On the Water and Below the Ground

Overcast and cool again today (9c), but at least it is not raining.  Today our tour guide, Sasha took us on a boat ride along the Neva River and into several St. Petersburg canals, gave us a ride on the St. Petersburg underground and visited the Peter and Paul Fortress, birthplace of St. Petersburg.  It was another full day but we have thoroughly enjoyed our time here, even though we did not experience one of the 30 annual days of sunshine.  I was very impressed and I must admit, surprised with St. Petersburg.  It is a very large city of over 5 million people who keep the city very clean, dress very well look and drive new and very clean cars.  It is Justas cosmopolitan  as any other major city Rita and I have visited in North America or Europe.   It was a long time in getting here but we are very happy we finally had the opportunity to experience the glories of historic St. Petersburg.

 

Even though it is only 9c we are thoroughly enjoying the sights of St. Petersburg by boat.  The Hermitage Museum is grandly sitting on the banks of the Neva River behind us

 

The Kunstkamera built in 1714 was the first state public museum in Russia.  It was filled with Peter the Great’s personal scientific collections including scientific instruments, books from his library, fish, reptiles, insects and deformed fetuses pickled in formaldehyde-both animal and human

Peter and Paul Fortress which is on an Island in the Neva River was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great and is the birthplace of St. Petersburg

 

  Our canal boat slowly moving Into one of the many canals intertwining St. Petersburg.  Originally, people of St. Petersburg accessed buildings from the waterfront

St. Petersburg underground was started in the 1940’s and many of its stations are works of art.  Because bedrock is far beneath St. Petersburg’s surface, the underground is very deep (350ft).  In fact it takes a good three minutes to ride the escalators down to the trains.  This station is celebrating St. Petersburg being the birthplace of Russia’s navy in a glorious ceramic tile mural

 

St. Peter and Paul Cathedral is the centerpiece of the fortress and with its gold leaf covered tower its still the tallest building in the city 

 

 

 

 The Cathedral is the final resting place of all the Romanov Czars who ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917

   

  The ornate Church of the Resurrection or more commonly known as the Church of the Savior of Spilt Blood was built on the site where Czar Alexander 11 was assassinated in 1881 and hence the strange name  

The interior walls are covered with exquisite mosaics (nothing is painted) that were painstakingly restored following the fall of Communism in 1991

 A ceramic tiled Christ gazing down on the masses as He is bathed in light from the windows and ringed by the gold balcony railing. 

Summer Palaces

Today we woke up to rain and cool temperatures (8c) but we knew it was going to be a glorious day as we were heading out of St. Petersburg to see two of the most famous summer palaces, Catherine’s Palace and Peterhof (Peters Court in German).  Unfortunately, we cannot take pictures inside Peterhof.

The Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul was added to Peterhof in 1747 by Empress Elizabeth, Peter the Great’s daughter, when she embarked on the reconstruction of her father’s original summer palace.

Peterhof not only has a lavish summer palace but is surrounded by 2,500 acres if sumptuous upper and lower gardens, a grand canal, waterfalls and fountains.  Rita is standing on one of the bridges that crosses the canal that flows into the Gulf of Finland with Peterhof palace behind her.

 

 Peterhof Palace with its terraced waterfalls and gilded fountains. 

 The centerpiece is Sampson’s Fountain erected in honour of Russia’s victory over Sweden in 1709.  The water and pressure to run the fountains comes from a spring located about 20 km above the Palace.  In 1720 a canal was built to bring the water down to Peterhof by gravity, ensuring the future of the estates fountains.

 Inside the courtyard, a corner of Catherine’s Palace

This is the entrance path to Catherine’s Summer Palace. I went to the gates to take this picture and could not get all of the building in the frame.  It is 300 meters in length (1,000 ft) and resembles the Winters Palace in St. Petersburg.  

 The over-the-top Baroque style grand ballroom.

 Informal dining room with its huge ceramic heater in the corner

It’s only May but huge crowds make their way along the hallways between the rooms

 

St. Petersburg

We left Tallinn at 5:00pm under sunny skies and warm temperatures (22c) and arrived in St. Petersburg the following morning at 08:00 under cloudy skies and cool temperatures (8c).  We would definitely need lots of layers and umbrellas for our 3 day stay here.  Rita and I had organized a 3 day tour with an independent tour company when we were still in Vancouver, as it was much cheaper than signing up for the tours offered through the cruise company.  We had printed our itinerary and had our passports to show the Russian Customs officials who require verification that you are with a tour company that has organized the Visas that are required for us to be allowed into Russia.  All went well and we were met by our tour leader, Sasha on the other side of Customs.  Six other people from our ship had also signed up for the tour.  Rita and I wanted to be part of a small group as we felt it would be a more positive experience that being part of a bus tour.  This was definitely the correct choice as the crowds at the Palaces and Museums made moving around very chaotic and the traffic on the roads was horrific.  We were shuttled around in a new Mercedes 12 passenger van with our own driver.  Our small group was able to maneuver its way around the large crowds and the van was very successful in maneuvering around the constant traffic jams.  We were advised that our 3 day tour was going to be long (08:00 – 17:00 every day) and very extensive.  They were right on both counts.

Our guide, Sasha, explained that St. Petersburg is the least Russian of Russian cities as it was established in 1703 by Czar Peter the Great who, after traveling extensively through the capitals of Europe, wanted to create a “window on the west” for his people.  Many of the government buildings, Palaces and grand houses of the nobility here have the look and feel of what you would see in any major 15^th and 16^th century city in Europe. The big difference is the glorious colors of the buildings.  Lots of bright yellows, blues, pinks and greens.  And a lot of gold.  Sasha explained that St. Petersburg averages only 30 sunny days a year and the colors of the buildings help to brighten up what would normally be a very drab city.  We can certainly attest to how beautiful the city looks even when the skies are completely covered by thick layers of clouds or in the rain.  St. Petersburg sits on land that was once a swamp but Peter the Great wanted to create a Russian city on lands he recently recaptured from Sweden during the Great Northern War.  The location is also very strategic as it sits at the mouth of the Neva River which happens to be the outlet for all Russian waterways to the Baltic Sea, and from there all of Europe. So all shipping coming from or going to the Nordic countries from Europe, Africa, Asia and beyond would have to go through St. Petersburg.  St Petersburg also gave his newly formed Navy an important deep water port.  

St. Petersburg became the capitol city of Russia and successive rulers expanded and glorified Peter the Great’s vision for the city.  Even after the Russian Revolution in 1917 when Czar Nicholas 11 and his family were killed and Communism took over, most of St. Petersburg’s Palaces, Churches and grand homes were not destroyed but were claimed by the state and turned into museums, theatres and offices.   St. Petersburg was no longer the capital city (Moscow once again became the capital) and its name was changed to Petrograd.  After Lenin’s death in 1924 it was again changed to Leningrad until 1991 when it was given its original name again.  During WW11 the German army lay siege to the city for 872 days and although they were unsuccessful in their attempt to enter the city, an estimated 600,000 of its citizens perished and many of the city’s historic buildings were destroyed or badly damaged.  However, as soon as the war ended the Soviet Government started restoring the damaged buildings and this process continues to this day.      

Enjoying a hearty 07:00 breakfast delivered to our room prior to our 08:00 departure to explore St. Petersburg

 

Looking across the Neva River at the buildings making up the Hermitage which run from the yellow building (Old Hermitage) on the left to the Winter Palace on the right

 

There are several entrances into the Hermitage and all of them have line ups to get in.  We were fortunate to have a pre-booked time and did not have to wait

 

The Winter Palace was completed in 1762 and was the official city residence of the Czars until the Russian Revolution in 1917.  This stairway leads to the second floor and is in high Baroque style

This replica of the famous Raphael Loggias gallery at the Vatican Palace was completed in 1792 after Catherine the Great sent artists to the Vatican to replicate the “Raphael Bible” frescos for this hallway

The Large Italian Skylight Hall was completed in 1851 and is part of the New Hermitage building which was intended to integrate seamlessly into the luxurious Winter Palace.  The Hall today looks almost exactly like it did in 1851



The massive Palace Square to the Admiralty sits in front of the Hermitage and was built in the early 18^th century by Czar Alexander 1 to celebrate Russia’s military victory over Napoleon. It is in fact two buildings joint by a triumphal arch four storeys high. The headquarters of tsarists army General Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 

Looking back across Palace Square at the Czar Alexander Column, the tallest in the world and the Hermitage  

The massive gold dome of St, Isaac’s Cathedral dominates St. Petersburg’s skyline.  The Cathedral was completed in 1858 and the exterior neoclassical design reminds many visitors of the US Capitol building

The wonderfully painted interior dome of St. Isaac’s

The interior of St. Isaac’s Cathedral is all about the grand space and it seems similar to St. Peters in Rome.  Here is a shot looking towards the Orthodox alter screen

 

Tallinn, Estonia

Tallinn is the capital of Estonia and is situated about 50km (30m) south of Helsinki on the Gulf of Finland.  Tallinn has a long list of occupiers starting with the Vikings from the 9^th – 11^th centuries, followed by the Danes in the 13^th century (Tallinn means Danish Fort and is the birthplace of the current Danish flag).  The Danes sold Tallinn to the German Teutonic Knights who lost it to the Swedes, who lost it to the Russians.  Estonia finally became a country after the end of WW1 but reluctantly became part of the Soviet Union after WW11.  In 1991 Estonia again regained its independence, was accepted into the EU in 2004 and adopted the Euro currency in 2011.

Tallinn is the best preserved of all the Nordic medieval cities with its mostly intact city wall (that includes 26 of the original 46 towers), cobblestone lanes, 15^th and 16^th century gabled houses and historic churches.

"Fat Margaret"(so named for its thick walls), part of the old town wall and one of the towers that protected Old Town Tallinn in medieval times

 

St. Olav's Church has a viewing platform that offers wonderful views of Old Town.  To get to the viewing platform you climb 234 very steep and narrow stone steps

The view is worth the climb as you get this view of Old Town and many of its remaining towers and protective wall

 

The 15th century Town Hall Square was the focal point of Old Town and all cobblestone lanes lead here

 

Stopped for coffee and cake at Maiasmokk (sweet tooth) coffee shop which has been in operation since 1864 and claims to be Tallinn's first.  Here we see Hele hand painting marzipan boys which were made from the original 1864 wooden molds.  We stopped and talked to her and she became very emotional when we told her we were from Vancouver as she had visited in 2005   

 

 Hele took our picture in the shop with the displays of marzipan figurines that she had made for sale

Russian Orthodox Church  built in the 13th century and rebuilt in 1684 after a fire, is a perfect example of Northern European Gothic architecture. 

A Day At The Summer Palace

Today we are touring Drottningholm Palace, commissioned in 1662 by the dowager Queen Hedvig Eleonora as her summer castle on Lake Malaren.  In 1991 Drottningholm became the first Swedish site to be included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List and consists of the Palace (two floors of lavish rooms where Swedish royalty did their best to live in the style of Europe’s divine monarchs) , Palace Park which is laid out in three main styles (late 17^th century French-inspired Baroque Garden, mid-18^th century natural park and late 18^th century English park), The Palace Theatre (built in 1766)  which is fully operational using its original hand-painted sets, sound effects, hand-operated stage machinery and instruments (There are only two of these Theatres in existence today, the other is in the Czech Republic) and the Chinese Pavilion built in  1769 (one of the world’s best preserved rococo environments with Chinese elements).  For us mere peasants, we took a one hour trip aboard one of the four turn of the century ships that travel from Stockholm to the Palace.  It was another hot and sunny day so we grabbed a couple of seats on the uncovered upper deck to enjoy the breeze and watch the beautiful natural and man-made scenery, an amazing amount of boaters and thousands of on-shore sunbathers as we made our way to and from the Palace.  It was a wonderful way to end our time in Stockholm.  Tomorrow we pack and head for the cruise ship terminal to start our seven-day cruise aboard the Seabourn Quest.   

Stockholm's majestic City Hall and 348-foot tower was built in 1923 and needed 8 million bricks to complete.  We caught the  boat at the pier that will take us on our one hour journey to the Summer Palace.

Some of the impressive buildings along the shoreline.

 The impressive front view of Drottningholm Palace as seen from the boat just before docking.

 Standing in the middle of the 17th century Baroque Gardens with the Hercules Fountain and the back of the Palace behind us.

 

The Chinese Pavilion built in 1769 and located away from the Summer Palace served as a retreat for the King and Queen when they wanted to withdraw from public life.  Even when dining they could eat on their own as the kitchen staff delivered the food and drink on a dumb waiter system from an adjacent building.  

 

 
A view of Old Town Stockholm just before docking. 

 

 

All Over Stockholm

Our first full day in Stockholm and we wanted get in as much exploring as possible so we purchased tickets for the hop-on boat and bus to make sure we could get around to all the sights we wanted to see.   It was another beautiful, warm, sunny day and it seemed everyone in Stockholm was outside enjoying themselves.

As mentioned, Stockholm is made up of 14 Islands and so the hop-on boat was a great way to get around and see the city from the water.  Not so much for the hop-on bus as we ended up walking to most of the places we wanted to see.

It was a very full and long day, but it was really enjoyable exploring and experiencing the city.  We had a great lunch in Old Town at the Hairy Pig Deli (house-made wild boar sausages and a local microbrew beer). We talked to the owner about a place to go for dinner that serves Swedish meatballs and he suggested a restaurant called  Villa Godthem on Djurgarden Island.  The restaurant was wonderfully decorated inside but we sat outside as it was still warm and enjoyed the lovely view of the park and the sea.  And the Swedish meatballs were as good as promised.  As we walked home the sun was setting, what a perfect way to end the day.       

View of some of the Old Town Stockholm buildings from the deck of our hop-on boat

 

Stortorget was the heart of medieval Stockholm, where all the cobblestoned lanes intersected.  Many of the colorful old buildings still remain in Stockholm's oldest square.

 This is a typical cobblestoned lane from the 1600's as only houses constructed of stone, stucco and/or brick were allowed at this time to help stop the plague of fires that occurred with wood buildings.

 

Interior of the tiny Hairy Boer Deli (3 tables inside and 3 tables outside) which just opened 11 days ago.  The sausages are made on premises and the flavors change daily.

 Sitting outside at the Villa Godthem Restaurant waiting for our Spanish meatballs.
 
 
 

Home of The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo

We have three days in Stockholm before the start of our cruise and we have been blessed with sunny skies and temperatures ranging between 25 & 28C.  The only link we have to Stockholm is through reading Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy.  But this does not come close to actually experiencing this amazing city of just over 2 million people in person.  Stockholm has been accurately described as one third water, one third parks and one third city.  Its built on an archipelago of 14 islands connected by 54 bridges and some have called it the Venice of the north. 

We arrived at our hotel and checked in around 3:30pm, unpacked and headed out to start exploring this historic city.    

Crossing a bridge onto Djurgarden Island looking back at the Baltic Sea and the mainland

 

The impressive Nordic Museum was completed in 1907 and is dedicated to preserving the Culture History of Sweden

 

Beautiful display of tulips just outside of the Nordic Museum

 

A look back at the Nordic Museum from the mainland as we walk along the seawall towards Gamla Stan (Old Town)  

 St. Jacobs Church, completed in 1643 now sits alongside Kungstradgarden, a very popular park

Entering the narrow, cobbled streets of Gamla Stan (Old Town) with a view of the tower of the Church of St. Nicholas completed in 1279 and the oldest building still in use in Stockholm

 

Heading back to our hotel for dinner we walked along the main thoroughfare overlooking the  waterfront and viewed these wonderful looking luxury hotels that were built in the early 1900's