Getting ready to go!

I have kept travel blogs in the past and I am really glad I did when it came time to putting together memory albums. I can’t believe how many details I forget during a short time period. So, here I am, ready to document our excursion to northern Europe to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary!

This time, we have fellow travelers: mom, dad, Jack, Sallie, Julie, Sandra, Dennis, Emily, and of course, our girls! It’s a great group that is all ready for some adventure.

Here’s a look at the cruise part of our itinerary. Just a travel tip, we are book-ending this trip with short stays in London because flying in and out of there was only 60K Delta points and flying directly to Copenhagen or almost any other major city in Europe was 100K+! Not that I really needed an excuse to visit my favorite city in the world. A very inexpensive flight on BA will take us to Copenhagen the day before the ship departs.

I will write about our daily excursions each night but Wi-Fi will be spotty once we hit the ship so it might be  bit between posts but I will try to sneak some pics onto Facebook as well. Off to finish packing!

 

Russia…where I left part of my soul at immigration

As an American who grew up in the 80s with Reagan and Gorbachev, I had lots of pre-conceived notions about our stop in Russia. I will also admit to having watched Rocky IV (my favorite of that great series) far too many times so I was expecting armed KGB-type men with fur hats (even in the summer) and lots of pomp and circumstance upon our arrival. My expectations were not met, for the most part.

Our cruise ship docked along with 5 other huge cruise ships all at the same time. So, you had about 20,000 or so people trying to get off ships and into Russia all at the same time. Not surprisingly, this led to long lines at immigration. I mean, seriously long lines. We tried to leave the ship starting at 8 and we said hello to our guide at 11. Yep, 3 hours! It was insane. What is also insane? When I stepped forward to hand my passport over, I was expecting a ton of questions since it was taking so long but instead, not a single word. Nothing about being welcome to the country or where to get a shot of vodka…nothing! Contrast that with customs at Heathrow where the guy gave us suggestions on what to see and do and welcomed us with open arms. A bit of a difference to say the least.

 

Anyway, once we finally made it into the country, I quickly became overwhelmed by the sheer amount of historical information conveyed by our guide. St. Petersburg is steeped in history that I only knew a tiny bit about before my visit. For two centuries, it was actually the capital of the Russian Empire. It is now considered the “Venice of the North” because of its copious bridges and canals.

Since we took so long getting through customs, we did an extremely quick trip through the Impressionist wing of the Hermitage. There are over 3 million works of art housed in this former winter palace of the Czar. It was built by Peter the Great starting in 1711 and would eventually hold 1,786 doors, 1,945 windows. 117 staircases, 1,500 rooms, and slept 6,500 people. Ironically, the name comes from ‘a humble abode for monks’.

Our next stop was the Peter & Paul Fortress. This is actually the birthplace of the city and was a multi-functional structure that was designed to shield St. Peterbsurg from Swedish invasion and to imprison political convicts.

Inside, you will find the tombs of many of the Tsars, including Peter the Great and a special wing for Nicholas II and his family.

After a break for lunch in a traditional Russian tea room, we headed to the Faberge Museum.

The Fabergé Museum’s collection has nine Imperial Easter eggs that were made to the order of the last two Romanov Tsars — the Emperors Alexander III and Nicolas II. The eggs were bought by Vekselberg in 2004 from the family of the American newspaper magnate Malcolm Forbes. He purchased them just before they came up for auction, paying $100 million for the Forbes family’s entire Fabergé collection..

In total, there are fifteen Fabergé eggs in the Blue Room of Shuvalov Palace

The Lily of the Valley egg that Nicholas II commissioned for his wife.

The most amazing thing I saw in Russia, and perhaps on the entire cruise, was the Church of the Savior on spilled blood. There are no words to convey what this is like. It cost nearly 4.6 million rubles to build.

It was constructed on the site of the March 1, 1881 assassination of Tsar Alexander II.

It has 7500 square meters of mosaics, more than any other church in the world.

We finished our long day with a bit of shopping and some drinks and snacks at a café. It was an experience like I have never had before and I am so glad we visited St. Petersburg.

Basket of Piroshkis.

Estonia…the country I never knew I wanted to visit

Tallinn, Estonia has never been on my radar as a country I would like to visit. It just happened to be a stop on this cruise of other places I did want to visit and I am really glad it was.

Founded in 1154, it is one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Europe and Estonia declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. We didn’t use a tour guide in this city and instead rode a series of hop-on/hop-off buses that took us around. My favorite part though was touring the Old Town with its maze of cobblestone streets and historic buildings on every corner. It is one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites due to all of its well-preserved Gothic structures.

This is the Town Hall Square where they used to hold executions but now it is lined with charming cafes and shops. My how times have changed! This is also where the first public Christmas tree was displayed in 1441. The custom was to dance around it and then burn it after the celebration.

The girls are sitting in front of a waterfall built next to the town wall dating from 1265.

Chris wants everyone to know that Tallinn is also a tech center and is where Skype was invented.

There was a gorgeous flower market right outside of the Old Town gates. I should have bought a bunch to decorate our stateroom!

We hopped off at Kadriorg Palace and took a walk through the gardens and enjoyed some drinks in the cafe. Founded by Peter the Great, it is one of the best examples of Baroque architecture in all of Northern Europe.

Estonia was overall, a lovely city with lots of parks and interesting architecture. I actually would not have minded staying in this port city just a bit longer to explore more of the stops on the tour bus.

Germany…but no pretzels

We spent the day in Germany, landing at the port of Warnemunde and taking the train over to Rostock.

Rostock is considered one of Germany’s most beautiful Hanseatic cities and with its gabled rooftops that reminded me of gingerbread houses, ornate gates, and awe-inspiring churches, I was enchanted.

There was a lively market going on when we arrived at the city center so we had a lot of fun strolling through the streets, eating our gelato and taking in the lively atmosphere.

We found a traditional German restaurant to eat at where we of course, enjoyed some local beer and a lot of us discovered a love for currywurst!

Once we returned to our port city, part of the group decided to take a walk to the nearby beach.

Sandra and I wanted to gather some sand for our collection and there was also a Regatta happening that day. We were really lucky to get to attend two festival markets in one day!

The beach had soft sand and sand dunes topped with seagrasses. Here is a look at the lighthouse from the furthest point out we walked.

We logged over 8 miles of walking that day!

Vikings and trolls…oh my!

Oslo is the oldest capital city in Scandinavia and I fell a little bit in love with it. The whole vibe of Oslo was pleasant and just a bit magical. For the stop, we had a private tour guide from OurWay Tours named Davinia who was actually celebrating becoming a Norwegian citizen just the day before!

Our first stop was a short walk from the pier, the Akershus Castle which was erected over a period of almost 700 years.

Davinia told that that a devastating fire in 1624 caused King Christian IV to rebuild the city center in a different location and it was renamed Christiania. It was called that until 1925 when it became Oslo again. We also learned that the color of the houses were indicative of the wealth of the inhabitants. White houses were the most expensive.

After this, we went to see the works of Edvard Munch at The National Gallery, in particular, “The Scream”. I actually did not particularly care for Munch’s work because it was all fairly depressing due to the extreme tragedy he had experienced in his short life. The anguish felt by the artist was clearly depicted in his works. However, I am not an art critic so please take this as just my personal opinion based on the dozen or so works I saw of his in this museum.

From there, we went to a restaurant on the harbor that specialized in local cuisine. I got a platter that included whale, reindeer, and baby shark among other things! It was a lot of fun to sample all of these different flavors.

After a great lunch, we continued our tour to learn more about the Vikings at the Viking Museum. I had already been told previously that Vikings didn’t actually wear horned helmets. This is still slightly disappointing to me. Oslo was founded by the last Viking king, Harald Hardrada. The museum houses three Viking longboats that are thousands of years old. The first one the uncovered is actually the newest of the three but is in the worst condition only because they didn’t know how to extract it without causing additional damage. The last one found on display, seems to almost be a replica because it is in such great shape.

We finished our day with a quick tour of Vigeland Sculpture Park. I really wish we had more time to really explore the grounds because what we did see, was amazing! I loved the sculptures of Gustav Vigeland and the park contains over 200 of these.

They were created to depict the human lifecycle and make a commentary on our existence. One of my favorites was an end-of-life one depicting an old man cradling his beloved.

It was a “thing” there to recreate some of the poses of the statues so we had to take part in that!

As we went around Norway, Molly had to have her picture taken with every troll we found. The gist of the Norway Trolls is that they were actually the first inhabitants of the area and when the Vikings moved in, they would dress in their clothes and try to steal away the young children to eat. However, if they were not back in the woods by the time the sun came up, they would turn into stone! It’s a fun legend and the trolls are so ugly they turn that corner into cute!

Oslo took me by surprise and I would love to come back one day for a longer visit.

Nyhavn – or the place of colorful houses

When you picture Copenhagen in your head, you probably immediately think of Nyhavn. This is the area of town with the colorful houses lining the port. It’s the place I chose for the header image on this blog and it did not disappoint in person.

We strolled along the canal and enjoyed the atmosphere and then hopped on a one hour boat tour. I would highly recommend doing a tour like this to see a lot in a short amount of time and from a different vantage point. We even got to see the Little Mermaid statue by Edvard Eriksen from the sea instead of from the shore with 100s of other tourists.

Once back at dock, we found a middle eastern flea market and then walked back to our hotel via a street lined with high-end shops such as Prada and some fun ones such as the Lego store! Being in Denmark, we had to go in and look around and I was delighted to see they had constructed a section of Nyhavn out of Legos!

Tivoli Gardens

After checking into our ornately decorated, yet still very comfortable, hotel, we headed right across the street to Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli is one of the oldest amusement parks in the world. It reminded us of our visit to Efteling in the Netherlands because the rides are very classic and they are nestled amidst beautiful gardens.

Most of us had a very nice dinner while the kids and Chris continued to ride the rides.

Harry Potter Mania!

Some more of our travel companions joined us early today – Dennis, Sandra, and Emily. After a brief rest at our flat, we all headed to an Indian restaurant called Dishoom in the Covent Garden area. This was suggested to us by a Chica & Jo reader who happens to live in London and I am so glad he suggested it! The food was a step above the normal Indian fare and the waitress said it was all based on Bombay street food.

With a belly full of curry, we left our friends on their own in London and headed out to the Harry Potter Studios Tour. This was the only thing Molly could even talk about in regards to this trip. She traipsed around London all afternoon in her full Harry Potter getup.

Luckily, the tour did not disappoint her!

Partway through the tour, there was a gift shop and Molly bought herself a Crookshanks. This is why you see her lugging him around for most of the photos!

Chris, Sammy, and I had been to the Studios a couple of years ago but we enjoyed this return trip immensely. They had added a few additional touches, one of which was the Forbidden Forest.

It’s a real shame this photo of Molly encountering Aragog in the forest blurred. They have a whole winding path you can wander and meet quite a few of the forest creatures. The ugly, giant-spider was inexplicably Molly’s favorite.

And, in case you were wondering, the Butterbeer ice cream was just as wonderful and I remembered it and totally worth the price of admission all by itself. We’ve also had it in Florida and it just isn’t as good. I am already thinking about how I might contrive another visit there for some more!

Now, we are back in our flat and will be headed to Copenhagen tomorrow. We will be celebrating Independence Day at Tivoli Gardens. We will also meet up with our final travel companions – Jack and Sallie!

Nerdvana in Milton-Keynes

We went beyond the normal London tourist sites today and ventured out to England’s epicenter of computer nerdiness – Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing. It will come as no surprise that I had low expectations for my enjoyment of these attractions but one of the keys to being able to celebrate 20 years of marriage is doing things you don’t really want to do.

So, off we went. We left the girls with Aunt Julie and Mom and Dad are currently somewhere being all romantic in Paris so it was just the two of us. We had zero problems taking the Tube to the train to get there but when we arrived, Apple maps led us astray! We walked from the station to the Computer Museum but there was a large fence blocking our path. We could see it, we couldn’t get to it. 1.5 miles later, we arrived at the actual entrance which was basically across the street from the station.

Bletchley Park was the central site for British codebreakers during World War II. It housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers – most importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The intelligence produced at Bletchley shortened the WWII by two to four years, and that without it the outcome of the war would have been uncertain. Once inside, BP is actually very beautiful!

This is the mansion with the lake in front of it. Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6), bought the mansion and 58 acres of land for £6,000, using his own money after the Government said they did not have the budget to do so. He toured and bought it under the guise of using it for hunting.

I had to take a picture of the swans. I love swans.

Within weeks of arriving at Bletchley Park, Alan Turing had specified an electromechanical machine that could help break the German Enigma code making machine. The bombe became one of the primary tools, and the major automated one, used to attack Enigma-enciphered messages.

Chris next to the supercomputer Cray.  This was actually in the National Computer History Museum.

Chris in front of some other old computers. Believe me when I tell you that I have LOTS of pictures of old computers I could share, but I am not going to do so. I also found it amusing that Chris owns quite a few of the things we saw throughout this museum!

Overall, I enjoyed this day trip a lot more than I thought I would! Chris, of course, loved it. I would highly suggest Bletchley Park as a destination even if you aren’t into computers. There is so much history surrounding it plus the site is beautiful.

Tomorrow, we are headed to the Warner Bros. Harry Potter Studio Tour!