North Sea Serenade – Riga, Latvia

Today was a beautiful lazy day because we didn’t get into port until 11:30 A.  We took a tour of Riga and it was very similar to Tallinn.  It’s so sad to see what countless years of occupation and depravation can do to a society.  The buildings are bleak and colorless because the Soviets did not want the working class to see the remains of the bourgeois society and so simply painted entire buildings black, gray or brown.  It is such a shame because the buildings here are done in a lovely art deco style with reliefs of Greek gods and goddesses on the faces of the buildings which now blend into the background because it is all one color. Oh and they planted trees in front of the buildings so they couldn’t see them even more.

The past few years have not been kind to Riga and the buildings are worn and decayed and are in need of some vital renovation.  We saw the Freedom Monument – which is beautiful only because these poor people have been conquered again and again because of their strategic location to the Baltic.  They have been conquered by the Swedes, the Danes, the Russians (the Empire not the Soviets – yet), the Germans and then finally the USSR.  And each occupation took both their natural resources and their youth.  And now the recession is taking them too.  She said something like 40% of the youth have left to find work in other European Union countries and will never return. 

Well anyway – we saw the National Opera House which was originally built by the first German land barons but was very pretty.  We went to the Town Hall Square and she told us a very interesting story about the sailors who traveled and brought back the first black men from Africa and they were so amazed that people actually had black skin that they clad them in the finest clothes they could offer and so only their heads showed and the people just naturally assumed that the only part of them that was black was their heads.  So they called them the blackheads.  The name stuck and was then applied not only to the black people who came to the country but also the sailors and foreigners which then followed.  

We saw St. Peter’s Church which was lovely but definitely needs some renovation.  Then we went across the Daugava River and the last two stops I didn’t even get out of the bus.  The last was the Riga Castle and it was nothing special even though it was apparently built in the 1200s.  But it also needs some work.

So now we are on our way to Visby, Sweden.  We came back to the ship, lost at trivia, lost at bingo and now are going to a reception with the captain because we are returning Regent sailors.  Yay us.  J

North Sea Serenade – I can’t keep track of the days anymore so this day is Tallinn

First of all we moved our clocks BACK an hour so between last night and this morning Tom and I slept 11.5 hours.  When we got up first this morning we opened the drapes to see what kind of a day it’s going to be.  Imagine our surprise when there is a gigantic mega-ship a gangplank’s distance away.  That resulted In a lot of screaming and running around and slamming curtains shut on my part.

So we go downstairs and I had poached eggs on some excellent corned beef hash and Tom had pecan pancakes which he said were very good.

Then at 10:30 A we went downstairs for our tour.  That is a very civilized time for a tour.  We stream out of the ship along with 6000 of our closest friends from the neighboring ship.  Nobody pointed and laughed so if someone did see us they didn’t see us on the gangplank.  Turns out that despite the mass of humanity heading toward the dock there were only 24 of us on the tour.

We drove through Tallinn and the guide pointed out the highlights of which there were not many.  It is a colorful and picturesque town but shows the marks of decay and neglect.  Apparently their humidity is very high and even massive stone buildings when not maintained do not survive.

The Town Hall is about 800 years old.  At various times this country has belonged to Sweden, the USSR, Denmark and then the USSR again.  So they are pretty happy about their current independence.  My only problem with these towns is that while cobblestones are very photogenic and add a ton of local color they are darned hard to walk on.  The guide called one street the street of vendors and I said more like the street of twisted ankles.

We went to the chocolate place and it was smaller than our house.  24 of us squeezed ourselves around a table which was designed for 8 people at most.  The woman who is the “master chocolatier” didn’t speak English so the guide translated.  Then we got to take some hunks of chocolate and dip them in white or dark chocolate and then decorate them with rose petals and hunks of orange and chili peppers – she said that in the winter they made chocolate with garlic and “wodka” which sounds quite frankly disgusting to me.  But it was fun and I had some really good hot chocolate from their store and then we continued our tour and had some free time.

We had the option to walk up a hill but Ann, Tom and I decided to stop in a local café and have some local food.  Ann and I had some delicious cheese and Tom had the mushroom  salad which turned out to be half mushrooms and half onions diced fine with bacon and two hunks of potatoes.  We had some wasps who were interested in sharing our meal, even though we didn’t invite them.

Then we went back to the chocolate place and picked up our chocolate and came back to the ship.  It’s a short day for us – all aboard is 3:30 P.  So we have tea and trivia (hopefully we can manage to win) and then we have dinner tonight in the steakhouse which is super yummy.  Then on to Riga!

North Sea Serenade – Day Six

Today we went to the Hermitage Museum after four hours of sleep.  Fortunately we did not oversleep today and made it to the theater in time after a very nice breakfast.  We drove to the Hermitage Museum where we saw the Small Throne Room, the gilded-column Armorial Hall and the stunning Malachite Room.  In the Malachite Room they have table tops and a huge vase which looks like someone chiseled them out of the same piece of stone – like marble – but she said it was many pieces pasted together – whoever made all that stuff did an extraordinary job.  Unfortunately we could not bring in large coats or I would have tried to sneak it out even though it was as tall as me.  We saw the Small Hermitage where they have a Peacock Clock although they only run it once a week on Wednesday at 6 PM so we won’t be able to see it since we are all aboard at 5:30 P today.  And now that I think about it – it’s only Tuesday so it only goes tomorrow.  And we’ll be making chocolate tomorrow in Tallinn.

Anyway the museum was super crowded and so our guide walked us up and down a bunch of stairs – I don’t think that they have ever thought of a hand rail in any of these countries.  And to be honest it really freaks me out to walk down the stairs.  Yesterday at Catherine’s Palace someone fell although even though I was nosey I could not find out what happened.  So we paraded up and down on our already tired and sore feet.

We saw two beautiful works by Da Vinci, a Rembrandt, some Greek artifacts, some Egyptian artifacts.  After the British Museum and the Louvre and this museum I’m surprised Egypt has any of its artifacts left.  We saw what is allegedly the world’s oldest mummy.  We saw some amazing stuff in the gold room of the Hermitage.  Apparently you have to make a special appointment to be able to see that room but they had saddle blankets which had hundreds of diamonds so you can imagine what else they had that was totally diamond encrusted.  But in the gold room they had some artifacts that are among the oldest ever recovered which were found by the Black Sea. I can’t think of anything else because my brain is totally mush today but if you look at Tom’s pictures he has pictures of most of it.  Except the gold room.

So we struggled back to the ship, Tom is now napping and we have trivia in less than an hour.  And that’s about all I’m going to attempt today.  We have a caviar reception tonight.  Yum-o.  It was delicious, we lost at trivia, went to dinner at Signatures and I did a face plant in the halibut.  It is such hard work having all this fun.

North Sea Serenade – Day Five

This morning was almost a catastrophe.  First of all we overslept because we’d been having such a hard time getting to sleep that we didn’t worry about setting an alarm.  But we should have worried last night  And then our original plans said that our trip was at 9:45 A and so we got up in time to get ready and have a roll and some coffee when Tom went to get out tickets it said 9:15 A so we really had to scramble to get to the theater in time to get on our bus.  So we didn’t get any coffee and we didn’t get any breakfast.  Which usually makes me pretty cranky.  So we go out and go through immigration with a woman who was so grumpy she must not have had her morning coffee either.  Not even a HINT of a smile.  So we get on the bus and the bus seats are so uncomfortable for us.  So off we go and there is a slight rain and everything is covered in fog.  Great.

Our guide was super funny.  We go through the station at the end of the terminal and he says everybody don’t smile because if you smile too much our men in black will come on and want to know why you are so happy to be in Russia.  So first of all we drive around the city and it’s hard to take pictures because there is rain all over the windows but Tom did his best.  Unlike my memories of Moscow the buildings here are all pastel in color.  We saw the Winter Palace and St. Isaac’s Square and the Aurora which shot the canon which started the Bolshevik Revolution.  Then we went to the Peter & Paul Fortress where they have the crypts for all the tsars. He said that contrary to popular belief it is not Anastasia’s body that was missing but Peter and Ivan.  

As we were walking around I noticed that there was a man who had noticed Tom and was sketching him.  It kind of freaked me out but I told Tom and he didn’t seem concerned.  Afterward he approached Tom and sold him the charcoal sketch – and it is really good.  For only $5 US.  Then we went to the officially sanctioned souvenir store and I got the scarf for the traveling hat.  It is a really soft, wool scarf which is about as thick as a spider web.  Then we went to the Spilled Blood Cathedral which you can’t go into but is one of the icons of St. Petersburg.  In front of the Spilled Blood Cathedral is what our guide called the Spilled Champagne Bridge which is where Russian brides go to have their pictures taken and in fact there were so many of them taking pictures that they had to line up.  

Then we came back to the ship and we were so hungry we ran up to get some food.  They had peanut butter ice cream that was just super yummy.  Then we went downstairs and almost slept through trivia but managed to make it downstairs whereupon we lost.  Who knew that Bridge Over the River Kwai was filmed in Thailand.  Oh right, I did.  But I forgot so that wasn’t very useful.  Because we knew that dinner was going to be late we went up to a special Russian dinner which the ship had prepared and I had borscht and stroganoff (I don’t think I’ve ever had stroganoff that had pickles and beets) and chicken kiev.  

Then we went down and got on our tour for Catherine’s Palace.  The trip was supposed to take 1.5 hours to Pushkin and the traffic was so bad we were almost 45 minute later.  HOWEVER, the other bus drivers opted NOT to take the expressway and so we had to wait and wait and wait for them to arrive in Pushkin.  So the guide decided to stall by making us walk to the carriage house.  Now most of the ladies, including me, had dressed up for the event since it was supposed to be an elegant dinner.  And everybody was complaining because the guide walked super fast and it was uphill a lot of the way and we all had non-walking shoes on so now I have blisters and I’m sure they do too.  

The carriages were super elegant but some of them reminded me of circus carriages.  And some people were complaining up a storm that they had to walk that far and I’m not a big fan of standing around.  So we wait and wait and wait and then we go into the palace and wait some more and then wait some more and finally we get to go into the palace.  You have to wear these super sexy brown covers on your shoes which reminded me of the shoes the Seven Dwarfs wear.  The palace cannot be described.  It is absolutely spectacular.  And they had a man playing the flute and one playing the harpsichord which I don’t think I’ve ever heard live and then we go to the end and got a seat and they played some Russian classical music and then Catherine the Great came out and we had a toast to world peace and then some court dancing which was kind of odd but it was well done.  

So after that we went to dinner and dinner at the Russian House Restaurant was salad, rubber chicken, a strange potato pancake and some sorbet with seeds.  There were some Russian folk singers but we have no idea what they were singing about but Tom danced with one of them but unfortunately I had to take the picture and it did not turn out very well.  The drive back to the ship was about half the time but we were so late and had to wait so long to get things going that it is 1:30 AM and we have another tour of the Hermitage and the Gold Room in about seven hours.  Did I mention that we are exhausted?   

Tomorrow:  St. Petersburg, Part 2.

North Sea Serenade – Day Two

I somehow didn't get this one before the other, so it's a bit out of order now. Enjoy.

Tom and I went to bed last night around 10 PM and woke up about 2 AM and chatted for a few hours and then about 4 AM went back to sleep and woke up around 9:30 AM in a panic because we thought we were going to miss breakfast.  The breakfast buffet was almost as good as the smorgasbord last night.  After breakfast we laid around the room and whined about being tired and not wanting to do anything but we had already paid for the hop on hop off bus and so we dragged ourselves out to the ship stop.  Then we went to the Vasa Museum.

For those of you who don’t know the Vasa is a ship that was commissioned by the King of Sweden in 1628 and after traveling 30 meters into the bay the ship capsized and sank.  The museum was not only an attempt to demonstrate the actual ship but to explain why it capsized and apparently it was a combination of fatal errors, i.e., design, construction and instruction by the senior staff.  There were 50 people who lost their lives when the ship capsized and they tried to explain but there wasn’t just one reason and the ship’s builder had already died so nobody got blamed.  We took so many pictures our camera died.

After that we took the hop on hop off bus around Stockholm to the ice bar which is a bar constructed out of ice which is maintained in a -5 degrees Celsius temperature so you have to put on a cape and mittens just to get inside the bar.  I thought it was pretty cool.

We continued traveling around and got back to the hotel and went up to our room.  I took a nap for about an hour.  Then we went down to the bar and had some olives which were amazingly good.  Garlicky and olive oily and rosemary-y.  Then we came back up to the room and got ready and then we went to Matsalen for dinner and although I recognized Mathias Dahlgren I was too late to get a picture with him but the food was spectacular and we loved every bite.  I have pictures of every dish.  It was, as Jennie says, very spendy but I was happy to pay it for such a memorable dinner. 

We are still suffering from jetlag, but hope to be adjusted to local time for the cruise which starts tomorrow.

North Sea Serenade – Day Four

Today we had a long morning to sleep in and Tom opted to do laundry.  I opted to take a nap—lazy me.  The ship did not dock until 11:30 AM but we keep changing time zones and for people already suffering from jet lag this is not helping.  So we got to Helsinki for the first shore excursion.  We drove to the Rock Church which is a church that was constructed by two brothers who were prohibited from building a church on their property because it would obstruct the rich folk’s view.  So they dynamited into the granite and built a church which is effectively underground.  It was a beautiful church.  And despite the number of people was surprisingly peaceful.  

We went to Sibelius Park which had an odd organ pipe like construction and a face that was allegedly brushed by an aluminum wind.  At the park they were playing a new sport in Finland which is effectively basketball played in a lake making it water polo while kayaking.  It was interesting to watch.  Then we drove to the Senate Square.  They were filming a movie and there were several young ladies dressed in traditional costumes so we hope the pictures turn out.  The guide kept referring to the square as the most important square in Finland but we are still not sure why.  

Then we came back to the ship – played trivia and won – and went to dinner where we met one of the sommeliers that we met on the last trip we took.  They must move around a lot.  So that is all for tonight and tomorrow is Russia, and we need to set the clocks ahead another hour!    These time changes are going to kill us, but they promise that this is the last time we turn the clocks ahead on this voyage.  So with the 11 hour time zone difference, we have effectively swapped day and night.

North Sea Serenade – Day Three

Today was a day of checking out and checking in.  We got up in the morning, had breakfast and then went upstairs to pack.  We checked out of the hotel and shared a taxi with Whit and Ann to the ship.  We are still suffering hugely from significant jet lag.  So we get on the ship around 12:30 and go up to the pool deck to wait until the rooms were ready.  At 2:30, they announced the rooms were available, and fortunately all of our bags showed up right away, so we were able to unpack before going to dinner. 

We had a lovely dinner at the Italian restaurant, but as I said, we were still suffering from jet lag, so we went to bed super early after I almost face planted into the cannelloni, and they told us we needed to move the clocks forward an hour, another hour lost.   I woke up about 2 AM thinking we were having an earthquake, but realized you don’t have earthquakes at sea and it was just the ship’s vibration.  The weather so far has been beautiful and we have the mild sunburn to prove it.  That’s about it for this day.

North Sea Serenade – Day One

I'm posting for Christy about her Europe trip....I've slacked on writing mine. We'll see if it ever happens.

Our flights to Stockholm were relatively uneventful but exhausting.  When we got to Amsterdam – where we were connecting – they made us go through passport control and on the other side we had to go through the ubiquitous bag check which was super odd because we never left the secure area of the airport -- only this time they were concerned about the amount of electronics we had in our bags.  So they removed almost everything from Tom’s bag, x-rayed the extension cord, re-exrayed his now empty bag and then gave him everything back to repack.  Mine they pulled out my checkbook, my DSi XL – which he said made me think I was “hip and trendy” and laughed and wanted to know if I had “caught them all” when I told him I used it to play Pokemon, my wallet, and said to me please open and then took them from my hands and opened them himself.  Except the DSi.  Odd.  I guess telling him I used it to play Pokemon convinced him that I am not a terrorist. 

Well we arrived at our hotel after driving through an absolutely torrential downpour on one side and sunshine on the other which created some rather spectacular rainbows as we drove along.  I am taking that as a good omen.

We arrived at the hotel and checked in.  Our room is gorgeous and the floor in the bathroom is heated.  So after you walk across the cool wooden floor the floor seemed to us unnaturally warm.  Very odd at first.  The hotel is gorgeous but not as big as I thought which gives it an intimate feel.  It reminds me of the Hotel St. James in Montreal.  Nice moldings, modern touches but maintaining the historical ambiance.  Our room has a magnificent view – the Royal Palace and the Swedish Parliament.  We can also see the sightseeing boats going up and down the Norrström River.  The tooting and bells and whistles remind us in our room that we are not in Kansas anymore. 

We laid around for a couple of hours and then went down to meet our friends Ann and Whit (who are going on our cruise) and two of their friends Bunny and Guy (who aren’t).  We had a “typical” Swedish smorgasbord and I think it is probably very high end but it was absolutely delicious. 10 varieties  of herring.  Many varieties of breads, one of which was a brown bread that was so rich it tasted like cake.  Cheeses to die for.  Cold smoked, smoked, lox of several varieties absolutely delicious.   Gorgeous and yummy desserts.   I had so much pickled food I think I will come home looking a couple of years younger.  Ha ha.  I fell in love with mustard marinated herring.  Bunny and Guy have been driving across Europe and probably would have gone on for hours but I sadly had to poop out and say I ran out of steam and have to go to bed. 

We actually were very tired, and once we got to bed fell asleep for a solid four hours, whereupon our body clocks told us it should be day time and you should be awake.  So we spent a few hours talking until we fell asleep again and slept for another three hours or so.