After a day at sea having traveled 643 Nautical miles from Copenhagen to Amsterdam I woke up at about 5AM thinking we had arrived a couple of hours early. In fact, we just hit the locks on the edge of the Amsterdam harbor. All of the canals and waterways in Amsterdam are below sea level. Amazing the […]
Our weather luck finally ran out in Copenhagen and it drizzled off and on most of the day. It made the day a little dreary buy it also brought out great colors.The bus made the obligatory stop at the site of the Little Mermaid and I took the required photos. We spend most of our […]
Visby surprised us. It is the capital of Gotland Island, a popular vacation destination for residents of Stockholm. This is a park near the university of Gotland with a view of the Visby Cathedral which opened in 1225. The cathedral is certainly the most significant monument in Visby and is breathtaking in size and scope, especially […]
Riga is about double the size of Tallinn and it feels even larger, likely because we never left the old city of Tallinn. Riga has done a pretty good job of mixing old and new. We started our walking tour near the main terminal on the Gulf of Riga and the mouth of the Daugava […]
Our time in Tallinn focused on the old city center (late thirteenth century). We entered through the Long Leg Gate Tower and wandered the narrow streets. There was no tourist traffic, only local residents and merchants. Many of the main buildings were taken over by the USSR during the occupation. This is a building […]
The interior of the Faberge Museum is stunning. It is a building owned by a “Russian Businessman” aka oligarch who purchased the collection of the Forbes family so that he could bring them home to St. Petersburg. It was noble but not altruistic. They charge plenty for admission. Here is an example of a royal […]
The focus of our day was a visit to the Hermitage. As you can see, it is an extremely popular place. Fortunately our tour entered via another (much shorter) line. The building is beautiful inside and out, starting with the lobby stairs, beautiful ceilings and elaborate floors. It used to be the Winter Palace and […]
It was great to have a tour where we walked around most of Helsinki. I am guessing we walked about 5-6 miles. We toured the port area with its open market (think lots of Lingonberries) the main train station, and stopped at the Helsinki music center for coffee and a sweet roll. We then went […]
We arrived to a rainy Stockholm after a long day of air travel. San Francisco to Copenhagen and then a short jump from Copenhagen to Stockholm. We found a local pub that served Mary’s favorite beer, one that I had to try, and Swedish meatballs. It seemed like the perfect way to celebrate our arrival. […]
