Random Thoughts

This was a cruise that I was somewhat worried about.  We started this cruise as just the two of us....no past friends would be with us.  I was concerned that the trip might be too much for Charlie and we would be so far away from home.  My fears were baseless....Charlie did well and we had a great time despite the weather!

I had been corresponding with Mike Martin on Cruise Critic about excursions for quite a while.  When we met on board and I met his wife, Pam, we really seemed to "bond".  In addition to the excursions, we met every night for drinks and had dinner together most nights in Blu. Also, enjoyed our time spent with Linda and Jim Smith.  

The sea days pasted quickly.  We enjoyed the lectures, especially Marlene and Chet Solender. My Mah Jongg games were pretty much a bust.  Much better on Princess!

The ports on the first cruise were good but not new to us.  In LeHarve, we went to Mont St. Michel but the weather was so bad that it was a horrible day!  Dover was a great day...thanks, Mike, for arranging it.  Brugge was wonderful, as usual...especially the beer!

Most of the ports on the second cruise were new to us and I was really looking forward to them. 

Berlin was good, we had a great guide, but again the weather impacted our enjoyment.  Pouring rain at the Constentration camp may be appropriate but not fun! Our time in Berlin was rushed but we saw a lot.  I was so disappointed with Checkpoint Charlie...so tacky!  

Tallinn....again, cold, rainy.....couldn't really enjoy it much.

St. Petersburg...the first day getting thru Russian customs was awful! The weather was cold and dreary but no rain.  SPB is really a remarkable place to visit but you would definitely need more than two days to really see it.  All we really got was an overview but I'm happy for what we got.  Julia was a wonderful guide and you can tell she loves her city and her country....even Putin!!  We stayed off that subject!  The second day's weather was better and we continued at our hectic pace.  We ended our day with lunch in a Russian home.  That was truly wonderful.  I've tried to think about what I thought was the most impressive....I can't pick one site.  Each one was impressive but in a different way.

Helsinki was great....Stockholn OK but that was Charlie's fault!.....Copenhagen also was good.

All in all, we had a very good cruise. Charlie did so good.  I keep thinking that we won't be able to cruise much longer but maybe it won't be because Charlie' condition makes it impossible....it may be because we run out of $$$$$$s!!!!!

Copenhagen

Monday, May 19th

Since we have been to Copenhagen several times, we decided to just take the HOHO Boat and see Copenhagen from another perspective.

City Hall

Waiting to board the boat at Gammel Strand

Nyhavn 

Copenhagen Opera House

Our ship awaits......

The Marriott where we stayed the last time we were here

Lunch at Nyhavn. Smorrrebrod(open faced sandwich) and a beer....$50.00!!!!

The Little Mermaid is back from China

Charlie with the BIG MERMAID !!!

This is our last port.  This has been a good cruise despite the weather!

Stockholm

Saturday, May 17th

This morning we were invited to watch the sail in to Stockholm from the helipad.  It was, finally, a beautiful morning and this was a beautiful spot to view the sail in.

We had initially planned to do a ship's tour here but Charlie really wanted to visit the Abba Museum so we decided to cancel the tour and take the HOHO Boat/Bus.  BIG MISTAKE!!

When we got there, it was very crowded and you even needed to get a number for the privilege to get in line to get a ticket! Charlie decided that he didn't want to visit the museum that bad!

The Vasa Museum was close by to we walked over there only to stand in line for almost an hour to get in!

The Vasa Museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship that sank on her maiden voyage in 1682.

After we toured the museum, we got back on the HOHO Boat and went back to the ship.  Following are some of the sights of Stockholm.......

Sea Gulls saying goodbye to us as we leave port.

All in all, we had a good day but really, we did not see much of Stockholm.  Linda and Jim Smith who did the tour we were suppose to do saw much more.  It really is hard to DIY in places you have not been before.......won't Make that mistake again!

Helsinki

Friday, May 16th

Today we are doing a tour arranged thru Mr. Taxi by Lars Myren.  This was really a good quiet tour to do after two hectic days in St. Petersburg.  In all the correspondence from Lars, he stressed that we would only have a driver....no guide....it turned out that our driver was great and he really was an excellent tour guide!

Our first stop was in Porvoo, Finland's second oldest city, located about 30 miles east of Helsinki.

 

The red-colored wooden storage buildings on the shore of thePorvoonjoki River. They are currently a proposed UNESCO world heritage site.

Porvoo Cathedral

Mike walking in Old Town among the wooden houses

Lars, Ricardo and Beverly walking among the wooden houses

The Sibelius Monument is dedicated to the Finnishcomposer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957). The monument is located at the Sibelius Park in the district of Töölö in Helsinki, the capital city of Finland.

The monument was designed by Eila Hiltunen and unveiled on September 7, 1967. Originally it sparked a lively debate about the merits and flaws of abstract art, for which reason an effigy of Sibelius was included in the work. It consists of series of more than 600 hollow steel pipes welded together in a wave-like pattern. The purpose of the artist was to capture the essence of the music of Sibelius. The monument weighs 24 tonnes (24 long tons; 26 short tons) and measures 8.5 × 10.5 × 6.5 metres.

Temppeliaukio Church is a Lutheran church.  The church was designed by architects and brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen and opened in 1969. It is also known as the Church of the Rock.  While we were there, there was a choir practicing and the acoustics in the church were amazing.

The House of Estates

Helsinki Cathedral

Our last stop was at Market Square to check out some of the local handicrafts (I bought a piece of pottery for my mantle) and some good food.....then it was back to the ship after a good day....finally decent weather!

St. Petersburg

Thursday, May 15th

This will be the second day of our VERY ACTIVE tour of St. Petersburg.  Julia was here bright and early to start our day.

We continued on our drive around St. Petersburg.  Julia is so full of information that is hard to absorb it all!

A little enclosed courtyard...quite beautiful.

CHURCH OF THE SPILLED BLOOD

Our first actual visit this morning was at the Church of the Spilled Blood.the church was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. And was dedicated in his memory.

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

                                             Xpam Cnaca ha Kpobm (Russian)

Mosaics in the interior

Piece of the ground where Tsar Alexander II was 

                                                                           assassinated has been preserved in the church

THE HERMITAGE

Our next stop was a whirlwind tour of the Hermitage.  It is impossible to see much in the short time we have but at least we got a taste of this magnificent place.It was Catherine the Great who was responsible for creating the celebrated State Hermitage Museum within the walls of her glorious Imperial residence, the Winter Palace . At the time of her death the collection contained nearly 4000 paintings. Today, there are more than three million items making the The State Hermitage Museum (Gosudarstvenny Ermitazh) one of the largest and most prestigious museums in the world. Visitors can be forgiven for being unsure where to begin, coronation carriages, the Malachite Room, centuries old porcelain and antiques, Faberge, Rembrandt, Raphael, DiVinci, Michelangelo, and Van Gogh, Matisse, Renoir, Degas, and Rodin, and all that just for starters. It can take a complete day to see the highlights, but investigating every corner in each of the five linked buildings could take years.

Madonna with a Flower (Benois Madonna) Leonardo da Vinci

Madonna Litta Leonardo da Vinci

The Raphael Loggias is a reproduction of Raphael's celebrated Loggias, erected in the Vatican Palace and painted by Raphael and his pupils.

The Hermitage Cat

Madonna and Child (Madonna Constabile) Raphael

Crouching Boy. Michelangelo

ST. ISAAC'S CATHEDRAL

The church on St Isaac's Square was ordered by Tsar Alexander I, to replace an earlier Rinaldiesque structure, and was the fourth consecutive church standing at this place. A specially appointed commission examined several designs, including that of the French-born architect Auguste de Montferrand (1786–1858), who had studied in the atelier of Napoleon's designer, Charles Percier. 

The cathedral took 40 years to construct, under Montferrand's direction, from 1818 to 1858. To secure the construction, the cathedral's foundation was strengthened by driving 25 000 piles into the fenland of Saint Petersburg. Innovative methods were created to erect the giant columns of the portico. 

During World War II, the dome was painted over in gray to avoid attracting attention from enemy aircraft. On its top, in the skylight, a geodesical intersection point was placed, with the objective of aiding in the location of enemy cannon.

With the fall of communism, the museum was removed and regular worship activity has resumed in the cathedral, but only in the left-hand side chapel. The main body of the cathedral is used for services on feast days only.

Our last stop of the day was for "lunch with a Russian family".  This was an apartment of a couple who raised 2 children in this apartment which seemed to be less than 500 sq. ft! This couple were both engineers so this would seem to be a "upper middle class couple" by our standards.

Mike and Pam ready for lunch

Our hostess and Julia, our guide.  We had a very good lunch.  The borscht was delicious!!!  Of course, the vodka helped!!

The apartment was very neat and clean.  You could tell our hostess was very proud of it.

We returned to the Constellation after another long day.  At least, the weather was good today.  We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to St. Petersburg and saw so much.  Our guide was wonderful...our group..Linda, Jim, Pam, Mike and the 2 of us had a very good time.