Our Baltic Sea Cruise: Part III St Petersburg

  Our friends Barb and Jim waiting to enter Catherine's Palace at Pushkin.

Our next two days were spent in Russia, and, just as in the cases of Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Denmark, our very first visit to this country, though two of our children, Abey and Sabrina, were here about twenty years ago. ) Our time was roughly divided in two, with the first day at Peterhof and Catherine's Palace, and the second day devoted to St. Petersburg and the Hermitage.  These sites all suffered extensive damage and destruction during WWII but have been lovingly restored now to much of their former beauty and glory.  Most were decorated in baroque manner after the French court (one can easily see the similarity to Versailles and its Hall of Mirrors) because of Peter the Great's infatuation with the style and his esteem for France as the epitome of European beauty and culture.  He wanted to make St. Petersburg and Russia into "European" models.

Much of the weight of the palace is on Hercules' shoulders.  Gold is everywhere in Catherine's Palace.

Some of the most beautiful art is on the ceilings:

                                  The grand reception hall

Dining room

A long hall of golden doorways!

The gardens are almost as beautiful and ornate as the inside of the palace.

The golden onion domes gleam gorgeous in the sun!

Russian girls sell souvenirs to tourists at all of these locations.




Nesting dolls (Matroyshka) are probably the most popular national souvenir in the world.  They often represent world figures.  Here's one of a currently prominent socialist (the other person is Putin, the Russian premier)

We visited several Russian Orthodox churches, including this one which contains the crypts of many of the Russian czars and czarinas. 

Here is the final resting place of the Romanovs who were assassinated during the Bolshevik Revolution.  They were first buried in makeshift graves by a roadside.  Their bodies were discovered fairly recently and they were laid to rest here.

This is the Battleship Aurora, which fired the shots that signaled the beginning of that revolution.

One of the most beautiful exteriors of any church is that of the Church on the Spilled Blood, built over the spot where Czar Alexander II was murdered.  

There is also a modern side to St. Petersburg, as these apartments attest. 

Peterhof, not far from the city, was the summer palace of Peter the Great and is outrageously beautiful!  Among its attractions are its wondrous fountains and gardens:

Each morning the fountains begin at 11 o'clock, accompanied by beautiful classical music.  Throngs of visitors wait for the magic moment!

You may click on this link to enjoy a little of the beauty.  Also this one and this one.

These fountains are breathtaking!

The rest of our visit was spent in The Hermitage, one of the world's great museums.  Owning over three million pieces of artwork, less than a tenth are on exhibit at any time.  It is said that if one took a minute to look at every artifact, it would take over seven years!

This is one of the staircases.  Part of the museum was at one time a palace.

Artwork of all kinds is housed here.





A mosaic floor from somewhere in the Roman or Greek world and brought here for us to enjoy. 

This pair of matching vases are of malachite and lapis lazuli:

In 1985 a vandal secretly brought acid into the museum and threw it on this painting "Danaë", by Rembrandt, damaging it severely.  It has been restored quite well over the succeeding years. (click on the name above for more details.)  Because of this act no one is allowed to bring even water into the Hermitage.  Tough on very hot days like the ones we had, where the temp outdoors was in the 90's and the crowds inside made it even hotter! 

You might enjoy a taking a virtual tour of the Hermitage; click here if you do.  Or come back when you have more time.  After all, it is the world's largest museum!

So ended our Russian visit, with a beautiful sunset from our balcony, at 11:30 at night!  Tomorrow: Tallinn Estonia. 

Our Baltic Sea Cruise: Part II Belgium, Germany, Finland

We embarked from Southampton port on Saturday 16 July, arriving the next morning in Bruges, Belgium.  Bruges is a beautiful medieval town only a few miles from Brussels.  We toured the city on foot and spent a little time geocaching (in every city we visited.)

A very modern statuary in an ancient city:Old streets, many cobblestoned, are lined closely with beautiful facades. 

This is the central square of the city.  Belgium is roughly half Dutch and half Flemish; Bruges is in the Flemish portion of the country.  Its main products are lace and chocolate; you can guess which one interested us the most! 

This is the beautiful city square of Bruges. 

Ornate facades all around!

We took a fun canal ride in Bruges, known as the "Venice of the North." 

Always time for geocaching!

Back on the ship again, we spent that night and the next day at sea. Those "sea days" are fairly relaxing, composed mostly of eating wonderful food, resting, conversation and shows and preparing for the next city.  Each morning in a new port we met in the theater and were matched up with our tour guides.  Here we are prepping for our visit to Germany.

Our ship docked at Warnemuende, Germany from where busses conveyed us to Luebeck and Wismar, two medieval cities. 

We wandered narrow streets and alleys.

These were some gorgeous painted wall panels in Saint Jakob's Kirche in Luebeck. 

Moses and King David

Jesus and several of His disciples, as well as ceilings with gorgeous color!

A wonderful painted box window!

This is a "puppet theater" marquis.

On to Wismar in the State of Schleswig-Holstein.  This is the one remaining city gate of three from medieval times.As in Luebeck, a canal runs through town.

One of the bridges of Wismar, known as the Pig Bridge (Schweinsbruecke) is humorously decorated on four corners with these little porkers.

The port of Warnemuende was sponsoring a sand sculpture contest during our visit; here are some of the entries:

Another sea day and a chance to recoup from lots of walking!  The Eclipse has a very nice library and we each read a couple of books while on board.  The Art of Racing in the Rain was a fun read!

Helsinki, Finland was our next stop

Our Finnish guide, "Violet", was a delight and her information made the trip very enjoyable.Our first real stop was Porvoo, a small rural Finnish town.  We visited a small church there, tasted some of the local chocolate and spent a few minutes geocaching. 

While searching for a geocache near this church we met this Finn and his daughter from Helsinki, out for a day of cache hunting also.

Then it was on to lunch at a neighboring horse ranch and riding school

The dessert was a torte with caramel sauce, decorated with an edible flower, with sliced rhubarb, cloudberries, blueberries and lingonberries on the side.  Wow!

Taking a very necessary stroll on the ranch after lunch!

After the delicious Finnish meal the bus carried us to Helsinki town center and a visit to the Rock Chuch, which has a very interesting history. Apparently the "locals" resisted having a church built above ground which would have obstructed the view. So architects devised and built this church under the rock instead. Now, the locals are more upset because of the markedly increased traffic of the half-million tourists coming to see this church annually!

The ceiling consists of coiled copper wire for the ultimate in acoustics, making it the perfect venue for concerts. 

A last glimpse of beautiful Helsinki before reboarding and prepping for our next stop: St. Petersburg, Russia!