Archives for April 2018

We started our Saturday with a canal cruise. More accurately, it was a river and canal cruise. Saint Petersburg has three rivers—the Neva, the Fontanka, and the Moyke, and then there are canals that link up the rivers and islands.

What a great way to see any water-oriented city. We sat top side. Colder, but way better views—that is, if you don’t count the selfie sticks and the insatiable need for some of our fellow cruisers to video everything. Sigh.

There was a young man who ran from bridge to bridge to wave to us as we passed under each bridge. Usually, he just made a point of us seeing him, but at one of the bridges he did a backflip to much applause. Apparently, he does this run-wave-run-wave routine all the time, and he hopes to get tips from canal trippers or a payment for posing for a picture with him. Unusual. He certainly doesn’t need any other exercise program. We cruised quite a distance, and he was with us from start to finish. And we weren’t exactly the only canal boat on the water.

Peter and Paul Fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River.

After cruising for an hour, we made the first of two stops: the Church on Spilled Blood, built on the spot where Czar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. This striking, colorful, onion-domed church is considered a must visit in Saint Petersburg. Unfortunately, some of its exterior exuberance was covered in scaffolding and netting. Still, it’s quite a sight.

When we stepped inside, it was hard to suppress our gasps. It is covered from top to bottom in mosaics. In spite of the crazy, crowded space, which made it very challenging to drink in the beauty, it was an incredible place to see.

After this visit, we went to St. Isaac’s Cathedral, with its gold dome. It is considered the leading church in Russian Orthodoxy and one of the largest churches in Christendom.

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This church was a bit less crowded, and I thought it was even more beautiful.

We know we barely scratched the surface of Saint Petersburg, but we were wowed by what we saw. It is a big, big city, and traffic is wildly congested. It takes forever to get from place to place. But, my, it does contain some real jewels, and we’re glad we got a chance to see even just a bit.

 

 

Well, we arrived in Russia. Those are some words I wasn’t ever expecting to say.

It wasn’t all that exotic and different from other places we’ve seen—and yet it was. It’s definitely a European city. These were regular people leading regular lives. We saw people commuting to work, cars and pedestrians everywhere; people coming and going to and from the metro. We saw people fishing, people marrying, people walking their dogs. We saw Prada stores and Burger King. (There are 70 McDonald’s we were told.) But this is its own place in the world. It’s Russian, but more European than other parts of Russia.

Saint Petersburg is a big city—5.2 million people. It is made up of 42 islands. There are three main rivers and lots of canals, and they like to call themselves the “Venice of the North.” It is an interesting mix of modernity and classical architecture.

Here was the view from our stateroom. Not exactly what we were expecting. The first will be the headquarters for an oil company when it’s completed. Shades of Dubai. The second is a new stadium. Saint Petersburg is hosting the World Cup this June-July.

It’s very pretty at night, too.

There were wall-to-wall apartment blocks. Some new, some old. But miles of them.  We saw apartments; we saw former palaces, now either museums or very expensive apartments. At no point did we see anything resembling a single-family home, but then we were in the heart of the city.

We were the first cruise ship of the season, so we were warmly greeted. We were fortunate with the weather. Colder than brisk. Daytime temps in the low 40’s. Mostly we had sun. We saw evidence that it had rained, but never got any falling on us. Since they claim to have only around 64 cloudless days per year, we felt very lucky.

We arrived around 7:00am Friday. By 8:00am, we were in line to “commune” with some very serious passport control people. In Spain and Portugal, we never had to carry our passports when going ashore. In France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Estonia, we had to have them on us if we were non-EU people, but we never had to show them to anyone. In Russia, we had to go one-on-one with an officer and get our passports stamped. We also got a day visa that was retrieved at the end of the day. When we returned from our excursion, we had to go through passport control again. These are people who are paid to look and act cold and at least modestly intimidating. No smiles allowed. That was Friday. Same thing Saturday. (Ironically, we weren’t issued day visas the second day. Hard to know why we’d need it one day and not the other.)

Our focus on Friday was the vaunted Hermitage. We were particularly fortunate that we had an early opening time for our visit. We entered at 9:15am. Regular opening is 10:30am, and the difference was definitely noticeable. Suddenly at opening time, there were teeming masses. Chinese tour groups seemed to be everywhere. (Our tour guide told us there were over 1 million Chinese tourists in St. P last year.)

I have long hoped for a visit to the Hermitage. What a stunning structure it was. It just happens to be full of incredible art as well. We saw Rubens and Rembrandt and da Vinci and Canaletto and even a small Michelangelo. (Unfortunately, all their lovely Impressionist paintings are housed in a separate building and require a separate ticket.) But it was the beautiful architecture that really wowed us.

The Jordan staircase in the Winter Palace.

One of the throne rooms, with its beautiful parquet floors.

A sampling of some of the rooms.

The Imperial Chapel.

Just outside was the big Palace Square. They were starting to prepare for a big celebration on May 9–Victory Day, or what was described as their Veterans Day. Soldiers were amassing; a band was practicing.

A few views of the streets of Saint Petersburg.

We found people to be welcoming (other than those stony-faced passport people). Employees, especially young people, spoke excellent English and were nothing but helpful.

Putin was in town, we were told, though he didn’t choose to show himself. One of our tour guides spoke positively about us visiting Russia and stressed that we (Americans and Russians) will always be friends.

There’s a lot of the Hanseatic “thing” going on in this part of the world. Turns out that Tallinn was one of the players of the time. It is unsurprisingly a UNESCO World Heritage Center. (We’re racking up an impressive list of UNESCO sites on this trip.)

Estonia is a very small country. They have a population of only 1.4 million, about one third of whom live in Tallinn. They call themselves “the little country that could.” Russia has ruled them repeatedly, and they have been independent most recently just since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. They have modernized rapidly and are definitely a wired country. We were told that many refer to Estonia as e-Stonia. They have free WiFi throughout Tallinn and are scandalized at the notion of charging people for WiFi or some people not having access to WiFi.

We had a brief visit to this pretty city on Thursday. We walked first through the upper town, known as Toompea. The old city wall is still here, with towers sprinkled along it. The area also houses the Estonian parliament and the delectable Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral. The Estonians have a rather challenging history with their Russian neighbors. So, even though this is a stunning cathedral, there’s no soft spot in their hearts about it.

Two of the towers on the wall. The one on the right is known as Kiek in de Kok, which means “peek in the kitchen” because the guards in the tower could do just that to the neighboring houses.

The pink Toompea Castle, now the parliament building, and the tallest tower in the castle wall, called Tall Hermann (flying the black and white and royal blue Estonian flag).

Across the way from the parliament building is the beautiful Russian church. We were able to go in and see icons and artwork, but no photography is allowed.

We headed down to the lower town and wandered its narrow cobblestone streets.

The 1633 clock on the wall of the Church of the Holy Ghost.

The Great Guild Hall, home of the most powerful and wealthy of the Hanseatic guilds.

We came out into the big Town Hall Square, rimmed with pretty old buildings.

And the 15th century Town Hall, of course.

The Town Hall was flying both the Estonian and Norwegian flags, because the 100th anniversary of the Republic was being acknowledged by a visit from the Crown Prince and Princess of Norway. Some lucky folks on our ship got to see the Estonian President (a young woman) and the Crown Prince and Princess come through the market square just after we left.

St. Nicholas Church—dating from the 13th century, but rebuilt after Soviets bombed the area during the German occupation.

We had been promised rain for our morning walk, with the weather relenting in the afternoon. We started out in 40 degrees with strong winds, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only person wondering if I should have added another layer or at least a scarf. But we got very lucky. We had no rain at all, and, by the time we reached the market square, the sun had broken out.

We stopped at one of the many sidewalk cafes on the square and had lattes—expensive, but very good and hitting the spot. It was fun to sit in the sun and watch all the activity in the square.

We still had some free time after our coffee break, so we followed some of the curvy little streets off the square and did some window shopping. This is an area where you see a lot of Baltic amber (which I left behind) and lots of linen items (which I didn’t).

As we walked back toward the ship, we passed a busy flower market. So colorful and cheery.

I couldn’t get Jerry to agree to pose with this fellow. No fun!

Then it was time to sail away again. The good part of cruising (to which we are pretty new): We get to see a bit of a lot of places, many of them places we might not see otherwise. The bad part: In most cases, we get only a tiny taste of these places. Tallinn was one of the these. But it was fun to see and experience it, even if only for a few hours.

On Tuesday, we visited two cities which were powerhouses during the Hanseatic times and are now UNESCO sites. Lubeck is the larger of the two and is located in what was West Germany. Wismar is about one quarter the size of Lubeck, and it is in the former East Germany.

To get to Lubeck, our first stop, we drove about 1 hour through eastern Germany. We saw row after row of Soviet apartment blocks, lots of softly rolling cropland, and massive solar “farms.”

Lubeck was a big, bustling city, and it was filled with wonderful old buildings. There were church spires everywhere we looked. It is known for its impressive array of brick Gothic structures.

It was a cold and very windy day. We even had a touch or two of rain, but mostly the weather held for us.

We started our walking tour at the Holsten Gate. Built in 1464, it lists a bit. Locals like to say the leaning tower of Pisa got its idea from Lubeck. It is touted as one the four most famous German buildings and is on the 2006 2-Euro coin.

Next door are the old salt warehouses, built in the 16th to 18th centuries.

We walked past St. Peter’s and on to a very pretty market square. If we had been here as planned on Monday, we would have seen the square humming with activity. But, on Tuesday, we had it to ourselves.

The Rathouse, or city hall.

We got to see the twin-spired St. Marien Church and walked past many other brick structures. (The Church looks like it’s listing too, but I’m afraid that’s just photographer error.)

We stopped at the 13th century Helligen-Geist (Holy Ghost) Hospital. It’s in the midst of some reconstruction, but we got to see some statuary and 14th century wall paintings.

We had lunch at Cafe Niederegger, known for having invented marzipan. It is a thriving candy shop on the main level, with a cafe upstairs. Our pork was served with a disk of browned marzipan on top. Sounds odd, but it was okay. Not something I’d go out of my way to eat,  but interesting to try.

Next, we drove about an hour to Wismar. It has a population of about 45,000 and is known for its medieval buildings. It will forever be known to me for the most difficult cobblestones I have yet encountered. I was almost afraid to take my eyes off my feet, they were so uneven and tall.

We stopped in a residential street where we heard about what are called unclaimed lands. These are properties that may have been abandoned when people escaped to the west. Years later (i.e., after the wall fell), people returned and wanted to reclaim their properties. Meanwhile, of course, others had taken ownership. This was a building that has just in the last year gotten a decision about ownership.

We started our walking tour of the Gothic quarter in the market square, where a market was underway. The centerpiece of the square was the Wasserkunst,  spring-fed well from around 1600.

After walking the Gothic district, we had a little free time and wandered through the market.

After a very full day of sights, we headed back to Warnemunde and our ship, or as Ulf (our tour guide) called it, our swimming hotel. What perfect imagery that conjures!