Cruisen the Baltic Sea

I have been a really bad blogger lately!! We have been home from this trip for almost a month and I am just now sitting down to write about it.

While on our last cruise earlier this year, I asked Bill where he wanted to go next if he could go anywhere in the world. Bill is someone who has been around the world and then some. He told me that he has always wanted to go to Russia.

Russia...I had never really given it much thought before. I had visions of a dismal, freezing cold country with a wacky alphabet, but thought I'd check it out since it was his turn to choose.

As I looked at our various travel options, I kept coming back to a cruise. I love them. They really are a great way to see a lot of different places in a short amount of time. Enough to get a taste of a country and see if you want to go back to spend more time exploring.

In May, I came across a great deal for this Baltic cruise. I knew if we were going to do this trip, it had to be in the summer, because there was no way I wanted to be traveling to these countries in cold and dark weather. I loved the itinerary because it stopped in several places that are on my secret travel bucket list. It took a lot of convincing since we had just done a big trip in February and are planning a trip back to the States in October, but when I mentioned St. Petersburg, Russia as one of the ports, I had him!!

We talked with another couple about it when we were getting ready to book and they wanted to join us. Perfect!!

We left for Oslo, Norway on July 8th to arrive a day early for the ship's departure from that port. Like most Americans, I am a bit of a mutt when it comes to my cultural heritage. Part of my dad's side of the family is from Norway so I was excited to see one of my motherlands!

We got in to the airport and had to take a 30 min bus ride to get down to the city center. I had always heard that Scandinavian countries are expensive, but I was not prepared for the ridiculousness that was the exchange rate in Norway. This little bus ride cost close to $30 a person!!

Lucky for us, one of the bus stops was right in front of our hotel. We checked in and then headed back out to find some lunch. We came across a pizza place that looked nice enough. Nice enough yes, but worth the $60 that a large pizza and 2 sodas cost....NO!! Yikes, I don't know how people make it here!!

We did some more exploring around the city. Oslo is very clean and had a small city feel to it.

This is a church across from where we had our gourmet pizza meal.

This is the main street though the city. The royal palace is at one end. The street is lined with shops, restaurants, and pubs. Since I had another woman with me on this trip, I actually got to do some shopping instead of getting pulled away from the shop windows by Bill like I usually do. Thanks Esther!

This is a fun little mall in the middle of the street with fountains and statues. Lots of statues everywhere in Oslo.

We did lots of wandering around the streets just trying to take it in with the limited time we had there.

The cruise left the next afternoon. We had stayed at a hotel close to the port. The front desk told us it was a few blocks and an easy walk. It would have been if it were actually the right pier for our ship, but we ended up on a 60 minute journey lugging suitcases over uneven and crowded streets trying to make it to the right terminal. We made it though and could not wait to board the ship.

This whole region is made up of a giant archipelago which we got to see on our way out of the port. Most of the islands were covered with what looked to be summer and vacation homes.

The next morning we woke up in Copenhagen, Denmark. We had pre-booked a bike tour of the city so we got off the ship early to make our tour on time. What looked like a quick walk on the city map we had took more like 75 minutes and we made the tour just before it left!

Bikes are huge in this city. In fact they kind of rule the city, which is really cool. Nice big, roomy bike lanes and trash bins that are angled into the road so you can toss what you need to in there without stopping!

Some pics from our tour. We has fantastic weather on this day. Copenhagen is a gorgeous city!!

This is apparently the biggest attraction in Copenhagen. A statue called The Little Mermaid. There were tons of people gathered around it taking pictures. I just didn't get it, but well, we had to take the obligatory photo, we are tourists after all!

Changing of the guard in front of the Royal Palace.

Bill and Kevin listening to our guide.

Along the canal.

Next up was Riga. Can honestly say I never thought I would visit Latvia. We were pretty tired from a long day in Copenhagen (ok and a late night at the dance club on the ship) so we took our time getting off the ship that day. I'm a big nerd when it comes to traveling and I did a lot of research on each port so we could decide what we wanted to see in each city. Riga was pretty, but there were not any sites we were aiming to see. We just sort of roamed around the city so here are a few shots.

We got back to the ship and dressed up for formal dinner night. I couldn't believe I actually got Bill to wear a jacket and tie at the same time!! Here is the only shot we got where one or both of us wasn't making a face.

The next day was a full day at sea because we had a bit of sea to cover to get to reach Russia. The weather for our day at sea was not so nice. I managed to enjoy myself and was treated to a massage and facial in the day spa and then spent the rest of the day relaxing and reading in a no kids allowed area of the ship. Ahhhhhhh.


It was a good thing we had some much relaxation because the next day in St. Petersburg was insanely busy and hot.

We booked 2 tours in Russia because we were not allowed off the ship unless we had a visa or a tour booked. The weather was gorgeous and sunny this day and about 82 degrees.

Our morning tour was a trip out to Pushkin to see the Summer Palace of Catherine the Great. Living in Europe for the past year, I've seen a lot of palaces, but this one takes the cake. It is so big Bill had to photograph it 3 sections!!
One

Two

Three

The inside was as grandiose and out of control as the outside. Check out this ballroom. Not only was it wall to wall in gold (In its time. Now it is painted for the effect), but it also had an insanely beautiful painting across the entire ceiling.

As we moved through the palace each room was more elaborate and extravagant than the next. And to think, this was only a home lived in for part of the year!!

Here is a dress actually worn by Catherine the Great. The guide told us that she never wore the same dress more than once in her entire life. Can you believe how amazing this dress is and the work that went into making it. Only worn for a few hours!!!

This is the roof of the church built into the palace. That is REAL gold up there!!!

We got dropped back at the ship after this tour for a quick lunch and then we were off again to the next tour.

There were 8 cruise ships in port that day. That is a lot of people needing tour buses. They had to bring buses in from all over the place to accommodate all the tourists. Our afternoon tour was a city walking tour. Our bus was NASTY. Smelly with no air conditioning. Not too nice on a hot day.

Our tour guide was a comedic side show of his own. He was a very sweet man who does tours outside of his day job in an office to work on his English skills. With so many tours going on this day with all the ships in port, his boss asked him to take on a larger group. He normally does small tours of less than 8 people, but this day he had 40 of us to manage!!

He passed out these radio headphone things to us so we could hear him when he spoke into a microphone, but he didn't believe they were working for some reason so every 30 seconds or so he would ask us to raise our hands if we could hear him. We did a lot of hand raising.

When we got off the bus he was constantly counting us. Again, making us raise our hands until we were counted. I suppose it was a good thing that he checked so often because there was an older gentleman in our group who kept wandering off. At one point when he was lost our tour guide made us all sit on a wall and told us not to move until he came back. Poor guy, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. He did find our lost guy eventually and our tour was able to continue.

His English was pretty good overall, but there were a few funny things he said during the day. He would point to his right and say, "On the left is the......." and vice versa. It was a little confusing at first, but after a while we got the hang of it and started looking the opposite way of whatever he said :-)

Many of the buildings in this region are painted bright colors. At one point our tour guide says, "I bet you are wondering about the cows. We paint them bright colors so that we can find them in the winter when it is dark and there is a lot of snow. If they were all white, we would never find them." Again, we were feeling a bit confused about what he was saying because we certainly didn't see any cows. We then noticed he was motioning to the bright green building next to our bus. Cows = buidings in that first sentence.

I don't mean to pick on our poor tour guide, but it was so hot and the bus was so yucky, that he really was the bright spot in our day!! When the bus was headed back to the ship at the end of the day he was talking to someone in the seat next to him. Like I said, he wasn't so good with the microphone thing and he forgot his was still on. Someone asked how long he was doing tours. He said, "Today was my first, and it is also my last." Poor guy was a bit traumatized by having to manage such a big group.

Here are a few shots from around St. Petersburg.

Being early July, the days are very long. This was the furthest north we were and the night we left St. Petersburg the sun set at 11:30 pm!!

The next morning we woke up in Helsinki, Finland. I did a report on Finland in 6th grade, and because I'm such a nerd I was really excited that we were going there! Big weather change over night as you can see. It was mostly cloudy and rainy on this day, but not too cold.

Helsinki is really unique. Very small city feel and the prettiest people I've ever seen in one place everywhere I looked. We walked around the city for most of the day exploring. We came across a cool marketplace on the harbor front. We spent a lot of time shopping and browsing through the various stands. We got some great souvenirs here. By we, I mean me. Bill isn't much of a shopper!

After the market, we walked along and came across a random parade that turned into be a changing of the guard.
I love a parade!!

A little break in the rain. I convinced Bill to take a picture. RARE!!! Doesn't he look thrilled?

A view looking down a major shopping street.

Our last night on the ship. This was our dinner table and our fantastic waitstaff, Amanda from Sweden and Socorro from Brazil. They were the best. Bill freaked them out on our last night by putting a toothpick through the old piercing in his tongue and pretending he was impaled by it. Those poor girls!! He scared the crap out of them!!

Our last sunset on board looking out over the Baltic Sea.

Our cruise ended in Stockholm, Sweden on a beautiful day. We had a bit of an adventure finding our hotel, but after we settled in, we took a bus tour around the city. I had no idea that Stockholm was made up of several islands connected by a series of bridges.

Lawn in front of the Stockholm City Hall. A big gathering area for to enjoy the lovely weather.

I think that Stockholm was the most beautiful of all the cities we visited on this trip.

Here are some of the souvenirs I picked up on this trip. I have a thing about finding Christmas ornaments for each country we visit.

This cruise was fantastic. We were so lucky to have the chance to go and see all these beautiful countries!!