London, England – July 31

Well…what can I say??? I think we have somehow been transported to an alternate universe of high living. Not that we weren’t enjoying ourselves before, we certainly were, but seriously…this is crazy!

The hotel we are staying at is spectacular. As I said yesterday, this place is great and today is no exception. Breakfast is included in our room rate. Breakfast is always an issue for us as I have to get something in my belly in the morning and Chris wants nothing to do with food before noon. When we were on the ship this was easily solved with room service – problem solved here in the same way. I never want a whole lot of food, so what I ordered was called ‘High Breakfast’, like high tea which I discover when it arrives. It is delivered to the room beautifully presented on a tiered stand like tea sandwiches would be along with juice and coffee. When we checked in last night we were asked which paper we would like in the morning, yet none came today. When I called, they couldn’t apologize enough and got one to us almost before I hung up the phone – WOW is all I keep saying! They are charging me for internet though, so this place isn’t entirely paradise.

From the moment we got into the cab last night it was obvious what a busy place London is. The streets were completely thronging with people. I realize it was Friday night and a Wednesday afternoon might be a bit less teeming. I don’t remember London being this way the last time we were here although I probably was, but this is certainly how I remember New York. The sidewalks around outside of each pub were thick with people and their pints.

After we come to from the dizziness of the morning’s luxuries, we headed off into London. The streets again today were thronging with people. Just after we had walked a few minutes away from our hotel we found ourselves in Piccadilly Circus. There was a lot going on including a couple of characters from the show our concierge was looking into theatre tickets for us for which I had my pic taken with. The show is Pricilla Queen of the Desert. We ended up with great tickets to a great, fun show.

Next we walked for quite a bit to the Tate Museum of Modern Art. This museum is free as are most (maybe all) of London’s museums. After the museum we had a pint, changed at the hotel, had an Indian dinner and were at the show. After the show another pint and back to the hotel before midnight thanks to the 11:00 last call.

Stockholm, Sweden – July 30

I’m thrilled to report that the rain has stopped and today is quite lovely. There is quite a bit of wind, but I can’t complain as it takes a bit of the sun’s heat away.

Our flight isn’t until 6 tonight, so we check out of the hotel, leave our bags at the hotel and hit the town. I saw a bead for my bracelet the first day we were here that I want to go back for so we jog (I should say speed walk – WOW Chris likes to walk fast when he is on the way to someplace he doesn’t want to be) and get a bead of Thor’s hammer. When I asked the shop keeper to explain how that particular bead represents Stockholm he proceeded to tell me that Thor was a god…yeah, I know who Thor is for crying our loud, I just didn’t get what the bead actually was.

Anyway…we then slowed down, took the hop-on-hop-off boat across to another of Stockholm’s 14 islands to visit the Vasa museum. The Vasa museum is Stockholm’s most visited attraction which is very apparent when we arrive to find a very, very long line. The line moves quite fast and we are in within 10 minutes. The Vasa was a Swedish war ship that sank in 1682 after only sailing for 1300 meters due to a huge gust of wind. Seems crazy for a ship like that to sink from a gust of wind so close to shore.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at lunch, walking around, visiting the actual medieval museum and heading to London.

London…well all I have to say about our hotel is WOW. This hotel is spectacular. It wasn’t a bargain, so we are getting what we are paying for, but it is very nice. The service from the moment we stepped out of the cab was wonderful. Within 30 minutes of checking in, we were shown the hotel, told about breakfast (included), given our Champagne vouchers (part of the pkg we booked), taken to our room, delivered petit fours (“to celebrate your anniversary”), set up for complementary new paper for the morning and sent to dinner. The bellman asked us what we wanted to do for the rest of the night (it was about 10) and all we knew was that we needed to eat. He made reservations for us and we were on our way.

The place he sent us was like none other that we’ve ever experienced. It was like a bar (for the older crowd – made us feel a bit like the youngsters) and restaurant together. However…it wasn’t the typical bar/pick-up scene. I’m sure there was plenty of picking up going on, but it was more music that we knew – for the older crowd (that we certainly belonged to) who sung almost all of the songs. There was Michael Jackson, Neil Diamond, Elvis, Frank Sinatra just to name a few that many, many were belting out like crazy. It was a very fun place!

And the hotel…what can I say…probably the best hotel we have ever, ever stayed in. I haven’t yet tested the bed, but everything else so far as exceeded our expectations. Not easy to do!

Stockholm, Sweden – July 29

WOW did it rain today! We waited, and waited and waited some more for it to let up, but it didn’t. Finally we decided to venture out and hope for the best and luckily it wasn’t cold. Of course we had umbrellas, but at one point there was quite a downpour and we returned to the hotel SOAKED!

We visited Stockholm’s national museum (art mostly – not just from Sweden.) This museum is the perfect size for a museum…took us about 2 hours to cover.
Next was lunch…We found an outdoor terrace that had huge awnings and heaters under so we ate outside. Here like we found in Copenhagen the outdoor cafes and restaurants have blankets on each chair to use when it is cold. Can’t say we didn’t get a bit wet, but that was part of the charm of sitting outside.

After lunch we hit what we thought was a medieval museum. Once we got inside, we wondered what Egypt, Greece and Turkey had to do with a medieval museum. Well…we realized that The Medelhavsmuseet is not in fact medieval, but is really the museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities. I have to say, the antiquities parts of museums are typically the parts I blow through mostly I think because I don’t really know enough about what I’m looking at. I didn’t blow through this one and I don’t think I’ll be blowing through the antiquities again. There among other exhibits were real mummies (can’t say I’ve ever seen one of those before) and a set of several hundred (only half are here in Sweden) terra cotta statues found in Cyprus in the 1920s. These ranged in size from almost life size to a couple of inches. The whole place was very interesting. Not a place we would probably have visited normally, but we have a ‘Stockholm Card’ that gets us into a whole bunch of attractions at no cost.

Only a couple of minutes after we leave the museum we are caught in a torrential downpour. By the time we walk the 10 minutes back to the hotel we are pretty soaked especially our shoes.

Note about Sweden…smoking is banned indoors. Smoking is allowed in outdoor areas. Also, Sweden is very high tech…buses won’t take payment. You have to have some sort of prepayment which can actually be a text you send which sends you back proof of payment! Very cool. And…alcohol can only be sold where there are full kitchens. So basically there are no bar only places. And…drivers are very courteous. Often cars will stop even though they have a green light. It seems as though they are ready for pedestrians to cross against the light although it doesn’t seem like many people do.

Stockholm, Sweden – July 27

Hey Hey! That’s the Swedish way of saying ‘hi’ or ‘hello’. It seems a bit weird for a stranger to greet us with a ‘hey’. Maybe that’s what makes the Swedes seem very friendly – they do. Everyone we’ve encountered seems very friendly. I realize they are all service industry people, but that’s who we always encounter.

The cruise came to an end today in Stockholm. This is certainly the coolest day we have had thus far in the vacation - about 21 lovely degrees.

We had to get off of the ship early today so they can get ready for the next set of cruisers. This means we get to our Stockholm hotel before 10:00. The lobby was PACKED with people. Apparently this is a hotel our ship and 2 others are using for post cruise land packages and all 3 groups showed up at once. We aren’t doing any package through the cruise company (which I will add… seem to be exorbitantly priced), but are using the same hotel. After finally checking in, leaving our bags, as of course the room, wasn’t ready we hit the town.

Stockholm on first glance is very nice. It has calmness to it that I like. As the day goes on, more and more people fill the streets, but it doesn’t get any more frantic. We spend some time strolling many of the pedestrian streets in the old town. We decide to go wild and have a pizza for lunch. The restaurant we eat at feels a bit more North American than other places we’ve eaten. Typically we have to flag a waiter for everything we need – to order, more wine, to pay…anything. This is just the European way and has always been a bit hard to get our heads around. Anyway…we don’t have to flag anyone down and we hear a ton of English – even when the bartender answered the phone he spoke English.

After lunch I got a piece of Swedish licorice. As you can see from the pic it is about 2 feet of black salty goodness – well I thought it was goodness when I was scarfing down the entire 2 feet. Not long after inhaling the candy did I suffer from a woozy belly. The stall selling the stuff has about 6 different flavours – I asked for the most typically Swedish. They also had black unsalted, pink, green, orange and other colors covered in sugar. I can only imagine what all that would have done to my insides!

Next we visit a grocery store that is part of a department store in the basement. We stock up on water, snacks etc and notice the beer here has no more than 3.5% alcohol.

Our room is finally ready with its wonderful view of the water surrounding Stockholm. We are paying for this view, but only about 10.00 a night more – a bargain we think.

Dinner is NOT PIZZA! It is reindeer!!!! I can’t believe I’m eating reindeer, but I do. It is very good, tastes a whole lot like beef actually with a slightly different texture. Chris has Swedish meatballs of game, which are also very good. The meatballs come with The meal is very ‘meat-and-potatoes’ with gravy they call ‘cheese gravy’, but doesn’t have anything to do with cheese as far as I can see.

Thanks again to all of you who are reading and posting!!!

Helsinki, Finland – July 26

Helsinki is a huge change from our last 3 days in Russia. There are about 450 000 inhabitants (what Europeans called population) or 1 000 000 in the greater Helsinki area. This morning we board a bus for a city tour. Although there are beautiful buildings and a few interesting monuments, the tour proceeds at a slow pace and we are given A LOT of time at each building or monument we stop at.

One stop we make that is very interesting is a church (Lutheran) built into rock. Apparently the builder decided to dynamite into the rock and leave a hollow that would be the church rather than get rid of the rock all together. It sounds like it could be cave like, but there is a lot of light and the roof is a 5000 kilometre coil of copper tubing that forms a sort of upside-down basket

We aren’t docked so that we can walk easily back to the ship, but there is a shuttle every half hour. We check out a couple of open air markets – Chris considered getting a reindeer sausage (they’re all over the place), but didn’t bother. Lunch was at a café – should have taken a pic, but forgot.

We sailed early, so we spent the rest of the afternoon soaking up the last few hours of sailing. Tomorrow we disembark and spend a few days on our own in Stockholm.

St. Petersburg, Russia – July 26

Tonight we say Dasvidania to St. Petersburg and Russia. Customs turned out to be very much a ‘non-issue’. It is true that we had to go through each time we went on a tour and each time we returned – for what purpose, I’m not sure, but once we when through once it was very fast and a shorter process each time after that. St. Petersburg surprised me a bit in terms of the magnificence of the buildings. They are nothing less than huge, opulent and beautiful. Certainly there are communist-era apartment block which we encountered a bit today on our ride of the St. Petersburg metro system (subway) but the buildings from old Peter the Great/Catherine the Great times left me speechless. I am also aware that the opulence of these buildings came at the expense of the oppression of the Russian people.

Our afternoon tour of the St. Petersburg metro was a welcome change from the palaces, monuments and museum tours of the last few days. There really wasn’t much to the tour than riding the metro, visiting a local Russian market and a bit of souvenir shopping. It was very interesting though to be not as much of a tourist today. The St. Petersburg metro is one of the deepest if not the deepest in the world with some of the stops being more than 300 feet deep. The depth was obvious when we took very long escalators down to the tracks. This tour was also appealing because the St. Petersburg metro has interesting architecture, sculptures and paintings in it. Considering that it was very hot today (35 degrees) and that the metro doesn’t have AC it was quite comfortable in the metro. Our guide was very good (a bit too good maybe) at giving explicit instructions on how to use the tokens, the escalator and basically everything to do with being on the subway. Seemed at the time to be a bit funny, but who knows…maybe some of the people on the tour needed to be told to ‘watch and then do what the person in front of you is doing.’

After the metro ride we visited a typical Russian market and then had tome for souvenir shopping.

Russia (St Petersburg anyway…) seems to have very little in the way of fast food. Typically every large or small town we visit has McDonald’s etc all over the place, but all there seems to be here is Subway and one McDonald's. Nothing in the way of street food either. There are a few stalls selling pop (no beer) or pre-packaged ice cream, but no hotdogs, nuts, corn (we think we may have seen one corn stall) etc. Any no Vodka stands although that would have been very interesting.

By the way...I don't have any pics of the metro as they aren't allowed. Apparently the Russians are afraid that terrorists will make plans based on photos, so none are allowed.

After we return and we are finally sailing again after 3 days in port we spend some long awaited time on our balcony. I don't love the days in port - especially when we can't venture into the city on our own. One of the charms of being on a cruise is actually sailing!

St Petersburg, Russia – July 25

It was another early morning for our tour of the Hermitage art museum. Getting there early is a very good thing…the museum opens at 10:30 to the public, but we (and many other cruise tours) are in by about 9:15. I don’t know how many other cruises are in St. Petersburg on this particular day, but certainly not just ours. Even before the public is let in the place is PACKED. There are some particular rooms (the Rembrandt one especially) where people were shoulder to shoulder. Most of the guided groups use ear pieces attached to a small receiver. The guide has her own that she speaks quietly into that we can all hear without her shouting.

The Hermitage is enormous! I don’t remember the Louvre in Paris (the Louvre and the Hermitage are frequently compared) being so big. I also don’t remember it being so palatial. Both are former palaces, but this seems more palace-like. There are enormous rooms that are still as they would have been with their ceilings and pillars and chandeliers ready for a party. If I can only say one thing about the Hermitage it would be HUGE. The building itself is vast, but there are some pieces in the museum that are very, very BIG. There are a few pieces were actually installed before the museum was built, so that they would actually fit.

We basically sprinted through the place, seeing as much of it as we could led by the guide. Our guide stopped us every so often at the highlights and to give explanations, but we were on the move most of the time. This is fine with us. Even if we had the whole day, we couldn’t have seen all of the museum’s collection. The highlights were perfect.

St. Petersburg was more crowded than usual today as it was Naval Day. Just as we were leaving the museum a parade on one of the city's 4 rivers was about to start. There were submarines and naval ships in the river along with many sailors either on the ships/submarines or parading.

The afternoon was spent back on the ship – sadly still no ‘beer-in-town’ shots. Very difficult in Russia. We’ll be in Helsinki in a couple of days and we’ll try to catch up.

St. Petersburg, Russia – July 24

This morning was delightful…a late sleep (9:15 – really 8:15 as we lost another hour last night) followed by room service breakfast (shredded wheat and no Champagne although the room service guy apologized profusely and finally found us some), and a huge rain/electrical storm. This storm was CRAZY - a ton of thunder, lightening and a huge amount of rain. I was wonderful to huddle, protected by the overhang of our balcony and watch the pavement and harbour below be just pummelled.

After lunch we braved Russian customs which we are led to believe are ‘not to be fooled with’. I’d like to know which country’s customs are ‘to be fooled with’. I typically shut my mouth, present my documents and hold my breath. I think I am just they type of visitor the Russians are looking for. It is actually just like any other customs area (US or Canadian) we’ve experienced. In Europe we haven’t really had to deal with customs at all. We went through ‘passport control’ or what they call ‘immigration’ in London and Copenhagen, but all they did was look at our passports and stamp them - no where has required us to fill out landing cards or declare anything.

The tour this afternoon is ‘Highlights of St. Petersburg’. WOW, this city is unlike anything we have encountered on this trip or even ever. It is FULL of monuments and huge buildings that are awe-inspiring. The only place I’ve been to that even comes close to comparing is Paris and I think even that pales! We make numerous ‘photo-stops’ preceded by warnings to ‘watch your belongings especially if you have large cameras’. When we get off the bus the warnings seem to have been reasonable, but the same warning would seem appropriate in any other large city – caution is your best friend, not fear.

The one place that we actually spend time visiting is the Cathedral of Peter and Paul. It is a very busy place, but our guide is excellent and makes sure all of us ‘come forward’ to see what she is talking about. This is more than a cathedral. The cathedral is within a fortress on the Neva River. Across the river are the buildings of the Hermitage which we will visit tomorrow. This cathedral is where Catherine the Great is buried along with Peter the Great.

Today being Saturday there are brides everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE. At first I thought ‘what’s the big deal, Saturdays in summer are wedding central’, but NO. Like the city, St. Petersburg does things BIG. We probably saw 50 wedding parties today. Either we were following them or they were following us on their (or our) photo stops.

We actually did have a bit of time for shopping and at every photo stop there were souvenir stalls, but we didn’t commit. We have a tour on Monday that has a shopping focus, so we’re holding off until then – maybe I’ll come home with a set of nesting dolls or a furry Russian hat.

Good point Lori about the beer pics. We tried at one point to get one from a street vendor, but they were only selling water and Coke. Might have a hard time for the next while too being in St. Petersburg. We tried today, but all the street vendors were selling were Cokes, water etc and a malted beverage without alcohol – we’re not looking for an O’Doul’s!

Note...the Russian flag as you probably has 3 colors, the white seems to blend in with the background just like the Estonian did yesterday.

Tallinn, Estonia – July 23

Today we visit a palace called Kadriorg. This palace was founded by Peter the Great in honour of his wife Catherine. The grounds and palace are beautiful, but this stop seems a bit forced - a little like Riga, Tallinn could have been missed. It is a good thing that this tour is in the afternoon and is short. We have a chance to sleep in. We lost an hour of sleep last night and will loose another tonight.

We have no time for shopping today. This cruise has been very light on the shopping stops. Typically there is ‘free time for shopping’, but this time there is very little if any.

Tomorrow we are in St. Petersburg, Russia. There are many tours offered here. Originally, we had 2 booked for each of the 3 days we are here. We have decided that is just a bit too much and have opted for just one each day – it is a vacation after all.

Riga, Latvia – July 22

Before I describe the day's events I should disclose that last night was a loosing one at the casino. Not because of me of course...I filled the holiday coffers a couple of nights before, but 'team Squanceski' came home a bit lighter.

Latvia is definitely a pit-stop on the way to St. Petersburg. Seems like a place you would stop for a bathroom break and to gas up on the way to someplace else. Kind of interesting, but certainly a place that could be missed. Riga’s claim to fame is its art-nouveau architecture. This is actually quite interesting. We’ve never seen a city with architecture like this.

I will say however, that I'm glad when we stop in places like these. It reminds me a bit of when we stopped in Belgrade and Serbia. These are places whose people have experienced war and other atrocities in my lifetime. That is what I always find impactful - terrible things in my lifetime. It is easier to wrap my head around horrible things that happened 'before I was born'. I find it breathtaking to visit places where people I actually know, who are actually 'my age' have experienced the war there in my lifetime.

Today’s tour is a bus tour followed by a walking tour. Riga has some interesting spots making for a few choice photo-ops, but could have been missed. Half way through the tour there is ‘time for shopping or a coffee’ - we make it a ‘time for a beer’. Here prices are better than earlier in the trip, we pay about 13.00 for 2 beers, although we find that a block away from where we stopped would have been a lot less than that.

Of course the beer is followed by my first public restroom experience for this trip and I'm pleasantly surprised. These are coin operated (although I find one that doesn’t actually require a coin – 75 cents.) I’m not sure what I expected from the WC, because in retrospect it wasn’t great – a stainless steel bowl that didn’t flush, no water to wash my hands and no paper, luckily I have learned from experience to always take paper with me! However…I am relieved at the end and able to carry on with the tour. It is amazing how important being able to access a WC really can be.

We forego lunch in town for lunch on the boat followed by a few pool-side cocktails, a nap and pre-dinner reading on the balcony.

Food on the ship is excellent, but it reached new heights with its cheese souffle - WOW. I have actually made a cheese souffle before, but obviously missed the mark. This is beyond delicious! It is cheesy, light, slightly sweet and at the same time salty. I was terribly disappointed today when it was not on offer at the lunch buffet. I suspect I could have asked for some, but didn't. I will certainly in the future!