hear from me especially since the only contact information I had for him was on Facebook and we didn’t want to use that for fear of letting everybody know that we were out of town. At the last moment I remembered that perhaps they would have his phone number at school so I got that right before we left. I am not exactly a savvy traveler so cold calling somebody I don’t know that well was kind of scary. We had trouble getting the pay phone to work but a young lady working at the counter offered to call him using her cell phone. With her help we were able to get a hold of him and make arrangements to meet at a place that she knew everybody would be able to find. It probably was quite involved considering that we didn’t get to spend a lot of time with him. He was totally surprised however that I had really looked him up and it was great seeing him. The young lady however that helped us became very interested in our success and asked us to stop back and let her know how it went. At some point we found out that her husband had actually spent some time doing a mission in Beaver Dam (I can only imagine what sort of difficulty he must have encountered with those heathens). She had also lived in the States for a year and a half in Los Angeles. At any rate it was one of those meeting were you just connect and she told us all about her home in eastern Finland, close to the Russian border and how beautiful it was. We gave her one of my Peace Papers and exchanged e-mails and promised to keep in touch. Even if we never hear from her again it reminded us that no matter where you go you can find people with which you make a connection.

Sunrise coming into Helsinki

Welcome to Helsinki

The White Cathedral

Leaving Helsinki

Stockholm

The Aft Pool

Day 11 (8/11/2010) Day 4 Baltic Sea Adventure

Today we spend the entire day at sea. We started the day with breakfast in the Buffet. It has been cloudy and windy most of the day so we have spent our time getting to know the ship. I think we kind of have it down. We found out where our room is when looking at the side of the boat. We are port side just above the front of the #14 life boat. I have heard that cruises are a food fest and that is an understatement. The hardest part is working up an appetite between meals. Tonight is the first “Formal Night”. I am not looking forward to that. That in fact may be my single biggest problem with cruising. I am not exactly the type of person who is used to pampering and find it quite annoying to have people hovering around all the time waiting to answer your every beckon call. Every time you leave the room somebody comes in, straightens up and leaves you information and whatnot for the next stage of your adventure. Perhaps I will get used to it. Tomorrow we go to port in Stockholm. We made it through formal night. We sat with some people from Philadelphia and a group from Liverpool, England. They all seemed very nice.

Chillaxing

Day 12 (8/12/2010) Day 5 Baltic Sea Adventure

We were woke up at 5:30 to a clanging somewhere in the bowels of the ship. We never really did find out what it was but as soon as we looked outside there were hundreds of little islands going past our ship. They started small and grew larger and larger. Finally some started becoming inhabited. As it turns out, Islands appear to be to Sweden what waterfalls are to Norway. As soon as you think you have seen the coolest one ever a new even cooler one pops into view. Unfortunately, by 6:30 there was a heavy fog and you couldn’t see much of anything. This was another time when our balcony came in handy. By the time we would have dressed and made it to the deck the show would have been over.

The start of the Archipeligo

By the time we went and had breakfast the weather started to clear. It turned out to be a beautiful day in many ways. After a beautiful trip in through the archipelago we docked around 10:00. We decided to wait until the crowds cleared and then we went for a walk towards down town. We walked for about an hour from the ship and then back along a scenic channel. We then came back to the pier and boarded a tour boat to take a tour of Stockholm. It turns out that Stockholm is known as the Venice of the North. It is built on twelve islands and is most assessable by water. It has to be one of the most beautiful cities I have seen. It has a very interesting juxtaposition of old and new buildings. Like all Scandinavian countries they are very environmentally conscious. One of the islands is currently being developed so that no cars will be used. To live there you have to use public transportation.

At 5:00 we started making our way back out through the archipelago. It turns out there are 10,000 islands in the archipelago leading in and out of Stockholm some of which are inhabited and some not. In a nutshell it was a wonderful day.

Buildings start to apear on the Islands

Entering Stockholm

Stockholm by the Water

Stockholm Houseboat

City Government Building

Leaving the Archipeligo