Baltic Sea Cruise cont...
Day 4 & 5, St. Petersburg, Russia
We only took a short tour here. I would have liked to see more of the country as many people felt it was a vivid example of the poverty they live with. I did not see evidence of this on our short tour. It was very controlled. You were required to present your passport and stay with a group unless you had a visa.
The Winter Palace in Russia was used for many years by the Russian Royalty.
It is no longer used other than as a museum. It is attached to the Hermitage
Museum which is one of the largest museums in the world and houses the largest
collecting of Rembrandt paintings in the world. It also has a Michelangelo,
at least 2 Da Vinci's, several Monet's and many other famous artists.
This is the royal coach that was used.
Day 6, Estonia
I loved this country. We took a longer (6 or 7 hour) tour and saw much of the countryside. We stopped in to a museum for the manufacture of Vodka, visited an old manor house that was typical of turn of the century living and then on to the castle you see here. This was a beautiful country that only gained independence from Russia 15 years ago.
Castle in Rackvere, Estonia. One of the amazing things about many of the places we went was how little protection most of the buildings, art and antiques received. You could touch so much and see parts that you would never have gotten to see in the US. This castle had a very narrow stairway to the very top and we were actually allowed to climb up.
The castle had an exhibit with many swords and other armor from several different centuries. We were actually able to handle almost all of the pieces.
Castle torture chamber
Day 7, Stockholm, Sweden
Stockholm was quite expensive. Jeff and I purchased a pizza and two drinks and it cost over $30 US dollars. A bit of a cultural thing here. We were definitely labeled foreigners because all of the locals were ordering a pizza per person and ate the uncut pie with a knife and fork. We cut ours as would be expected here in the states and ate it with our hands.
The Vasa War ship from 1665. Absolutely incredible. The highlight of Stockholm.
Streets of old town Stockholm. Most buildings were built in the 16th and 17th century and are still used as residences today.
This was really cool. In Stockholm, we had to have a member of the local maritime martial whatever on board our ship until we got into international waters. This boat came up along side the ship as it was moving to allow the member to exit the ship and return to Stockholm.
Day 8 is a bike tower in Visiby, Sweden. Day 9 will be in Warnemunde, Germany. We have a couple and their daughter (the daughter has been there) that we will be doing a private tour with.