Stockholm, Sweden

Today we arose at 5am. Not exactly holiday hours, but the captain had promised us a scenic passage into Stockholm through the Stockholm Archipelago that was not to be missed. We weren't disappointed. Actually it is a network of 30,000 islands, tightly packed, many containing homes. There are also various car ferries linking them together as well as roading tunnels.

Stockholm started out with pleasant weather, overcast and a little cool, but the forecast was for rain later. There are many cruise ship terminals and we were berthed at the one furthest from town.

We had a 5 hour tour planned as part of our package. Today was rather disorganised, and the tour guide's transmitter was faulty so our headsets kept cutting out and we didn't get a lot of useful information.

We were driven around many of main sites throughout the city, but with few photo stops. I didn't realise that Stockholm was built on a collection of islands, connected by bridges and tunnels. It is very picturesque and many buildings are painted nice vibrant colours.

We stopped at the Vasa Museum. I wasn't aware of this, but the Vasa Ship sank on its maiden voyage out of Stockholm, only shortly after leaving port (just nearby where our cruise ship was parked) back in the 1628. The ship was left there for 300 years, before being salvaged. The wood was largely preserved due to the lack of sea termites and the water being less salty here. The ship is now preserved in a museum for all to see. It is absolutely incredible - of the style we would generally consider a "pirate ship" and presented complete with only certain pieces of wood replaced to help with the integrity of the ship. The museum was darkly lit, and the ship is very large, so good photography was a challenge. Here's what we saw.

Next we were driven to the old town. We were given a walking tour, but given our headset problems this wasn't very informative. Also by now it had started to rain making it less pleasant.

We were given one hour spare time to look around, then we were to meet back to be returned to the ship. We decided to depart the tour, opting to walk back to the ship ourselves.

The walk around gave us the opportunity to discover some nice shops, including a lovely cycle shop which specialised in high quality cycle gear. Here we saw a cycle air-bag helmet, which is worn around the neck and deploys to surround the head in the case of an accident. Also they had a really nice wooden bicycle frame made in Lithuania, all ready to add components and wheels to make your own bike. I bought some nice fingerless leather gloves there.

We stopped for lunch in a shop that was pretty much randomly chosen by us. It turned out to be the oldest cafe in Stockholm, established in 1785. It was very nice inside, the service was fantastic, and the food was nice (always a bonus!).

The walk back to the ship wasn't pleasant, the rain had become heavier and the day colder. It took about an hour walking along the port area, past various ferry and cruise terminals, before we were back on our ship. We dried off and relaxed for about 2 hours before departure. We sat on our balcony as we cruised out of the harbour, seeing a few sights. We then went for an early dinner so we could return to our balcony.

We sailed about 6pm, and it would be about 10pm before we passed through the narrow shipping lane, all the way out to open sea. Although it was cold and wet, the views were beautiful and we were followed out by two other ships. A nice way to end the day.

Our visit to Stockholm was hampered by weather and the tour itself. I am sure sure that given another opportunity, there would be plenty to see here. Certainly visiting by ship is probably a more complete experience sailing through the Archipelago than travelling in and out by plane.

Tomorrow is a sea day, as it takes two days to get to Kiel, Germany. A welcome break, after all this is a holiday!

Helsinki, Finland

After two days at St Petersburg, we needed a rest, and we found it in Helsinki. A smaller city, and a lot quieter, and beautiful weather, was just what we needed.

We had a short day here, going ashore at 9am and leaving at 3:30pm. We had a tour booked and today it was a small bus filled with people. We had a really nice tour guide also.

We started going for a scenic drive around the city, learning that Helsinki is surrounded by water, and built on granite. Many surrounding islands, and also parks within the city, are all hard granite ground.

We visited the town square and surrounding parts, learning about some of the history especially with respect to Russia and how Finland eventually gained its independence.

The town square was mainly populated with tourist buses from our ship.

Overlooking the square is a beautiful church, which we went inside for a quick look. It is relatively understated compared with many, but has a beautiful organ.

We saw a statue which shows shell damage from WWII, which the city decided to leave as is, as a permanent reminder of the war.

Our guide has two children at university, and took us into the University Library to show us the architecture. Multi level, it has a sequence of oval shaped holes in the ceilings, getting smaller at each level. This creates an amazing affect, and lets in plenty of natural light. On each floor, students can sit around the oval to study. The spiral staircase looks great from the top floor also.

We were then given spare time in the city, to wander around the local markets. Helen purchased some soft toys for Libby.

I happened to notice local food vendors selling reindeer meat. I didn't try it, mainly because the prices were very expensive. We are told by our guide that Finland is the most expensive country in the Euro Zone.

Next we were taken to the Rock Church. This is a church created inside a granite hill, with a dome roof. From the outside it looks like a bunker, you would miss it if it weren't for all the visitors. Most impressive indoors and very peaceful.

Finally we were taken to a couple of local parks. We were shown an interesting piece of art, which was fun to take photos of.

I saw this car drive past, and just had to take a photo. I don't know what "Helen" is, but this looks like a company logo.

We returned to the ship about 1pm, which gave us plenty of relaxing time. Overall Helsinki was a quite town, actually reminded me a bit of Wellington, with the water surrounding and similiar traffic levels, and similar population.

St Petersburg, Russia

We just spent two amazing days in St Petersburg.

I'll start by explaining we had booked a two day tour with a company based in St Petersburg, rather than Holland America, as it was significantly cheaper. We had a small group of twelve people, in a smaller bus/van rather than a large coach. Over the two days, this would allow us to jump queues of people at many museums, and allow us to load / offload the bus quicker allowing for more opportunities to stop and take photos. Our guide, Alana, was amazing. She was so friendly and knowledgeable, and yet could get bossy to push us through crowds. Also our driver, Constantine, didn't speak English but was so friendly and was a great driver, again able to push through traffic very efficiently and smoothly.

We started by having to queue for passport control, the only port on the entire trip where we had to do this. This took over 30 minutes and the person who stamped our passports didn't smile at all! Once we all boarded the bus, we headed into the city from the port.

Our immediate impression would only be reinforced over two days. Overall the city is shabby. Even "nice" buildings are dirty, paint peeling, in need of love, up close. There are stray dogs around, most look a bit like husky dogs. 

All signs are in Russian language with no English. This includes well known trademarks:

McDonalds (see this walk-up window!)

Burger King

Subway

We were driven around the main part of the city and there are countless beautiful parks, monuments, museums to be seen. Most of these are well kept. The main river is very wide, and lined with huge buildings on either side. Most roads are huge, anywhere between 3 and 5 lanes in each direction. So this is a big city to get around, and doing it on foot would be difficult.

Also the city was having a birthday celebration this evening, so again the city was preparing for streets to be closed, a huge concert in the square, so the place had a heavy police and military presence. Here, the military drive around in really basic trucks that look like they were designed and built in the sixties.

We queued for opening time at The Hermitage. This place is massive. It is said that is you spent one minute looking at each article in the museum, it would take seven years to see it all. We followed a well-worn path through that took two hours. The place was packed with people already and this was the special "tour groups" only opening time. By the time we left, the general public were pouring in with even greater numbers. The place was incredible and very overwhelming, and was amazing to see.

Next we were whistled across the river to a combination toilet stop / souvenir shop where we got our first taste of a shop full of Russian Dolls (aka Nested Dolls). So many to choose from in, with a range of quality and price points from mass-produced to hand-painted.

Then we were driven to a restaurant for an included lunch. This was a very nice restaurant, we got a set menu of traditional Russian foods. The most interesting was the beetroot and cabbage soup with sour cream.

After lunch, we went to the river, where we were loaded onto a hydrofoil boat. This is the first time I've ever been on one. We went up the river, and out to sea (which is actually a big shallow bud flat with deeper channels dug for ships on set routes) and across to Petergof. Here we walked briskly through the gardens, seeing many highlights, and especially saw some of the many waterfalls. Again a hugely impressive place to see.

The hydrofoil had taken us to Petergof very quickly, and all the time it took us to get there, and walk around, our driver was driving out there to meet us for the return trip. This took an hour via motorways and main routes. Out here we saw some more modern housing developments, including individual houses like we have in New Zealand, which seemed to be quite a big deal there.

Our next stop in the city was the Faberge Museum. This is a private collection housed in a new museum that only opened four years ago. It contains many rooms of jewelry, silverware, and of course many of the original Faberge Eggs. Security into the building was very tight. Entries were plain wooden doors, no signage, we had to go through two sets of locked doors, and there were guards everywhere. I took a photo of this arrangement and got told off. We spent over an hour being shown the exhibits, having everything explained. It was incredible and I dread to think how many billions of dollars this was all worth. All the while, our feet were killing us, having been walking around all day!

Finally to end day one, we were returned to the ship. Many people had planned experience ashore (trips to Moscow, vodka tasting, etc) so the ship was quiet, which was great because it meant it was easy to get time in the spa pool to rest up ready for tomorrow.

Day two, passport control was easier, having already been checked the day before. Our trusty guide took us to a Metro station into the subway. We actually bought train tokens to get inside, even though we weren't going on a train. The Metro stations in St Petersburg were built in the 1950's and are adorned with beautiful mosaics, paintings etc. Also they are deep, 300m underground. The escalator took four minutes to get to the bottom, and from the top we could not see the bottom! Most impressive. Once at the platform, it was equally amazing, and kept very clean. No chewing gum, no litter, no dirt. We were told they clean it three times a day. The trains themselves looked very basic, but it seems they do the job well! We went back out the same way, up the long escalator, and back into the bus.

Next we drove out to the city of Peterkin to Catherine's Palace. This was another huge building surrounded to enormous gardens, and hoards of tourists lining to get in. At least here we had some entertainment by a brass band busking near the entrance. The palace was destroyed by fire, and then completely restored recently. The restoration is still in progress but the main palace is complete and open. Most impressive were the main hall, full of mirrors and gold, and the other is the amber room, where the walls are completely adorned with amber and mirrors (and no photos allowed in here). It took about 1.5 hours to walk through the palance and then back to our bus.

We drove back towards St Petersburg, this area is more modern looking, with large malls, movie theatres, petrol stations, and lots of modern housing blocks. Although all new, somehow everything just looks more plain than in western countries. 

We stopped for lunch at nice place that serves pies. Today we had to pay our own way for lunch. The pies were in fact big slabs for each type of filling, and they slice a piece off for you, served at room temperature. We each had a savoury and a sweet variety, and a soft drink each The whole lot came to only NZD$9.50 on the credit card. Amazingly inexpensive for us. Only 15 minutes earlier, we had driving past a Coca-Cola factory, so I purchased a bottle of Coke to try. It did taste a little different but doesn't it everywhere?

Next, we were driven to the Church of the Spilled Blood. Now we've seen many a church in our travels, and this was the most beautiful and amazing we've ever seen. It has been lovingly restored, both inside and out. Inside, the ceiling is impossibly high, and everything is covered in mosaics. Just incredible to see.

Last stop on our tour, was the Peter and Paul Cathedral, inside the fortress. Another amazing church, but most important is that many important people are buried here, especially Peter the Great.

We then had to return to the ship in time for departure. We needn't have hurried. From our cabin balcony, we watched many, many coaches and buses returning people quite late, even after "all aboard" time. This pretty much proved to us, the ship will wait for latecomers! We were a little late departing, but were just ahead of two other cruise ships who followed us out.

The day wasn't over yet though. Cruising out, we passed an island which had a large port. We saw a number of small navy vessels berthed here, but we also saw many old Soviet-era navy ships just berthed here and left to rot. Some had sunk while still tied to the wharf, or to other boats! A most interesting sight to see as we departed Russia and headed back into the Baltic Sea.