Copenhagen (with Stockholm photos)

June 27 – Copenhagen

This morning was delightfully warm and sunny, a great day to showcase another beautiful city.  I was struck by the wonderful architecture, both old and new, and how well they blended together.   We walked across the city before it got crowded then meandered our way back to the ship.  We ran into Wayne and Nancy by a canal and the four of us decided to take a canal boat tour of the city – loved it!  It was wonderful to get another perspective of the buildings.  Denmark has the oldest monarchy in the world and we saw both the palace and the royal yacht.  We didn’t tour any buildings in Copenhagen – not enough time and it seemed nothing opened until noon on a Friday.  Shon fell in love with the city and would love to return but it is a very expensive city – almost $6.50 for a regular takeout coffee and $48 for two beer and two glasses of wine!!!! 

erHer I

Tonight is our third ‘gala’ night so we are having showers and getting dressed up for the final time.  Tomorrow we will pack up our room in preparation for disembarkation the next morning – we will put our big suitcases out in the corridor tomorrow evening for the porters and keep what we need in our daypacks.   Hopefully, leaving the ship will go smoothly so we can catch our bus to London. One night in London before we fly home.  This has been an awesome trip in so many ways – truly a memorable experience.

And these are the Stockholm photos:

Vasa, the war ship that sank in 1628 before it got out of the harbour.

A square in Gamla Stan, Old Town Stockholm

Stockholm, Sweden – June 25

We awoke this  morning as the ship threaded its way through the thousands (literally) of islands and islets that dot the archipelago that protects Stockholm.  It is like sailing the St. Lawrence’s 1000 Islands times 10 or the Gulf Islands times 1000!  Many summer cottages line the rocky shores of the treed islands.  The sun was out and it was a spectacular entrance to the city harbour.  We have been here before and this visit reinforced my love for the city. 

One attraction that we missed in 2010 was the Vasa warship, built in 1628 for a war against Poland.  The first sailing warship designed with 2 rows of cannons, the naval architect failed to fully comprehend the need for a wider base and more ballast to counteract the greater weight.  On her maiden voyage, fully loaded, the Vasa sank in the harbour and stayed there for over 300 years.  Because of the cold northern waters, her timbers were protected from worm damage and, in the 1960s, she was brought to the surface.  The art of reconstructing the pieces was described as the largest jigsaw puzzle ever.  Now, the Vasa sits in a fascinating museum built around her. 98% of what you see is the original ship with only a few new timbers needed.  The carvings and decorations on the ship were extensive and amazing.  In separate displays, there are skeletons of sailors, pieces of their original clothing, their daily objects, cooking pots, pieces of sails, etc.  Truly an interesting visit!!

We then had lunch at an outdoor café in the Old Town (Gamla Stan) and wandered its streets with Wayne and Jo, Wayne and Nancy until it was time to return to the ship. 

We are at sea tomorrow then have a 6 hour, early stop in Copenhagen (7 a.m. – 1 p.m) before our last day at sea and our return to Southampton.

Oops, these are Copenhagen's photos on the Stockholm page - Stockholm's photos will be on the Copenhagen page!

Copenhagen's famous Little Mermaid

Nyhavn, an old canal filled with sailboats and cafes

The new Opera house

A blend of old and new - apartments created from an old boatbuilding shed, now a very expensive address in the city

Helsinki

June 24, Helsinki

We are now on the sea again after a cloudy, sometime rainy, morning in Helsinki.  This Finnish city is even younger than St. Petersburg, dating from the 1830s forward.  For some of its time, it has been ruled by Russia.  It is a lovely city with friendly people.  We wandered the city streets, visited a large  market with crafts and beautiful local produce and seafood, and went into 3 very different churches – an ornate Finnish Orthodox, an austere but beautiful Lutheran church and a newer church built into a rock hillside (interior walls were rock with skylights and a dome on top).  The city was alive with traffic and cyclists and pedestrians – a modern city but a beautiful one.

Tonight is a gala night on board so it is time to don our fancy clothes and head out for dinner with our friends.  Food is good and too available – hard to resist!

Seafood display in Helsinki market

Shon enjoying smoked salmon and a beer on our balcony aboard our ship.

June 23 – St. Petersburg, Russia

What a city!!!  After two very full days with a tour group (our 12 plus 2 more) and our excellent guide, Oxana, we know so much about St. Petersburg and its history. Oxana’s English was very good which really made the tour!  Where Tallinn dates from medieval days, St. Petersburg was founded around 1700 at the mouth of the Neva River by Csar Peter the Great, who hated the city of Moscow, so created a new capital.  At the time, Russia was at war with Sweden, a very powerful nation in those days.  The new city began as a fortress and Peter learned how to build ships from the Dutch, using them to defeat the Swedish navy.  He then set about designing many grand buildings to celebrate the victory.  Subsequent csars added more grandiose palaces and public parks.  We all feel we can understand why the citizens of Russia chose to overthrow the Romanovs (Peter’s family name) in 1917 – so much decadence by the elite must have been hard to stomach by regular folk.  What surprised me was how much money the Communists have spent over the years restoring the grand buildings to their original glory – for example, during WWII, the Nazis lived in Catherine’s Palace, the most spectacular of the buildings we saw.  It is outside of the city so was occupied by the Germans who used the gold gilded moldings and decorations as firewood then set the whole place ablaze when the Russian army closed in on them.  One room alone has cost over $20 million US to restore!!!!  And there are many, many rooms in the palace.  Many of the churches were used by the Communists for storage or offices, etc but all the finery was preserved and /or restored when they were opened as museums over the years.  Now, St. Petersburg, a city of 5 million people, is known for shipbuilding, car assembly plants, and many, many tourists from cruise ships!!!  Still, it was a wonderful two days as we rode on a hydrofoil, and another boat, ate Russian food for lunches (stroganoff, borscht), toured the Hermitage (largest art collection in the world with over 3 million items, 7% of which is on display!), toured ornate Russian Orthodox churches, walked Peterhof (Peter’s estate outside of the city),  saw a bit of the countryside and suburbs.  Many, many ugly apartment buildings, some with crumbling concrete, dot the city – such a contrast with the gold-covered palaces, fountains, etc.  Truly a place that has to be seen to be believed!!  Our photos will not do it justice but…

Our group in St. Petersburg - Wilf and Aileen, Joann and Wayne, Shon and Les, Dave and Linda, Ted and Marilyn, Wayne and Nancy plus a couple from Chile who were on our tour in Russia

Palace for receptions in Peterhof

Landscaping at the palace; all that glitters is gold

Main ballroom at Catherine Palace, outside the city and occupied by the Nazis in WWII

a group learning to rollerblade outside of the Hermitage art museum.  This building was Peter, the Great's, Winter Palace, in the city

Oxana, our guide, in St. Isaac's cathedral, filled with mosaics

Tallinn, Estonia

June 21, Tallinn, Estonia.

We have had a wonderful day in the old walled part of Estonia – visited churches, enjoyed coffee in the main square, walked on the old wall, explored both the upper and lower parts of the old town.  It is our first visit to a former Soviet block country so weren`t sure what to expect.  I will have to read more about its history when we get home as we chose not to go into the Estonian history museum.  We do know it has been occupied by many conquering nations over its hundreds of years but is now enjoying its recent nationhood since 1991 when the former Soviet Union broke apart.  Some buildings look freshly cared for, some have crumbling cement facades.  The main square was as lively as any we have seen in Europe, its perimeter surrounded by outdoor cafes and restaurants.  There were 4 cruise ships in port today so the town was hopping!!  There were many young people working in the hospitality industry – selling postcards or toasted almonds or wooden trinkets from street carts; shilling for restaurants to attract customers;  working in the many, many souvenir shops.  All were friendly and spoke some English.   There were hordes of tour groups everywhere so it seems that the tourist industry is thriving in Tallinn.  Many of the buildings are painted in pastel colours – very nice effect as you gaze down a narrow, medieval street.  We went into a couple of antique stores – one was full of military items – helmets, coins, swords, gas masks, guns, etc.  including a Hitler mug and a helmet emblazoned with a Swastika, not items you see in Canada but likely left in Estonia after WWII.  The souvenir shops were full of beautiful linens, woollens, wood carvings, amber jewelry, and, of course, trinkets.  A word about the churches – a wide variety of styles with some very ornate and full of gold and bronze religious items; others very plain with little ornamentation.  The ornate ones did not allow photography so you will not see them (unless they are online – Alexander Nevski Cathedral and St. Nicholas).

And that concludes my ramblings from Estonia.  We have been having fun with our group on board.  Yesterday, Shon and I played deck shuffleboard in the morning then all of us played games in the afternoon – Sequence, Yahtzee and Wits End (like Trivial Pursuit with a heavy American emphasis) – girls have ruled that game.

And now it is time to head to dinner – last night was Italian night (the ship is Italian) so Italian food and entertainment.  Tonight is Brazilian carnival night .  The entertainment has been good the past two nights but we plan to skip the classical music night tonight and enjoy the Carnival in the dancing lounges – Lisa, wish you were here to dance to Brazilian music!

Lower old town Tallinn from Upper Town

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Russian Orthodox church

Main Square, Tallinn

North Sea

Somewhere in the southern North Sea – June 19   

As Snoopy used to write “It was a dark and stormy night.”   The ship was rocking and rolling all night and this morning.  It is becoming a little calmer now so it is easier to walk the halls without stumbling.  Combined with a few drinks last night, some of our group were feeling a little queasy this morning while some of us were just fine.  I had taken some Gravol and was one of the lucky ones; Shon is feeling better now that he has had some lunch.  We will be at sea all of today and all of tomorrow before we arrive in Tallinn, Estonia. 

A little about our ship and its passengers.  We are a multi-linguistic, all ages bunch – just sat with a Dutch couple from Rotterdam for lunch.  The crew is also multi-national.  We have assigned seats in one of the two dining rooms for dinner but can choose to eat in the cafeteria instead if we wish.  There are 3 or 4 places where we can eat breakfast and lunch without assigned seating.  So far, the food has been good, but not spectacular.  Some items are excellent but some are mundane. The menu varies each day.  We have not tried the pool yet; did see one fellow in the hot tub this morning about 8:30 a.m. with a beer – in the rain with the rocking deck making the water splash out of the tub.  Tonight is one of the gala nights where we get dressed up in our formal clothes – we do not own really formal clothes but will get as dressed up as our wardrobes allow!  We may even take a photo and send it to you all!  Don’t hold your breath but we may pay our money for an hour of wifi here.  If not, you will be reading this just before we arrive home!

Gala night

MSC Opera

Holland

Ijmuiden, the Netherlands – June 18

We have just spent a day in The Netherlands, land of the orange shirts, streamers and other decorations in support of their World Cup football (soccer to most of us) team.  Soccer is very important here and tonight they play against Australia. 

We boarded our ship, the MSC Opera yesterday and are thoroughly enjoying our first cruise experience.  The boat rocked a little last night but we slept well.  There are 4 or 5 lounges on board, each featuring a different style of music.  So far, the evening entertainment in the theatre is quite classical, although I would like to attend the classical flamenco performance tonight.  We will NOT be hungry on this voyage!!!!  Nor will we be thirsty!!!  Be prepared to see a couple of porkers when we get home – although we are trying to keep our portions small, taking just a small amount of each food we would like to try.

Today the rest of our group took a guided tour into Amsterdam but we caught a local bus into Haarlem, a city between the port and Amsterdam.   It is a beautiful old city with many buildings from the middle ages, many canals and many, many people on bicycles – just like every city in Holland.   A good day made better by an afternoon snack of pofferties (sp), very small pancakes served with butter and icing sugar!

We are now sitting on our balcony on the ship, waiting for our dinner seating at 6 pm, the same time as the ship will depart for the next leg of our journey.  We booked this cruise with 5 other couples from Vernon – some close friends plus some soon to be good friends, people we will get to know  much better over the next week or so.  We will be at sea the next two days en route to Estonia.

Haarlem

largest pipe organ in world? over 5000 pipes

Ostafew cousins

Uncle Morris filling his bird feeder with Les

biking in Holland

  

Final day in England

Today is our last day in England.  Tomorrow new horizons await as we board a cruise ship in Southampton and travel the Baltic Sea as far as St. Petersburg, Russia.
Our English travels have exceeded all expectations and have been very memorable.  Wayne and Nancy have been excellent travel companions and we look forward to the cruise with them and 4 other couples.
We are now at Nick and Jan Ostafew's in Swanage, a coastal holiday town in the south of England - a beautiful spot with so much history and so many walks.  Yesterday, we walked along the Jurassic Coast trail for about 8 miles ( about 13 km) - called Jurassic coast as the limestone, purbeck stone cliffs reveal many dinosaur fossils.

Dinosaur feet

 We ended in one of many local stone cottage villages, Worth Matravers, and ate outside at the Square and Compass pub - a favourite of Shon's from previous visits.

 The place was packed with families and dogs enjoying music and sunshine on the stone benches and tables.

Turns out the band was The Fugitives from Vancouver, BC, Canada!!!!  After lunch, the girls took a taxi home and the boys walked the 3 mile inland trail back home - Shon and Wayne were tired cowboys by the time they got home.
Jan is an excellent cook and we are being spoiled rotten by their wonderful hospitality!  Both are excellent tour guides and thoughtful hosts.  Uncle Morris lives with them here - they moved in with Morris and Daphne (since deceased) 14 years ago and it works great for everyone.  Uncle Morris will be 95 next month and is slowing down but doing well.  Today we visited two or three local destinations (Lulworth Cove, Corfe and Corfe Castle) and he came with us, sitting in the car and reading while we walked trails then joining us for a picnic and allowing us to push him in his wheelchair around Corfe.  Such a sweetie!!

corfe castle has been a ruin since Oliver Cromwell and his roundheads laid seige to it then blew it apart in the mid 1600s.

I am now going to try to load 2 or 3 photos of this area.  Wish me luck - I am using Google Chrome today instead of Explorer and that worked in the past so fingers crossed!

I realize I have not mentioned our time with cousins Jo, Rosemary and Rachael in Swindon so will add a photo or two from there.

Wayne, Nancy, Joanna, Rosemary, Rachael, Shon 

Entrance to West Kennett Longbarrow, a bronze age communal burial mound

Shon at Avebury stone circle which surrounds the village of Avebury. The circle is about 2600 years old.

london and york

Some of this is a repeat as I didn't think the other London post had worked. We have now explored London and York. Tomorrow we will be picking up our rental car and heading out to the countryside, landing in Keswick tomorrow night for 6 days of enjoying the Lakes District. 
As usual when being a tourist in a city, we have walked ourselves silly and our feet are not happy with us!!!  However, we have loved every minute of it.  In London, a highlight was going to see The Jersey Boys, a musical about the life of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (younger generation may have to google them) - it was great fun!  Another highlight, totally unexpected, was seeing the Queen and her major entourage (horses, cannons, fancy carriages, brass marching bands, Royal guards, City police, machine-gun toting security and all) as they headed to the Parliament so she could deliver the Speech from the Throne.  Very cool!!  Charles and Camilla were in their fancy carriage, too. Shon got some great photos.
 Shon and I also went to St. Paul's Cathedral, the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, and Regents Park in between wandering the streets and parks - so much to see and do.  Wayne and Nancy did their own thing much of the time as they had never been to England.  We all met cousin Catherine for a drink after work one day - such a friendly person!  Our accommodation near Kings Cross station was perfect - small studio rooms so we had our own kitchens to make breakfast and keep other food chilled.  It was only a 4 or 5 block walk to the underground (The Tube) that links to everywhere in London.

Kings Cross train station in London

Wayne with cousin Catherine

Yesterday morning, we took the train from London to York - a peaceful, relaxing 90 minute ride through lush green countryside dotted with sheep, cattle and power plants.  York has been a delightful surprise!  We are staying in a working convent, called Bar Convent.  Bar because it is next to Micklegate Bar, or Gate, one of the entrances to the old walled city.  You can walk on the wall from dawn to dusk.  Most of the roads inside the wall are narrow and a couple are full of well-preserved half-timbered buildings from medieval times. This city was started by the Romans and has been continually occupied since then.  In the 1970s, a re-development uncovered excellent items, including houses,, from the time when the Vikings ruled this area and had a city of 10,000 citizens here. We toured a very good museum built to tell their story.  Another famous building here is the Yorkminster Cathedral - stunning building!  This afternoon, Shon and Wayne headed to the National Rail Museum, largest in the world, while Nancy and I went shopping - nice clothes here but no room in the suitcase.

The Shambles, a Medieval street in York

Inside Yorkminster cathedral

Evening cruise on the Ouse River near York

Lakes district, part 2

Lakes District – Day 4

Another long day but a great one!  We started off with a 4 ½ hour walk/lunch exploration of Wordsworth country, the area where one of England’s favourite poets lived and died.  Yesterday, we saw his grave in Grasmere, today we saw his house – well, not the inside; we just had a tea in the tea room and used the toilets in the yard.  We walked above Rydal Water (lake), dropped down to his house and church, had lunch in the nearby Badger Bar then walked along the far side of Rydal Water back to our car.  So many sheep in this country – sheep and trekkers dot every hill and every dale.   The people who write the guides to walks must all be mountain goats because today was said to be a ‘level’ walk but we walked up and up before it leveled off.  We see so many walkers older than us striding up and down the fell (hill) walks here – makes us feel very inferior! 

views from our walk in Wordsworth country.  

This aft, we went for a drive and what a drive it was – along very narrow single width roads that are two way roads; we are lucky to still have our side view mirrors!  Shon did a great job of driving!!!  Twice we went over ‘mountain’ passes – incredible views both up one side and down the other.  At the top of Honister Pass there is a slate mine with gift shop – lovely stuff but too heavy to pack and quite pricey!  Very cool to see all the slate though. 

road up Honister Pass

And down the other side

Tonight we are having another quiet night at home – no wild nightlife for us seniors – and I suspect that there is not a lot of nightlife in Keswick as most people come here for fell walking or boating, not wild nightlife.  Most of the trekkers we see are older couples, although there are younger couples, too, and a very few families (cuz school is in at the moment).  Back to the steep mountain passes – we saw a couple of cyclists start up one pass, we passed them part way up and they caught up with us on the downhill side – amazing strength to power their way up those hills!!

This was the road up which the cyclist was powering between Buttermere and Newlands Valley

Speaking of seniors, we are delighted to be seniors here in Britain and get concession prices on many items.

One more day here then we drive south to cousin Joanna’s place in Swindon.

Lakes District, northern England

June 10

I am not sure if I have explained that we are travelling with Wayne, Shon’s cousin from Vernon, and his wife, Nancy.  Great travel companions!

Our drive from York to Keswick in our Volvo SUV was a rainy one.  We stopped in Richmond, a historic town in the northeast corner of the Yorkshire Dales.  We loved the castle ruins above the town but were not so happy with the parking ticket we received.  (Update:  We emailed the town council to say the parking signs for the 'free' parking were not clear for tourists and they agreed to waive our 25 pound - about $50 - fine.)

The town of Richmond from the castle tower

Richmond castle ruins from castle tower

Wow!  The Lakes District is incredibly gorgeous!  We are staying in an old stone building that has been made into different ‘flats’ – a perfect place as we make our own breakfasts and dinners here and eat out at lunch.  

Our Volvo and our 'cottage' building

Our first day here, we took a ‘launch’ (beautiful old wooden boat) across  Derwentwater  and hiked Cat Bells, a mild hike up a 1482’ summit.  I say ‘mild’ because here in the Lakes, everyone comes to ‘walk the fells’, the hills around here.  Cat Bells is one of the easiest fell walks but, to us, it was a challenge!  Nancy and I quit before the summit but it was still a good workout for us!    Once we were down, it was still quite a walk to the return launch so lunch was very late in Keswick – and boy, did it taste good!!

Nancy on Cats Bell looking down to Derwentwater (lake) where we started.

Shon, Wayne and Nancy - not at the summit yet!

Day 2, we explored south and southeast of Keswick – walked into Aira Force (force means waterfall in local dialect) by Ullswater Lake then had lunch in Windermere, had a walk by a river near the north top of Windermere Lake (mere means lake) and ate gingerbread from Sarah Nelson’s shop in Grasmere.  Sarah developed the recipe in the mid 1800s and the shop has been selling the same recipe’s treat ever since – yummy and VERY gingery!  All the towns/villages around here are delightful – full of stone homes and churches and pubs!  While driving from Ullswater to Windermere, we passed over the 1500’ Kirkstone summit on a single lane (but two way traffic) road lined with stone walls – stunning views and hairy driving but Shon was a great chauffeur. 

Aira Force (waterfall) by Ullswater (lake)

 Today, Day 3 here, we set off in pouring rain, to see Hadrian’s Wall, built by the Romans as the outer limits of their empire – they controlled all of England but not Scotland.  Luckily, the rain stopped soon after we left Keswick.   To get to the wall, we took a secondary highway that wound up and over the Pennine Range, a climb of 1900’.   Today, it was Wayne’s turn to navigate narrow, winding roads.  To our amazement, a cyclist almost beat us to the top (we had a photo stop) and another, almost our age, wasn’t far behind!  Also, we passed a covered wagon pulled by a horse (like a gypsy caravan)and it, too, arrived at the summit café – horse and driver both running up the hills!  We think these wagons are itinerant salesmen, not Romas, judging from the writing on them. There are highway signs occasionally alerting us to the possibility of coming across a horse and buggy around the next corner.  Incredibly expansive views of tundra-like surroundings from the top of the Pennines. 

Hadrian’s Wall with walls of Roman Housesteads Fort in foreground

Aerial shot of Housestead Roman Fort showing excavated parts - officers' quarters and central administration buildings in the middle; barracks in top right; communal latrines in bottom right.  More barracks would have been down the left side and lower right.

School class learning about life as a Roman soldier

Housesteads Fort, along Hadrian’s Wall, is a National Trust site, with the remnants of a Roman fort – stone foundations show where the buildings were and a film tells about daily life at the fort.  Very interesting.  The wall itself was a surprise as it is not even as high as a person – how could it keep people out?  It was situated on a ridge, though, so the Romans would have been able to see intruders arriving in the distance.  Next stop was Carlisle, a larger city near the Scottish border which has been attacked many times in history as the border was often under dispute.  We didn’t tour its castle but did enjoy its cathedral.

Other impressions of northern England – sparsely populated by humans but many, many sheep in paddocks.  The paddocks are all surrounded by low stone fences, some amazingly far up on the hillsides.  We even had sheep for company on our hike up Cat Bells.  Woodpigeons, larger than city pigeons, coo all around the area while bunnies run wild throughout the property where we are staying – I watched 11 young ones scurry down one hole tonight on my evening walk around the farm!  Wayne and Shon are doing a great job of driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road.

bunny by our cottage

In summary, we all fully understand why English people love to come to this area for their holidays – to trek, relax or learn about their country’s history.  Five days is not going to be enough to fully explore the Lakes District but we are doing our best!