St Petersburg, Russia, Day 1

The ship docked this morning, and we went out on deck to a dark and very cold St Petersburg. Ship announcements told us that that the temperature should reach a balmy 2^oC today.

The thing about being on a cruise ship in St Petersburg is that, unless you have arranged a visa, you can't just get off and wander around the city.  You can go see however, if you booked on a tour & stay with your tour group.  So Peter and I were escorts on the tour this afternoon to go visit the Church on the Spilled Blood, (also known as the Church of the Resurrection). 

The church was built on the orders of Alexander III in memory of his father, who was assassinated.  The "Spilt Blood" refers to the fact that the altar was built on the exact spot where Alexander II was murdered, leaving spots of blood on the cobblestones.

 It's was a Russian Orthodox church, with the ornate onion domes much loved by the Russians.  I learnt today that these onion shaped domes are intended to imitate the shape of a candle flame.  They make more sense to me now.

 The church took 24 years to build, which I think calculates out that it was completed about 1920, but like many churches it was abused during communist rule.  The Communists had no time for religion and closed many churches and cathedrals.  The Church on the Spilled Blood was turned into a store.  Racks were fitted and it was used to keep vegetables.

It wasn't until the 1960's that it was reclaimed as a building of beauty in its own right.  It has taken nearly 40 years for the building to be restored to its former glory and it is now a museum.

And it is stunning.

Sadly, no matter how hard the restorers tried, they could not completely match the original work. If you look, you can still see the scars left by the racks drilled into the walls during the communist years, they show up as slightly discoloured, faint lines across the images, at knee height on many of the Saints.  There are also icons missing from the north and south icon panels.

Once we'd completed our look around the inside of the church, we took a short walk across to the Square of Fine Arts to see Alexander Pushkin's monument and then we were left to have a look around by ourselves.

Since I was on a different tour bus to Peter, and mine was ahead of his by about 15 minutes, I waited for him in the Square.  It was freezing!  I decided I should have put me thermals on.  We even got a light dusting of snow.

Peter arrived and we had a quick potter around the area.   The city is massive.  Wide streets, grand buildings of huge proportions, many of them ornately decorated. Canals criss cross the city, the traffic is mad, with horns going off all over, and of course, everything is written in a totally illegible script and language.

We managed to find this building, but I am not yet sure what it is. 

This street is Nevski Prospect, a road about 3 miles long apparently, but also where we as tourists could go shopping. Peter and I did check out one of the souvenir shops.  There were thousands of pieced of amber jewellery in the room at the back.  Hundreds of chains and pendants hanging on rack after rack, looking for all the world like the sort of £5-£10 stuff you'd find on a market.  All I can say is it wouldn't be hanging like that in England - one piece I picked up worked out at £90, and that was a cheap one!

I will almost certainly pick up a pendant or something tomorrow, as a little momento.  But we left it for today and took the bus back to the ship.   The ship's announcements declared that temperature had dropped to -2^oC and getting colder.

Tomorrow we are escorting tours to the Hermitage Musuem in the morning, and we should be able to go back to Nevski Prospect in the afternoon.  Awesome!

Tallinn, Estonia

We arrived just gone 9 o'clock this morning.  Not that you could tell that we'd arrived, or that we were at Tallinn, or even what time of day it was.  It was so foggy we could hardly see the dock alongside.  AND we'd got up especially to see the place as the ship came in to port!

So, a disappointing start, but the fog lifted........ mostly, and we did get to see the World Heritage site that is Tallinn in wonderful dripping wet glory.

Tallinn is described as a "beautifully preserved medieval city of castle, moats, red-capped towers, bastions and gable, tile -roofed houses".  Old Tallinn consists of the Upper Town and the Lower Town, with a Gothic Town Hall, numerous churches, a cathedral, the House of Parliament and the House of Government and about two thirds of the original town walls.  Quite impressive.

It was a short day today though, and we didn't get to see everything, but what we did see was lovely.  The real downer of the day was the rain.  At one point it was seriously chucking it down which was very disheartening.  Never mind - here are the pictures.

First stop was one of the towers on the wall - Fat Margaret.  There is a museum here too, except it was closed today.

Next we came across the Church of the Holy Spirit - a pretty old church at a guess, quite dark inside, with lots of painted wood, the one thing that really caught my attention was the broken bell.  I couldn't find any information to tell me why it was there, I'll have to look it up on the internet when we get proper broadband.

Getting wetter all the time, we continued up Pikk (street) and Pikk Jalg, heading for the Upper Town. 

First the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. 

The cathedral was built during the 19th Century Russification period and was so disliked by the Estonians that it was scheduled for demolition in 1924.  Fortunately it survived, and now, as you can see, it's being renovated.   We weren't allowed to take pictures inside.  It's very, very ornate.

I like the name of this one.  The Hermann Tower is one on the towers in the Upper town and corners onto what was Toompea Castle and is now used by the Parliament of Estonia.

We walked on a little more, there are a couple of viewing points in the Upper Town where you can look over the Lower Town.  The tall, square tower, slightly left of centre is the tower of St.Olavs Church - we go there later. 

The drizzle started as set off to have a quick look at parts of the wall.  

Drizzle turned to rain as we followed one of seven streets leading off the old town centre,

We headed down Viru, to see the Viru Gate.  Can I just say that at this point it was absolutely chucking it down.  We sheltered in the arch as we added extra layers.  At this point all we could think of was a warm dry ship.

We set off in the direction of the port, with the intention of looking at St Olaf's church on the way.  We were getting wetter and wetter, so we were pleased to get inside. 

So Olav's is a plain church, (although I did love the high arches in the ceiling).  Its claim to fame comes from the tower.  It's been struck by lightning around ten times and the whole church has been burnt down three times.  The tower was the tallest building in the world between 1549 and 1645 when it was 521 ft high, but it kept being burnt down and rebuilt, and it's now a mere 403 ft high.

Peter and I decided that we wanted to climb the steps of the first 300 odd feet and go see the views from the tower (€2).  We went round and round and up and up, then round and up some more. Then there was a straight bit.  And then we went round the other way, and up, and round and up and round.......

Eventually we got there. Out of breath and dizzy.  But it was worth it.  The tower on the left is St Nicholas' Church and Museum, in the middle you can see the domes of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and to the right is the tower of Dome Cathedral of St Mary.  I love red roofs of the buildings, they even paint the lead red to match all the tiles.  Very striking.

And it had finally stopped raining when we left the church and headed for our last "tourist attraction" of the day. The Tallina Linnahall was apparently a concert hall built in the 1980's as a Soviet monument.  I don't think the Estonians like anything Russian, and this place is definitely unloved, overgrown and covered in graffiti as it was.  It's not really a tourist attraction despite its mark on the tourist map, an interesting insight in to the Estonian mind though.

And that was our short day in Tallinn.  It would have been nice to have spent a little longer there, maybe had a chance to look in all the tourist shops and mebbe see a little more of the walls and stuff.  It would have been nice to see it in the dry too.

Tomorrow we get to St Petersburg and the highlight of the cruise. I am so excited. 

Warnemunde and Rostock

Warnemunde is a seaside town, a bit like the German version of Whitby I guess, 'cept with a better beach.  It's Saturday, and the place seems full of German tourists, doing exactly what English tourists would do on a day out in Whitby......... dawdling through the town, checking out the beach, showing the kids stuff and eating.   The town must be known for fresh fish, there was stall after stall of the stuff and people were buying all sorts.  The other thing it must be known for is the ferry tours, there were loads of little cruisers ready to take the visitors for a tour of the local wildlife highlights.

Warnemunde is a pleasant place to wander.  It was a bit cold today for a swim and people were flying kites on the beach instead, but we really liked the place.  We meant to go into the lighthouse and get a view from the top but we didn't get round to it, and I really liked the steep roofs on the old houses.  A lovely, lovely little town.

But the real reason we'd walked into Warnemunde in the first place was to get a map and directions, for a trip into Rostock.  Eventually, after a good hour taking in the sights of the little town, we found the tourist information centre.

I didn't need to test out my German, because, like just about everyone else in the country, the lass there spoke excellent English.  She explained that because there was a train strike, we needed to catch a number 36 bus to the tram station, and then catch the number 5 tram into Rostock and it would only cost €2 each way.   Cheap eh? 

So we set off on an adventure to see if we good get to Rostock on German public transport.

Luckily we'd been told to make sure our tickets were stamped by the little machines on the buses and trains (€40 fine), and we had a transport map, which was a bit like the London tube map, the only difference being that I could understand the German transport map.  We managed the journey absolutely fine.  It took about an hour each way, and it was interesting seeing the German world go by.  Our lasting impression was flats.   Hundreds, if not thousands of flats.  There were high blocks and not so high blocks, there were long blocks and short blocks and many, many different shapes and designs but nevertheless they were all blocks of flats.

Rostock city centre was a pleasant place to be too.  We got off the tram at Neuer Markt and took a circular route around the centre, taking in most of the highlights.

First it was St Marien Church, built in 1230 and holding the most history within the city.  The inside isn't that ornate really, not in comparison to other churches, and unfortunately the pulpit was being renovated, but the altar is quite stunning

But the organ easily out shines it.  There are 5702 pipes, 83 stops and 4 manuals (whatever they are).  A work of art in itself, we imagined that it must be awesome to listen to.

And if that wasn't enough - 

behind the altar is a magnificent Astronomic Clock.  It was created in 1472 and shows hours, days, months, years, phases of the sun and moon and the zodiac, all worked out until Easter 2017, (I dunno what happens after that like, mebbe the end of the world again?)  It was A Maze Ing.

From the church we made our way to the very pink Town Hall, or Rathaus - Baroque front, seven spires and a vaulted cellar apparently (we didn't go inside).

Lunch next, and we enjoyed a MASSIVE burger and chips in one of the restaurants on Neuer Markt. Another lasting impression we'll take away from Germany is the lack of free wi-fi.  It seems daft that considering their normal forethought and efficiency, the german restaurants haven't worked this one out. I'd been hoping to upload my Copenhagen blog, but we couldn't find anywhere in either Warnemunde or Rostock where I would be able to.

Lunch over it was time to continue our tourist trail.  Rostock used to be a walled in fortified city, so next we headed to where the old walls used to be, checking out the Stone Gate on the South East corner before making our way west.  We reached what was left of the old wall, and went to have a quick look at The Abbey of the Holy Cross, a former convent.  It was a very quick look of the outside only, because there was a service going on.

We continued following the wall until we reached the Kropelin Gate, which is described as "the most magnificent of the 22 former gates", (I think I preferred the Stone Gate meself).  And then finally, we reached University Square and the Fountain of Joy.  It was a bit hard to tell if we really had found the fountain as there wasn't any water in it.  It was made up of various bronze sculptures, all of which made fantastic climbing frames for the children, who were having a lovely time playing on the dried tiles.  This photo is my favourite amongst the characters.  Note how the bronze feet and ears have been polished by the thousands of hands.  Quite adorable.

All Rostock'd we caught the number 5 tram and the number 36 bus back to Warnemunde and the ship.  Peter had a date at 9, so after dinner we went up to the Lounge where he took part as one of the "celebraties" in Blankety Blank.  Brilliant fun and he even managed to get the contestants a few marks.

So that was Warnemunde and Rostock.  Tomorrow is a sea day, Peter has three classes and I get to take it easy.  Class eh?