More travel news

Monday

Arrived in Helsinki, Finland, to another cloudy day. We had booked a boat and bus tour in Helsinki so that we could catch the main sights. Got on a bus from the dock to go to that part of the harbour where the boat part of the tour left from. The guide spoke pretty good English and the boat was quite comfortable. It was too cold to stay outside for any length of time so became resigned to taking pictures from inside the boat.

It is surprising how many islands make up all of the cities we have been to so far. Helsinki is also made up of a lot of islands, some of which have houses, others, summer cottages with sauna, and others that are owned by the city as recreational parks. There are some bathing beaches, but the water would be pretty cold, and I suspect that there would also be mosquitoes in the summer, because it is quite swampy and low lying.

Many of the houses we passed were owned by very wealthy people, and they take great delight in showing these homes off. One or two even had float planes pulled up on to the front lawns!

Some of the older wooden villas are owned by the city and they are rented out to artists and artisans as craft studios and residences.

Back to land after an hour or so to get onto the bus and take a trip around some of the senic parts of the city. Highlights included the Olympic Stadium, built for the 1940 Olympic Games which were cancelled because of the war, then rescheduled for the 1952 Olympics. we saw more lovely houses including those specially for the Prime Minister and the President of Finland. The highlight was seeing the Sibelius Monument, a memorial to Jean Sibelius, famous composer of the Finlandia Suite amongst other things. It was built by a woman sculptor who took 6 years to complete the project.

We then went back to the ship and spent the rest of the day relaxing. Dinner was formal tonight, but we decided that we didn't really want a formal dinner so went to the Windjammer Cafe instead.
After dinner, we went to the West End to Broadway stage show, which was really spectacular. A fine rendition of Queen and selection from Les Mis were highlights.

Tuesday
Overnight we sailed along the Baltic Sea, losing yet another hours sleep, to St Petersberg, arriving at 7.00 am. It was an early start for tours as they started gathering at 7.45 am for an 8.00 am departure. Everyone had to take some sort of organised tour due to the Visa requirements. This has been the only place where we have had to go through immigration since we left Harwich.

We took a Panoramic tour of St Petersberg by bus, which lasted about 3 hours. The number of palaces built by the Tzars and the nobility in St Petersberg is just incredible. It seems that the Tzars had these built for their favoured subjects. Peter the Great even made his baker the Prime Minister and built him a large palace. Also evident are a large number of churches, which are very ornate and contain much gold as decoration. One of the churches we saw was the Church of Our Saviour Spilled Blood built to commemorate the death of Alexander 2 and was placed on the site of the place he was murdered. It was funded by public subscription from all the districts of Russia, and to recognise this, the coats of arms for all these places were built into the outside walls of the church.

Across the road was a small souvenir market which we were encouraged to visit. Wandered around and eventually decided to buy some Christmas decorations. Bargained a bit, but were probably still overpriced!
The streets of St Petersberg are quite wide as they were originally designed to be canals, by design of Peter the Great who founded the city in 1703. But when they started to dig the canals, it was found to be very prone to flooding, so the canals were filled in. Some still exist and have been lined with granite to keep the flooding at bay.

Back to the ship for lunch and a snoozy afternoon. We did take part in the Trivia Quiz with a british couple and managed to tie for first, causing a tie-breaker question. Unfortunaely, the other team came up with the capital of Venezuela before us, so we were runners-up! It was quite fun though.

In the evening, the cruie company had organised for a Russian Military Dance Troupe to entertain, so the theatre was filled to see this. The singing was good, but the dancing was quite spectacular. The costumes were very colourful and the dancers were very talented and agile. They received a standing ovation at the end.

Wednesday
Another early start to the day and onto a bus for a trip to the Peter and Paul Fortress, built by Peter the Great to help protect the city at its sea port. Unfortunately, it started raining just as we were boarding the bus and we had left the umbrella behind for the first time on the trip! Is that Murphy's Law or not??

The Peter and Paul fortress has inside it a very ornate church which was only used for funerals of the members of the Royal Family, the Romanovs.  All are buried inside the church and have tombs well marked. Even the remains of the last Tzar and his family are there. The most recent interment there was the grandmother of the last Tzar, Nicholas 2nd(?) who had escaped from Russia at the time of the Russian revolution in 1917. She died in the country to which she escaped and her remains were reinterred here in 2009. All but two of the tombs are exactly the same, made from marble and decorated with gold.

After getting very wet going back to the bus, we were taken to a canal boat which took us past many of the places we had seen from the road yesterday. Because it was raining, it was difficult to take pictures, but it did provide another perspective on the city.

Arrived back to the ship about 11.30 am and had lunch. Then took our books up to the 13th floor to find a quiet place to read and have a snooze again before going down to the Trivia Quiz again. This time we teamed up with a couple from Sydney and ended up winning the quiz! 14 right out of 16. The prize? A Pen.

Left St Petersberg about 6.15 pm en route to Tallinn in Estonia.