Freitag, Juni 27, 2014

Our Seavoyage to St.Petersburg - Russia

Our seavoyage to St. Petersburg,Russia

To start off with must say, that it has been very interesting but did by far not beat the charm of our Virgin Islands trip last year. Going up north you must think that you end up with forrest ,lakes, sea and elks...no way! True, passing the baltic coast you see hundreds of little and big islands, lined with charming country homes, some of them have their own little harbour with sail and motorboats..still,the big harbours we visited on our trip are bustling cities with crowds of people milling around and traffic jams. St. Petersburg for example has a population of about 5 million people which almost equals the population of Estland.The capital City of Tallinn ,btw, has been the only place i could imagine myself to live..and there comes the big if....the summer would not only be 3 months and the rest long,dark very cold winter.

Now lets bring a little sequence in my report. As you might have noticed the trip started out with 2 days of Amsterdam, very nice, lively place! We stayed 2 days awaiting the ship and I started out with my mostly solo tours,which had been one of the problems of this journey. Herr H. simply could not cope with the strain of sightseeing any more ,so sharing so often was out. Once aboard it did not change much, what he loved most has been the bed. But I made the best of it, only in St.P., which I had been sooo looking forward to I was hit by dizzy spells and had to see the ship's hospital for an infusion. Tried to visit the Hermitage but had to leave after 3 rooms, the whole place started to turn summersaults around me.Besides ....being weekend,it had been very hot and crowded. But I had a marvellous river- and canal trip including the fortress of St.Peter & Paul with the great (former- museum now) cathedral( where almost all the zars have been burried) the next day. The weather played along, nice and warm...lovely! - So next it had been Estonia with Tallin and then Helsinki ,Finnland, where we had some discrepancies with our booked tour and ended up taking an hop-on-and off leaving from the harbour,which was in the end maybe the better idea, since the weather being very nice we sat on the open deck. Had some worries about being back in time on account of the traffic...ship does not wait for selfarranged tours! but we made it. Helsinki a very bustly city too with nice sights to see and very crowded. But I think up north people enjoy being out once the sun is shining. The weather had been great for sightseeing most of the time during our trip, Twenties C / sixties F.
Dissapointed I had been from Copenhagen/Denmark. First with hundreds of people we glared at the little meermaid (sits quite close to the passenger terminal) then we had a boring tour in the middle of traffic jams looking mostly at road constructions - they build a subway- and the bus was too cold on top, which did not help hubby's severe cough he had develop and still battles with.

Just notice I skipped our first harbour..Warnemünde in Germany, There we took a taxi to Rosock, a pretty,friendly little university town . We enjoyed it!

Now about our life aboard. They put us on a german table, not what we really wanted, Germans we meet plenty around here..they were ok though . Notice my black friends, there had been quite a big table of black people, but did not get to meet any of them. Matter of fact we met not many folks, one night we got stuck at the martini bar, the most highlife place aboard, hangover had been programmed next morning, all I needed with my already swirling head! At the end of the journey Mr. H. got seasick, so there I was again with my lonely meals and ventures.

So, friends, thats about it in short, the little things would take too long