Excellent Adventure 2012 day 4 - Oddball Country Day

August 1, 2012

This year’s oddball country – Estonia!

So this year’s cabin is on the main deck alllllll the way forward. Originally hoping for a last minute upgrade to a veranda cabin like last year, now we’re kinda glad we are where we are. All the way forward means we are right by the elevator that goes straight to the internet café. Yes. This. Is. Important.

AND it’s right by the ship’s theater, where we go every night for the “show”. AND it’s also the primary meeting spot for all the excursions. So when you’re running late from breakfast and of course all the food is located alllll the way at the other end of the ship, you can still just stop off at the room to pick up the jacket, the daypack and walking stick. But this would never happen. Just saying, hypothetically.

Anyway, we made it to the theater just as they were calling our excursion – a walk in Old Town. Which meant of course that we boarded a bus.

Have no fear, we did indeed walk. Endlessly on cobbled streets. Like this one:

We started in the Upper Town at the Alexander Niefsky Russian Orthodox church:

We were not allowed to take photos, so take my word for it – nice church. Plus they were having a service as they have been twice a day, every day for of years. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a Russian Orthodox priest in action before?

This church was immediately followed by St Mary’s church – this one was Lutheran. Instead of the glittering gold leaf on the walls and the icons of saints, there were coats-of-arms of the wealthy people buried in the church.

We also got a close up view of a medieval city wall. If fences make good neighbors, this wall must make GREAT neighbors:

In yet another church (already I don’t remember the name), we were treated to a concert of medieval choral music.

Though apparently I was allergic to the mustiness in the church (sneezing and wheezing are the obvious signs), I did enjoy the concert. Other people found it to be a great time to take a nap.

When we came out of the church, we noticed that it had rained – great timing! It can rain all it wants when I’m indoors.

The town hall has these great dragon water spouts:

We wandered around the market in the town square. Apparently woolen clothing is a popular local craft. Which is great, but I don’t wear wool – too itchy. Nothing really caught our eye.

When the tour was over, we did not go back to the boat with the bus. We stayed behind and had lunch in an outdoor café. With added sound effects, when it suddenly started to thunder and pour buckets as we were finishing up.

A little rain never stops us. We wandered around trying to retrace our steps and find some of those back streets that the tour guide had mentioned had nice shops. The map that the ship had distributed was pretty useless. Eventually we gave up and just started walking towards the ship.

And just to prove that we are indeed on a ship, here it is:

Tonight is formal night.

Tomorrow – St Petersburg!

Excellent Adventure 2012: The Loot

For those who are not aware - I've been collecting elephants for over 30 years. Mostly because elephants are my favorite critter (after dogs) - so smart, so cute, and so amazingly......large. I have something over 400 elephants. I've long since stopped counting.

And it adds something special to shopping on our travels. A bit of a challenge some times.

Here's this year's Elephant Walk:

Andy found this elephant in the first souvenir shop on St Petersburg Day 1. I may have somewhere an enamel elephant that opens (like this one), but not one from Russia:

Of course, since the nesting Matruska dolls are the iconic Russian "thing", I had to have an elephant Matruska doll. Once again Andy struck gold on St Petersburg Day 2 after our visit to The Hermitage:

After our visit to Catherine's Palace, we found this amber elephant at a street vendor. We were pleasantly surprised at the very low price, especially for amber. There are, in fact, bugs embedded in  there:

The next elephant popped up at a Chinese market in Hamburg. No clue as to whether or not this thing has a function (it opens up), but the colors are great:

This elephant we bought at the open air market in Helsinki directly from the artist. She told us that the ceramic technique she used to create the shimmery colors was called Rukka (thanks to Robin, my resident ceramics expert, for the spelling). All the elephants had hippie flowers on their heads. Other elephants had better flowers, but I liked this one because it looks like it's flapping its ears:

At the flower market in Amsterdam, I found this elephant mug. I need another elephant mug like I need another hole in my head, but it was too cute to pass up:

Bringing up the rear of the Elephant Walk, is this Delft one we found at the flea market - for only 7 euro! 

 We did find other non-elephant things we liked.

Our first matrushka doll was a freebie when we bought the first elephant:

We didn't do well with finding Judaica stuff in general. These items we found at the "Russian bazzar" on board ship on Friday night. Etched glass eggs and lacquered boxes are typical Russian items, though the high-end lacquered boxes were mini-works of art and extremely expensive:

We really liked the artistry of the high-end matrushka dolls - they were hand painted, enameled and signed by the artist. Of course we tried (in vain) to find one with a Jewish theme, so we settled for this one - the biggest doll is holding a loaf of bread with salt. Our Russian tour guide told us this was a very Russian theme. It also happens to be a Jewish theme, but we didn't bother to mention that. The second doll holds a tea pot, the next holds a bowl of soup (probably borscht by the color), followed by a cup of (maybe tea?). The tiniest doll is holding a circular thing - I'm convinced it's a bagel. Of COURSE it's a bagel!!

See for yourself:

See, she's holding a BAGEL!

These two pieces we found at the flea market. 

A draw bridge over a canal:

A reproduction of Van Gogh's "Sunflowers":

Last, but not least, is this cool Delft vase we found in a museum shop:

And there you have it: the Sheldons effort to support the global economy.

Last Day of Freedom - Amsterdam, Day 2

Saturday we tackled two more museums - The Van Gogh Museum and The Hermitage (Amsterdam). Neither museum would let us take photos, unfortunately.

The Van Gogh museum had been completely rebuilt. The crowds were terrible - people with the audio tour headsets would stand in front of paintings for minutes at a time, causing road blocks.

We had casually noticed that there seemed to be a lot of really tall people in Amsterdam. But in the museum, we spotted a couple who were truly alarmingly tall. The woman (wearing flats) was easily 6 ft 2 inches, and her boyfriend was at LEAST a half foot taller than her. At one point I found myself standing next to them in an attempt to get closer to one of the paintings, when suddenly the woman put her hands on her hips and hit me in the head - with her elbow.

Oh, yes, and we learned that "Van Gogh" is not pronounced "Van Go". It's actually "Von chuch" - where the "g" is more like a Hebrew "chet" than anything else. At least "Vincent" is still pronounced "Vincent".

After 3 hours in the Van Gogh museum and after lunch, we went to The Hermitage Amsterdam - a selection of Impressionist paintings from the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. Once again we could not take photos, but at least I didn't get hit in the head by an alarming tall person.

We were pretty much museum-ed out at this point. We decided to walk over to the flea market before dinner. We got there just as the booths were beginning to close up, but it was fun - some of the best prices we've seen this entire vacation.

Amsterdam is just too scenic for words:

Ah well, all good things must come to an end.....

Next year - Jerusalem!

Ah yes, I remember Amsterdam....

The last time I was in Amsterdam was 35 years ago.

My friend, Paula, and I had been in Amsterdam for 3 days. The other two days the weather was gloriously beautiful. That third day? It was more typical Dutch weather - pouring rain.

We had checked out of the hostel, because that night we were taking the ferry back to England. We had agreed to meet at the train station at about 6:00 p.m.

So there I was, wandering around the streets of Amsterdam in the pouring rain, with my backpack on my back. AND I was coming down with the flu (courtesy of Paula, who had survived it the previous week).

Cold, sick and wet, as I wandered around I noticed that everywhere I went, all I heard was Elvis Presley music. I am NOT an Elvis fan. At all.

Cold, sick, wet and totally annoyed beyond belief with the umpteenth rendition of "Blue Suede Shoes".

Once we were on the ferry, other Americans told us that Elvis had died. Ah hah. That explains it.

The date: August 16, 1977.

Here I am, still not an Elvis fan, but every year I remember his death-day like it was yesterday.

Anyway, this now August 10, 2012 and the weather was perfect as we were unceremoniously vomited off the ship. It's amazing how that happens. One minute your every whim is catered to; the next minute you're playing the "where the heck are all the suitcases?" game on the dock.

Since our room at the hotel wasn't ready, we took a canal cruise.

And a last look at our ship before it left dock:

Our room was ready before noon. This was the view from our window:

After lunch, we visited the Rijksmuseum - most of the building was undergoing renovation, so we did not see the entire collection. That's ok. We got to see the important stuff - all Rembrandt, all the time. Here's the main attraction, "The Night Watch" :

One of the best features of our hotel was its location - walking distance of absolutely everything. We had enough time to walk to the flower market. I bought two packages of tulips (certified to bring into the U.S.). The following was NOT certified to bring back to the U.S.:

The biggest challenge to walking around Amsterdam is figuring out exactly what part of the pavement is actually the sidewalk. The bicycles were truly alarming - they stopped for nothing at all. Cars would stop for pedestrians in crosswalks; bikes would not. 

After dinner, Andy headed off to Anne Frank's house and I headed back to the hotel with the hopes of working on my blog via the hotel's free internet. Except that the free internet was even worse than the ship's expensive internet. So, instead, I fell asleep while watching some obscure Olympic sport that I never see because it's not one the US is good at. So obscure that I can't even remember what it was.

Andy saw these street performers on the way back from Anne Frank's house:

Though it was late, we wanted to get some dessert. A quick easy lesson on how to make yourself feel old? Walk through the streets of Amsterdam on a Friday night. Around the corner from our hotel were cafes and "coffee shops" (with bongs prominently displayed in the front window - but just take a deep breath and you KNOW they're not selling coffee in there), and clubs blasting pounding music.

Yeah ok, we didn't exactly fit in. We had Ben & Jerry's.

One more full day of vacation left.....

Last stop - Copenhagen

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Copenhagen

Our excursion time wasn't till 12:15 p.m., so we had breakfast and started walking towards downtown Copenhagen. Kind of overcast, chilly and amazingly blustery. The wind became an issue at times, making it very difficult to keep moving. It finally became easier in the city center.

We only had the map provided in the daily newsletter from the ship, but was not very detailed. We had no idea what we were looking. Fortunately, we found a map at a coffee shop where we stopped for a bathroom break.

As we wandered along, we stumbled across a money exchange. We exchanged all our Swedish kroner for Danish kroner. We wandered around some more, but we had to turn around by about 10:30. It had taken almost an hour to walk into the city, so we had to start our return walk to give us enough time to return to the boat to meet the excursion.

On the way back we found The Little Mermaid:

.

Our afternoon tour guide was very entertaining - cracking jokes and (more importantly) not leaving us in the dust like the guide from Hamburg. 

It's just amazing the amount of construction going on in Copenhagen now - they are building a new underground metro system. The wind kept blowing chunks of dust everywhere.

We spent about an hour at Tivoli Gardens - an old, beautiful amusement park. Here's one called "Nautilus"

We had a free drink at the aquarium.

I just loved the elegant park buildings:

After the Tivoli gardens, we stopped at the Royal Palace: 874

And here's a palace guard with his great hat: 878 (palace guard)

Our day in Copenhagen is relatively short, with an all aboard time of 4:30, so now it is time to head back to the ship. The distance is not far, but there is (apparently) unusual traffic due to all the construction, and we arrive back right at 4:25. Unfortunately, there is no time to check out the shops right at the port. I only wish that this excursion had a morning option, so we could wander around the city in the afternoon - like we did in Helsinki.

Alas! we have run out of ports. Tomorrow is our last full day on board as we spend a day at sea heading towards Amsterdam.

Germany Part Dieux - Hamburg

Tuesday, August 6, 2012

Hamburg

At least Tuesday’s excursion left later than Monday’s. The Hamburg excursion required a 90 minute bus ride from the port (Kiel). Rolf was our “host” on the bus. He said nothing until he announced we were stopping to pick up our “local guide”, Dessere.

We knew right off the bat that the tour guide was going to be an issue, when we pulled into the first stop for a bathroom break. The guide announced that the bathrooms are in “bridge #4” (we were parked by bridge #6), but that she would guide all of us to the bathrooms. Sounds great!

Except that as soon as she and the front half of the bus were on the sidewalk, she took off. By the time the rest of the bus were out, she was gone. Disappeared completely and we had no idea where she was.

Well, she was at the bathrooms, of course, under bridge #4.

While I dealt with the line at the bathroom, Andy went off to the Hard Rock Café.

Except he wasn’t at the Hard Rock where I got there, so I went back to the bus.

People gradually returned, but not Andy. Rolf kept counting the people on the bus, and at least twice I pointed out that Andy was not back. He and I were texting back and forth that he was on his way. Great! Except then the bus door closed and we started pulling away!

Squawking once again that my husband was still missing, (“OH!”, said Rolf, “Is that him in the red jacket?” Yep, that would be him.) the bus stopped and Andy climbed aboard. He was NOT late – he had arrived at exactly the specified time.

Hamburg is as different from Berlin as night and day. Not sure exactly what Berlin is, but it’s just a little weird. Hamburg is a wealthy business city. None of the sites we saw sounded familiar. Except that it is the place where the Beatles were “discovered”.  To remember this, here is this...thing: 

near the location of the club where they played. In the seamy section of the city.

We drove through the city center. Hamburg is pleasant enough, but there just wasn’t anything exciting or as interesting as Berlin.

We had lunch in a restaurant under City Hall. Today’s lunch was chicken, eliminating the pork issue.

We had a little time to wander around. We asked Rolf if he knew where we could buy chocolate. His suggestion was the supermarket across the street, but another person in our tour group told us there were two chocolate stores across the plaza. Off we went – but we could only find one chocolate store. For Godiva. Nope, that doesn’t work.

We were running out of time to meet the bus. As we headed in that general direction, we saw The Best Street Performers:

I think that was the best part of the day.

Tomorrow: Copenhagen

Marathon Day - Berlin

Monday, August 6 2012

Berlin

It was a good thing we had a day at sea on Sunday to rest up. Monday was a marathon.

The port, Warnemunde, is a 3-hour train ride to Berlin. Our meeting time for our excursions (“recommended for first time visitors to Berlin") was 6:50 a.m. The train station was maybe 100 yards from the ship. Once we found seats (sitting across a table from a family from California), it was a few minutes before the train left the station.

In stark contrast to the grumpy Russians, our German train hosts were exceedingly cheerful and helpful. They handed out snack bags that contained a sandwich, orange drink, and (most importantly, chocolate). Little did we know this would be our only interaction with German chocolate.

The train zipped along through the German countryside. I was asleep for most of it. As we approached Berlin, our host showed us the map of Germany, indicating that we had been traveling through what had been East Germany.

Once we arrived at the Berlin train station, our car was met by Markus, our local guide. He escorted us up the escalators (no, you were not allowed to take the stairs – if you tried, you would scooted back to the escalator) to the bus.

There was something about Markus that was vaguely familiar, but it was hard to pin down. Until he said something like, “You vill see that Berlin is a bee-YUUUUUU-tee-vul city”, whereupon a brain cell made the connection to the MC in “Cabaret” (“even zee boys here are bee-YUUUU-tee-vul”). I was pretty much done at that point (“Money make zee verld go around, zee verld go around, zee verld go around…” spinning endlessly in my head for the rest of the day).

So, why do people come to Berlin? To see the Berlin wall?

<739>

Or maybe the Reichstag?

<771>

No. Of course not.

People go to Berlin to see where Michael Jackson dangled his then baby son from a balcony:

731

Oy.

And incidentally, the Brandenburg gate is right there. Maybe people go to see that instead? One would hope so.

729

The whole day was a mad dash through Berlin. Quite a challenge considering the traffic, particularly snarled because of all the construction absolutely every where.

For lunch we stopped at a huge restaurant, with a German band playing endlessly in the background. Even though the train host had asked for any dietary preferences or needs – and we had stated that we need something not-pork and not-seafood – it didn’t look like that information had been transmitted. The only option was vegetarian – looked like mac-n-cheese to us. Tasted fine. The train-host explained that the pasta was “shpeitze”, typical of northern Germany. Still sounds like mac-n-cheese with the “mac” being some other kind of pasta.

After lunch we drove quite a distance to the WW II Allies museum. Which was actually tiny, old, and pretty sad. The time spent getting to and from this little museum could have been better spent.

At some point, Markus showed us the street with the cabaret clubs – in particular the one that inspired the “Kit Kat Club” in “Cabaret”. Whereupon he started singing songs from the show.  All righty then!

Markus was entertaining, but it was very odd the way he couldn’t seem to answer rather straightforward questions. For example, he said many times that there were always TWO walls, with a dead man zone in between. If you go back and look at the photo of the wall above, you’ll see there’s only one wall. The next logical question would be – where’s the other wall? He did not know. It obvious had been torn down, but wouldn’t you think he would know where it used to be?

At the end of the 6 hour bus ride, it was obvious that we would have to come back to Berlin someday. Unlike some of the other stops where a taste was good enough, for Berlin it was not.

We had virtually no time to shop. We did notice that we did NOT see chocolate shops anywhere, nor did we see chocolate in the few stores we did manage to look at.

On the train ride back we received a snack bag – fresh apricots, another sandwich, a bag of peanuts and salami sticks. We traded our salami sticks for more peanuts with the family from California. The three hours zipped by, because we had a great conversation with them about crazy stuff that we had experienced on previous cruises.

We got back to the ship around 8:00-ish. We dashed back on board ship thinking that all-aboard time was 8:30. However, it was actually 9:30. If we had remembered that, we might have walked into Warnemunde to see if we could find some chocolate.

We did go to dinner, but it was super late by the time we were finished. I was done for the day.

Tomorrow: Hamburg

Helsinki!

August 4, 2012

Helsinki

Woke up to a total pea-soup fog outside the window. “Dreary” does not really fully describe the bleakness of the morning. The very thought of wandering around a city all day in weather like that was rather unappetizing.

Add to this our rather dour tour guide for the morning, I wasn’t getting a real good feeling about Helsinki.

To say that our tour guide’s enthusiasm was underwhelming would be putting in mildly. Thank goodness the tour was only a couple of hours. I could not imagine listening to her listless descriptions all day long.

Our first stop was the Senate Square with the Lutheran Cathedral (didn’t realize there could be such a thing as a Lutheran Cathedral, as opposed to a Catholic Cathedral). Parked directly in front of the church, we could see the 53 steps leading up to the entrance. The tour guide vaguely mentioned that “the steps on the left side are much lower”, but I didn’t really understand what that meant. Looking at the left side of the entrance, I didn’t see anything other than 53 steps:

So, Andy went up the 53 steps and started taking photos inside the church. For whatever reason, I decided to walk around the corner. And there, on the left entrance of the church, was a flight of 10 steps followed by a ramp up to the church entrance. Ah hah. A few minutes later, I found Andy in the church.

After all the highly decorated Russian Orthodox churches in St Petersburg, this church was very simple, belying the bright colors on the outside of the domes.

Another thing the tour guide failed to mention? Access to bathrooms – for a fee of course, but at least they were there.

Our second stop was a memorial (?) to Sibelius:

Our last stop was the Temppeliaukio Churck (A/k/a the “church in the rock):

Fortunately, shortly after the church in the rock the bus took us to the city center, where we were able to get off before it headed back to the ship. Just being out of the Ms Lethargy’s presence made the day seem brighter.

After orienting ourselves, we walked to the Esplanada park and continued down to the Russian Orthodox Upensky Cathedral:

A short walk from the church was the open air market – lots of interesting crafts and food. Not every vendor took credit cards, and we were rapidly running out of Euros. Our search for an ATM machine brought us to the restaurant where we decided to have lunch – reindeer and mashed potatoes! Dunno, reindeer pretty much tasted like beef to me.

With our cash supply replenished, we returned to the market. Our persistence was rewarded when we found a vendor selling – ceramic elephants! The vendor was also the artist who made them. She explained the technique she used to produce the shimmering colors (Ruca? Rooka?), unfortunately totally lost on me. All I know is I really like the end results!

By now the skies had cleared completely and it was a gorgeous day. We wandered around aimlessly for a bit, sat in Esplanada for a bit (and enjoyed the free wi-fi courtesy of the Angry Bird network), then wandered around for a bit more. We stumbled across the Senate Square (our fist stop in the morning). The church looks quite a bit different in the bright sunlight, doesn't it?:

Eventually we started our trek back to the ship. Took just about an hour (give or take a few minutes), wandering past street performers and shops until we were beyond the city center and the “tourist zone”.

The last thing of note was this store sign:

This store sure did not look like the Nordstrom’s I know.

Though off to a slow start, it still finished as a highly successful day!

Tomorrow -  Day At Sea.

St Petersburg - Part Dieux

August 3, 2012

Saint Petersburg Day 2

Day 2 in Saint Petersburg started out a little easier in general – fewer people were going on excursions, making the disembarkation process less frenetic. For the second day in a row, we were given stickers for bus #22. Of course, we remembered our goal of NOT being on the same bus as Obnoxious Woman. Very important.

And, since we already had the official Russian stamps in our passports from yesterday, getting through customs the 2^nd day was a breeze. I even got a (very quiet) “thank you” from the customs agent! I almost tripped over myself in shock. I’m sure the poor woman will be fired for such exuberant behavior.

Got on bus 22 with a little trepidation, scanning the passengers for Obnoxious Woman. At the very least, we had a different tour guide, Maria. We saw yesterday’s tour guide, Nickolai, on bus #23. Then, we saw Obnoxious Woman and her posse climb on board – bus #23! We had escaped! Ah, but alas, poor Nickolai - he was stuck with her again! We felt truly sorry for him and hoped he had enough fortitude not to strangle her before the end of the day.

Yesterday, the bus made various small stops on the way to Saint Issac’s church. Today, the goal was to beeline to the Hermitage and get there by 9:30. The museum normally opens at 11:00, but the Holland America has an agreement with the Hermitage to open early for this excursion.

Maria made it clear that the goal was to get through the museum by 11:00 when it officially opens. Obviously, in 90 minutes we were only going to see the most famous/important items in the collection. In retrospect, what we really needed was roller blades. Though possibly the stairs might have been just a little tricky.

The following are a few of my favorite things that we saw as we raced through the halls:

This may look like a peacock sitting in a tree with a rooster and a squirrel, but it is actually a clock, presented to Catherine II by one of her lovers:

The Hall of Raphael (I think) – I could take this photo only because we were in the museum before it was officially open:

My buddy, Leonardo (notice (if you can) baby Jesus’ intense gaze – in person, it was startling):

A painting of a rabbi by Rembrandt, after he became interested in Judaism (never heard of this - haven’t had the time to look that up yet).

Matisse:

And this one by Paulus Potter. Never heard of this guy, but the subject is a dog. Doesn’t take much, now does it?

We raced against the clock. By 11:00, we just about done, heading towards the Meeting-Spot-In-Case-You-Get-Separated as the museum doors opened. We could see the hordes flooding into the building. As we zapped through one final room, I saw this really nice – thing – sorta looks like gazebo made out of green malachite. I stopped for 2 seconds to take a photo.

Out of NOWHERE, this little old lady literally jumped in my face squawking,

“NOPHOTONOPHOTONOPHOTO!!!!”

GAH.

Scared me half to death.

Our travel guy, Ian Page, had in fact mentioned that the little old ladies (who are everywhere in every room) can indeed move like ninjas when they see a rules infraction. And was he ever right about that!

Note the following:

• ·    There was no other place in the Hermitage where we were explicitly told not to take photos. We were warned about not using flash, but not once did the guide mention any other restrictions.
• ·      The guide had said nothing as we entered this room other than “Keep going, keep going, we will be turning right, we will be turning right….”.
• ·      We were literally running through this room at this point.
• ·      And therefore, I completely missed the teensy little sign (that I am assuming was at the entrance of the room, probably on the wall BEHIND me as I entered) that showed a camera with a line through it (i.e., “no photos”). I did see it as I exited the room – but only because I was looking for it.

·      It was too late. I had already taken the photo.

And here it is, whatever it is. No idea why I wasn’t supposed to take a photo:

We continued to race out of the museum into the square, and then proceeded to a chachkie shop down the street. Besides having a few minutes to shop, there was also a bathroom – a brilliant strategic move to avoid the 30-minute bathroom line inside the museum.

Andy saw a sail boat made of amber – amazingly beautiful craftsmanship – for only a mere $1,000. Yeah, I think we’ll pass on that one.

But he also found – an elephant matruska doll! YES. SUCCESS.

Our tour guide took us to a “working” neighborhood in St Petersburg where there were restaurants and shops – and we had almost 90 minutes to wander about. This time it was easier. We found a restaurant that served food cafeteria-wise. This meant communication by pointing and nodding worked just fine.

After lunch, we went to the government owned chachkie shop. Really nice stuff at very good prices (as we were promised, how weird). We did end up buying a high-end matruska doll – it is signed by the artist. Having absolutely no luck in finding anything remotely Jewish in theme, we figured we could fake it with this one: A woman holding a tray with a loaf of bread and a salt shaker. Our tour guide said it was a very traditional Russian theme – the bread with salt being a symbol of “welcome”. Which is also a Jewish concept – it is traditional to bring bread, salt and wine as a housewarming gift.

After shopping, we drove to the Peter Hoff gardens, first built by Peter I (the Great). I slept through most of the explanation. But the gardens themselves are gorgeous:

We took a hydrofoil back to the city center where we met our bus. On our way back to the ship, we had one more opportunity to annoy the Russian customs officials by being annoying cheerful. I could have sworn I saw a smile flash across the official’s face. But it might have been a twitch.

At dinner, we compared notes:

• ·      The people in the streets of St Petersburg seemed to be uniformly grumpy. Hardly ever saw anybody smile.
• ·      The different tour guides each would take their bus to their own specified lunch destination, but each guide always went to the same place. So if you had the same tour guide two days in a row, you went to the same lunch place two days in a row. So Obnoxious Woman, who had complained so bitterly about the fast food court on Day 1, got to go back to the very same food court on Day 2.

An amazingly successful day!

Tomorrow: Finland! (and we get an hour back, woohoo!)