Klaipeda, Lithuania and the Curonian Spit

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

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One week from today, we’ll be leaving Marina in Southampton and be on our way home. Of course, we’ve felt like we were on our way home since we went back to Stockholm to re-board Marina. Now, the end is tangible. Clay said last night that he was glad he had decided not to go into work during the short period we are home before the Great Lakes cruise. He is probably right. We’ll probably just barely have time to get through the back log of mail!

We were both up early today to get laundry done. Clay went to the gym after making sure that I was up and the laundry room was open. Last night there was a line to do laundry, this morning there was no problem. I got it done and we went to breakfast at Terrace.

So, like yesterday we arrived a little earlier than the new delayed arrival time. It was a nice sail into the Curonian lagoon by the Curionian Spit. I saw the long approach from Horizons Lounge during needlepoint this morning. We went up to Baristas around 11am to have a quick, light lunch before we had to meet ashore at 11:45am with the Alla Tours group and guide. So, we had a long busy day. Here is what we did. 11:45am we met up outside the port gate. It was very close. Actually, old town was very close too! We got in the van with 10 people and the driver and the guide at the port gate and headed for the ferry. We went out onto the Curionian Spit for most of the day. By noon we were over there. The ferry ride was only about 5 minutes and there were at least 3 ferries running. We went first to Smiltyne Beach. They hunt for amber to wash ashore there after storms. Unfortunately, there was no debris on the beach so odds were low. I searched hard anyway and found a tiny crumb of amber! It seemed to me that there could be a lot of tiny pieces of amber making up the beach, just mixed in with the sand. Our guide, Mindagus, gave each of us a piece of amber with a hole drilled in it as a condolence. That was very nice! Next we had a stop for photos at a Gray Heron and cormorant colony. We didn’t find any herons, but we found thousands of cormorants nesting up in the oldest part of the forest out there and they had killed off a large swath of the big old trees with overwhelming amounts of poop. Next we drove to Nida and visited an amber museum/gallery. We walked across the street and walked through an old, odd cemetery. Lithuania is known for being the last European area to become Christian and they still have a lot of pagans. We have been surprised that we have heard double digit percentages of people who self-identify as pagan as we travel through the Baltics. I think that had something to do with the weird footboards at the graves. We crossed the street again and walked along the waterfront and through the little town of Nida. Everyone wanted lunch even though it was not on our itinerary. The guide suggested a place and it was good and reasonably priced. It took a long time out of our day though. The guide sat at our table and we and another couple bought him lunch. We drove a long way next to get to the highest point of the traveling dunes and to see a solar clock-calendar sculpture on top. From the top you could see a great panorama of Neringa. You could see the Curonian Lagoon on the left, the Russian part of the peninsula and on the right the Baltic Sea. I think Mindagus said the dune was 84 meters tall. For some reason, I did not have the Hill of Witches on my itinerary but the others said they had it. We didn’t really have time to do it anyway, but we stopped and walked about halfway up the hill and saw a half dozen or so creepy wooden sculptures in the woods. This was in the little town of Juodkrante. Last stop was a photo stop at Amber Bay in Juodkrante. This was the site of an amber mine in the 1800’s. They took out 75000 kilos of amber during something like a 3 year period. We drove back to the ferry and returned to Klaipeda after 5pm. At 5:30pm we left the driver and van on the far side of Klaipeda and we started our walking tour of old town. Almost as soon as we started, Mindagus took us to 1 of 3 courtyards in Klaipeda and showed us restrooms and bought local beers for everyone that wanted one. Then we set off again on our walking tour. The thing that was missing for me again today was a map. It was a good tour though and I for one certainly appreciated the guy’s patience with us and for his flexibility with our changed arrival time and the group’s demands. I don’t actually know what we paid for today’s tour, but I think the list price was $130pp.

We had very good luck again with the weather today. It was supposed to be 67F and rainy. I don’t think it ever got that warm and it only rained on us off and on for less than an hour of our day. It was cool, windy and mostly cloudy but it could have been much worse.

We went to Terrace for a late dinner after we got back on Marina. I don’t know if it is always like that but Terrace was an absolute zoo for the last hour they were open tonight. I hope we don’t ever have to do that again.

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Riga, Latvia

Monday, July 13, 2015

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Clay went to the gym this morning and I slept right through it. He started making noise about 7:30am and I got up. We weren’t to breakfast again until after 8am. We went ahead afterwards and went and got seats in the front of the front window in Horizons to watch the sail in to Riga. It was a narrow and winding channel through a very industrialized area. I guess we stopped about 15km shy of the passenger terminal adjacent to Old Town. I don’t know why exactly. So, we were originally expected to arrive at 9am, then they announced it would be 10am, but I guess since there were 2 cruise ships and one ferry docked next to old town that maybe there was no room for us. In any event, last night’s newsletter said we would dock at KS Cargo/Container Terminal and we did at about 9:15am. We could see vans like Alla Tours uses parked outside the port gate and a small crowd of people with signs out there so to be safe we did not wait until 11am which was the new time Alla Tours had posted for meeting at this port. We went out and it was SPB and some other private tour operators waiting out there. Somehow all the other providers stayed close to their original schedules and found out the port had changed and were here. By 10:45am they had all left. Shortly after that the rest of the 17 people who were booked on today’s Alla Tour started trickling out to the gate. Right at 11am, Jennifer and the van/minibus showed up. She acted like they had been down at the other port waiting and had raced out here. I know at least one person in the group claimed they had called someone with Alla Tours and told them about the change in port. I don’t really have a good explanation for what happened here. Jennifer was otherwise well prepared. She had marked up a map of Riga for each couple with the Cruise Passenger Terminal and our route for today marked (not our port which was too far away to appear on her map!). She did the best she could with us I think. There was never a lunch scheduled in this 5-hour tour program, but it running from 11am to 4pm without one caused problems. People should read what they are booking. If it had been 10am to 3pm without lunch it would have been the same problem. The only thing we actually sacrificed due to the changes was free time. We had about a 30 minute drive into and out of town to add to the equation due to the port change. We started with a panoramic photo stop from across the Daugava River. From noon to 12:30pm, we had a short walking tour through Riga’s Art Nouveau district centered on Alberta Street. As we drove away, we went past the former Riga KGB building. From 12:45pm to 1:10pm, we walked Freedom Square to the Opera House. After that we went over to Riga’s Central Market which was moved from Old Town into some nice large open buildings to create the largest market/bazaar in Europe. Jennifer and we and a couple of others bought food and with samples shared by vendors and amongst us, we put together a light lunch on the go. That was from 1:10pm to 2pm. Finally we drove to Old Town, we got there around 2:15pm. Jennifer told us in the van to take 15 minutes there to spread out amongst the 3 coffee shops there and get some coffee/drinks and snacks to go on a walk. To take only 15 minutes. She told us again we got there and pointed out the 3 cafes/kiosks. Clay and I went straight to the closest one and got a Coke and pastries. When we finished our transaction, the whole group was standing around Jennifer having some kind of complaint fest. I think maybe they were looking for restrooms because one of our party had an upset stomach and they finally all went across the street again into a museum for restrooms. Then Jennifer had to recall the driver to get a guy who didn’t want to walk. I’m not sure how that worked because he sat in the van all afternoon when our tour supposedly only paid for 3 hours of a van with driver. Reading the itinerary, I understood that the driver would leave us and come back for us later to drive us back to the ship, but since he had a passenger, I don’t know. He was sitting next to me and said he sat on the van reading the entire time. Anyway, later they were all hungry and thirsty and asking for their free time/snack break. Jennifer kindly did not point out to them that they didn’t use the time for that and it was over now, but she set them free to meet up later at the van and skip the last 45 minutes of the Old Town walking tour. We probably should have cut out too as I don’t think we really gained anything in the final walk around but we stuck it out. So we walked through Old Town and saw probably all of the important highlights from 2:20pm to 3:45pm. We also took a detour through a still standing medieval restaurant called Rosengrals. We went downstairs and inside on one side of the narrowest street and through a dark and winding candlelit tunnel to exit on the other side of the street! We were back to the ship before 4:30pm and all aboard is 5:30pm

It was supposed to be in the mid-60sF and raining all day today according to all the forecasts. I think it was probably around 65F all day, but it was mostly sunny all day with a nice breeze. So, it was too cool in the shade but just right in the sun. So, it was a pleasant day and we enjoyed it. It was an interesting former Soviet bloc city, like Tallinn, but larger in area it seemed to me. Our Charming Riga tour today cost us $75pp. Oceania had a similarly named tour that only lasted 3.5 hours and cost $119. It definitely did not do the market or Rosengrals and they were the coolest.

We are ready to sail away now, a half hour early so everyone must be aboard. We have 6:30pm dinner reservations at Polo Grill tonight, so it was a good day to skip lunch. We’ll skip the show tonight. It is Hayden Smith. No idea. We don’t get to Klaipeda, Lithuania before 11am tomorrow and we plan to get up early and do a last load of laundry before we arrive. Fingers crossed on that!

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Return to Tallinn, Estonia

Sunday, July 12, 2015

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We are back in Tallinn today. We were both slow getting up this morning. It is the latest we have been up on this trip. Even though Clay is sick, he was still up earlier than I was. It may have just been so he could cough up a half pound of snot. I found it all over the soles of my feet after my shower! I heard him coughing and tried to just sleep through it but I didn’t realize he was exploding in the bathroom until much later. I am certain there is no way for me to avoid the same fate.

It was after 8am and the ship cleared announcement before we got into Terrace for breakfast. We still couldn’t find a 2-top. We waited and one got cleared at the back door. They had blintzs today and since it was Sunday I had 3. It is only supposed to be in the 50sF today and rainy. Since we had been here before and the weather was so bad and Clay feels bad and I am exhausted, we were in no hurry to get ashore. We talked about what we wanted to do here and after breakfast went to check with the tourism lady in the atrium. We asked her about the KGB Museum at the Viru Hotel. She said she worked there and we could only go with a reservation at 11:30am but she could call and see if we could go. She spoke to someone and spelled out our last name more than once to get us reservations. She told us where to go about 10 minutes early to pay for and pickup our tickets. We set off and got on the next shuttle bus. It is just a little more than a comfortable walking distance, so we were glad for the bus. Plus it was raining! Today we saw Segways where they were supposed to be by the big balloon on the pier. They weren’t there before but they didn’t appear to have any raingear so it was just as well. There were 3 cruise ships and 3 ferries in port this morning and everything was crowded. On the bus ride in, I saw a poster for the Old Masters exhibition at the Old Town Hall that I had forgotten about. I knew we wanted to do this. It was great and out of the rain and we needed to kill a couple of hours before our 11:30am KGB tour. The price was 14 Euros each and it was spectacular to see all these paintings displayed in a building from the same time frame. Art Rules runs until 5 October 2015. When we came out of the town hall, the church bells were ringing and a market had been set up on the square. We wandered the stalls. We tasted and Clay bought a small smoked cheese and an elk sausage. There was still some time to kill so we browsed a few shops on our way down to Viru Hotel. When we got to the tour desk in the lobby, the woman did not have our reservation and she told us the tour was already oversold. I got a little upset but she agreed to sell us tickets and take us on the tour anyway. I am glad we went as it was very interesting. I recommend it. The tour lasted an hour and had the best views over Tallinn. Afterwards, we walked back up past the Town Hall to return to the Beer House for lunch because we enjoyed it so much the first time. I had the goulash in bread bowl again. Clay went another way. He ordered crispy fried pig’s ears followed by lamb sausages. I tried a bite of the pig’s ears since he said they were good, but I was grossed out and had to spit it out. My goulash and bread bowl were as good as remembered. On the walk back to the shuttle bus, we went down the wool street along the medieval wall and I found a linen/cotton blend sweater with amber decorations. I tried it on and bought it for 55 Euros. We missed the next shuttle bus and lined up for the next one. We waited 10 minutes or so. When the next one came, 2 came at once. When we got back, one of the cruise ships had already left. Marina left on time at the new shortened schedule of 4pm. We watched a movie on TV this afternoon. We have dinner reservations at 6:30pm tonight at Red Ginger. I am certain we will not go to the JAR show tonight, Backstage Pass as we saw it with this cast during our last cruise segment onboard Marina.

Tomorrow we should be in Riga, Latvia from 10am to 6pm. We have an Alla Tour here. This is a new port and a new country for us.

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Last day in Saint Petersburg

Saturday, July 11, 2015

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We were both startled awake by the alarm. We had fallen off to sleep immediately and hadn’t stirred all night. We set off to breakfast and then got ashore to be on time for our 9:30am meeting with our guide. His name was either Dimar or Dmitri. Our driver was Slava again from Thursday. It was pouring rain when we left the ship, but it slacked off and only sprinkled or misted the rest of the day. The good news was that we had museums scheduled all day, so we weren’t out in it much.

It turned out that we couldn’t get into our first museum, the Treasure Gallery #2 Gold Room in the Hermitage until 10:30am. Also, he didn’t have our tickets yet. We drove to meet someone to get them as we had on Thursday with Anya. Then we made a bonus visit to Holy Trinity Church. This is a blue domed church with golden stars on it and a gleaming white building. I had seen it numerous times in the distance but we had never driven near it before. It had cannons and an obelisk built of cannons out in front. I forget what war they were commemorating. Inside it was under restoration so we couldn’t see a lot of it. But, they were singing a service when we entered and the altar was open. They were having confession and lined up for communion. There were at least 4 priest at or on or around the altar and all wearing golden regalia. The guide explained it was a Russian religious holiday most closely related to our St. Valentine’s Day. That was special. We still needed to kill some time, so I asked the guide about finding a patch. He took us to a special needle crafts store and they had a Russian flag patch. I had seen one of these at a souvenir place when we were here before and didn’t get it because it didn’t say a place name on it and I wasn’t sure I’d remember where I got it. I bought this one because. They also had a big selection of cross-stitch kits and I looked through them but I didn’t really like any of them. We went on to the Hermitage in the hope of finding the guy selling paintings outside again, but alas it was not to be. We looked all day for those outdoor painting vendors with no luck. I guess a rainy Saturday is a good day to take off for painting vendors. We went inside to learn that we would have another private guided museum tour. He came with us and translated since today’s specialist spoke Russian. It was pretty awesome. The ancient gold and diplomatic gifts were amazing. Especially the ancient gold. I recommend it! We still had the Impressionists in the Hermitage and the Faberge Museum to do. Faberge was scheduled for 3pm. It was 12:15pm so I chose lunch first. We reclaimed our raincoats and went outside. The guide suggested Stolle and we declined. It was not our favorite meat pies. It turned out there was a Teremok about a block away and we were happy to go there. He bought his own lunch while we looked at the menu! Clay had the same cold summer soup he got for himself and which wasn’t on the menu since it is seasonal. Clay must have liked it, at least he ate it all. We ordered an order of dumplings to share. We liked them. They were like small steamed Chinese dumplings but with sour cream on them. I had a bacon and cheese blini and a condensed milk dumpling. I had a fermented rye soda drink, Kvass, which is a local favorite. Didn’t love it! Clay had another Russian beer. Both guides disparaged it as a Soviet-era evil thing, but Clay liked it Okay. We like this chain of pancake restaurants! We walked back and went through the entire New Hermitage building. It was a bit of a work in progress still, but the stark modern interior was a surprise and sometimes the unfinished concrete surfaces were not attractive. But, overall we liked it. The glass ceiling over the entire roof was nice as were the glass walks and stairway. It was an amazing collection in a special setting. Recommend! Our last stop was the Faberge Museum. The guide told us he had to take another couple through with us because there was a couple that wanted to go through and their guide wasn’t licensed there. It turned out to be Zack and Cheryl again. They had other plans for the rest of the day (1 hour or so) and so we did a condensed tour of the highlights of Eggs and then wandered most of the rest of the collection. Spectacular. Recommend. It was another good day. I highly recommend Alla Tours for St. Petersburg tours. I think the private tours here are a particularly good value. We saw a lot on the first time through with group tours for 3 days, but it would have been a better idea I think to stay with all private for the value and quality of experience. Either way, I recommend Alla Tours for St. Petersburg.

We got back to the ship way before the 5:30pm deadline. Clay counted his rubles and said we had to shop it out in the terminal. We bought a matryoshka pepper mill and a matryoshka small scissors. I love the idea of twisting that doll’s head for pepper! The scissors are pointing and I really need a pair that are blunt ended for travel but it satisfied Clay’s monetary desires. It left over a 100 ruble note that Clay told me to put in my souvenir paperwork as it was worth about one $.

We sailed about 10 past 6 just after one of our neighboring ships departed. The captain came on the PA and announced we would sail past Kronstadt in about an hour. We wanted to see that. We saw a lot more of the island that we couldn’t actually see from the ground on Thursday. We saw the ship Aurora that she told us about. We saw a lot of people out where I stepped in the Bay of Finland. We saw a submarine. We saw cadets marching in formation again. We saw the big white swing arms that can close the little slot with a road tunnel under it that is the opening for ships to enter the bay to St. Petersburg. It is part of their dam’s flood control. They don’t really get tides here, but have a flooding problem in the city from the wind pushing the shallow Bay of Finland back up into the arms of the Neva River.

We need to go to bed early and sleep in! Tomorrow is Tallinn which is another repeat port for us and we have no firm plans so that is good. Especially since the weather forecast is bad. Temps in the 50s F and rain all day. If it is that bad, we may have a sea day.

In other news, we got a letter last night announcing a new schedule due to operational reasons. Whatever that means. I know it means more shortened port times aboard Marina. We will lose an hour at the end of the day tomorrow. We will lose an hour in the morning in Riga. We will lose 2 hours in the morning in Klaipeda. We will lose an hour in the morning in Warnemunde. We will lose an hour at the end of the day in Copenhagen. We will lose an hour in the morning in Amsterdam. That left only 2 ports unaffected. We are still scheduled to arrive in Southampton on time.

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Moscow!

Friday, July 10, 2015

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Moscow! This was a very, very long hard day of tourism at its worst or perhaps highest form. We got up at around 4am to be ashore by 5:30am so we would not miss the high speed Sapsan train to Moscow from St. Petersburg. We found that breakfast was not being served anywhere onboard. This is weird because we both thought we clearly remembered O having early breakfast for their tour guests going to Moscow on day 2 here. But I guess that was just collective wishful remembering. We thought because we have access to the Concierge Lounge that we could get something there. I got a cappuccino and a plain yogurt with a jam to flavor it and I was fine. The guy that got there 1 minute after me found the coffee machine being serviced! He was in his bathrobe so it is unlikely he was going to try up in Horizons Lounge which is the only other place I would know to try without calling room service. There was nothing for Clay but some cookies left over from the evening before and that is what he had. The only real problem with the Moscow tour was finding food to eat when you wanted to eat. That didn’t seem possible. The good news is that since we never had a port bag check, Clay decided to take Nabs, Oreos, and a protein bar. We ate it all plus what we were able to find along the way. We also took 2 bottles of water off the ship before we left which was a good thing because we had a hard time finding anyone without gas elsewhere and Alla Tours did not provide any on this tour unlike all the others. Shortly after 5:30am we met our tour partners for the day, Zach and Cheryl. They were from LA and were much younger than us. They were in First Class on the train, so we only saw them during the tour and on the transfer to and from the train. We were in Economy, or whatever the masses use is called. Our car, 3, was filled with a large group of Asians traveling together with a lot of luggage and it was a bit of a nightmare. The other problem was that half the seats travel backwards at any point in time. We were in 1 and 2 outbound on the right side and facing backwards for 4 hours of over 200 kmh travel. Coming back the car was not as crowded and we were in 43 and 44 again facing backwards and now on the left side of the car so we were looking at the same side of the tracks traveling in the opposite direction. Coming back we also had 2 stops that we didn’t have outbound which extended the trip by about 15 minutes or more.

We arrived in Moscow about 10:25am. By the time we met our Alla guide, sounds like E-ah, and the van picked us up it was 11am.  The van reeked of cigarettes and either the A/C didn’t work or the driver just wouldn’t turn it up. Every time one of us complained he would touch the controls and it would get a bit cooler for a few minutes and then it would heat up again. The temperature hovered just under 30C according to his overhead display. E-ah asked if we had any special requests so I asked her about a quick stop at a Starbucks if we were near one during the day. She said no, she didn’t think so. Within the first 5 minutes in the van there was one visible sitting at a stoplight. She apologized at the end of the tour that we never found a Starbucks, but that I should know she remembered and that she had told me there weren’t any. Whatever. She said no and she meant no. I just think all 4 of us thought we had booked a private tour and that we could and would be accommodated if possible and not just get lip service about it, but E-ah had an itinerary and schedule in mind and she had no intention of deviating no matter what.

We took a quick drive around Moscow as she pointed things out at speed. I wish I could tell you our route, but Alla and E-ah provided no tour maps or other informational handouts. E-ah told us she would at some point show us our route on a map so we would understand where we’d been and what we’d seen, but that never happened. Our first stop was outside the back side of the Kremlin. We got out and walked through a park with a weird statue about the corruption of children. Then to a bridge with lock trees on it and along a canal or river embankment. In the distance we could see a huge weird statue honoring Peter the Great that looked like Peter Pan on a flying pirate ship. Our next stop was at Moscow Cathedral where we walked all the way around and through it on an extensive tour that was not listed on our program. We spent at least an hour between these 2 stops and we have no idea why really. The cathedral was a 1994 recreation of the one that historically stood there and was blown up under orders to Stalin. E-ah said there had been a swimming pool there most of her life without a word about the old church or Stalin until construction and fund raising started to remove the pool and rebuild it. When she was asked by Zach why we spent all this time on things no one requested and were not on the itinerary she never really answered him. I have to assume because that was what she wanted to do for whatever reason. Next stop was at the ski jumps for a look at them, the University and a view over the city. This was on the itinerary as “City introduction tour incl. KGB headquarters.” When E-ah was asked about it, she said she did point out KGB headquarters when we drove by it. I agreed that at speed among 100 other things she did point it out, but that didn’t explain why it was featured in our programs. She said she didn’t know why either because it is closed to the public, not an open place. It was misleading and frustrating at best. Anyway, at 1:15pm the van left us for good in front of the Bolshoi Theater. The program had this part of the day lasting until 2:30pm. But there was no arguing with gather your belongings and don’t leave anything behind because this is where we part with our driver. Now this was not spelled out on the program at all. I should note that later I saw canal boats and thought to myself that would be better than the van for less than 2 hours and on foot for the rest of the day. Our guide today (Saturday) asked us about our day in Moscow and told us the best way to see Moscow in a single day is from the HOHO river/canal boats. He confirmed what we did was the worst. We were never offered anything else and didn’t know. We trusted Alla to only offer the best and we were mistaken. We walked around to glimpse what we would be seeing the rest of the afternoon. We were all pretty hot, bothered and annoyed by then and ready to see something that we had come for instead of circling it first by van and now on foot. E-ah said we had timed entry tickets and we needed to have our lunch stop now. She led us to a walking district/outdoor mall food court and into Sbarro. She promised me my long awaited toilet stop there. Alas, it was not to be. The restrooms were out of service, they had no still water, etc. We ate there but Zach gave E-ah a good tongue lashing about it. She was unrepentant and said this is where she always brings her tours. She did lead us directly to public restrooms after about a 30-minute meal. Then we finally entered the Kremlin and crossed Red Square, but this was not our photo stop which frustrated everyone again. We walked all the way around the Kremlin Palace and through Cathedral Square and heard all about every building as we did. Then we got in line at the Armory. This was our timed entry ticket. It was on our program as “Excursion in Kremlin: Cathedrals and Armory Chamber (tsars regalia, diplomatic gifts, Faberge eggs)”. This sounded interesting. It was overwhelming. We had traveled hundreds of miles and walked a few more and now we were on a speed walk of endless, mind numbing details. I appreciated the effort, but it was too much. Zach just wanted to see Red Square. I just wanted to see St. Basil’s on Red Square. No. E-ah had to show us the cathedrals. All 3. Each and every one with a full history and details pointed out. I was ready to weep. I don’t know how the others felt but it was not a happy group. After the Tsar’s bell, she led us to Red Square and Zack perked up. We were all happy to see St. Basil’s. It is too bad we couldn’t go in there, since of all the 4 churches that we had to tour none of had ever heard of them while St. Basil’s is iconic of Moscow and I know it is what I was expecting. Anyway, she led us to GUM, now a shopping mall and insisted we go inside so she could show us our meeting point in one hour. Zach balked and told her he could find a fountain in a mall. Off they went, to an outdoor bar/café that she could see. We let her lead us to the fountain and point out her suggestions for us in the mall. We took them. We went through the grocery store and bought Clay a sandwich for the train ride back. We had some delicious ice cream and a frozen Coke each. We used the restroom and sat around on the edge of Red Square and then our hour was up. At 6:30pm, we left Red Square and started our tour of subway stations back to the train station. (This is the problem with our itinerary. It did not indicate that we’d only have transportation for less than 2 hours and walk and subway our way back to the train station!) Anyway, on Friday of a Russian holiday weekend at 6:30pm, we started our public transit commute across Moscow. I don’t know how it could have been any more crowded. It was interesting to see the richly decorated stations. E-ah got us back in time to walk right onboard the train and take our seats with little wait for departure. I am glad I got to see Moscow. But, I wouldn’t recommend anyone repeat this experience. It could certainly be done better. Our train tickets cost about $100 pp according to Clay’s translation of our tickets. That means that we think we actual tour cost was about $580 pp. That was outlandish for what we got compared to here in St. Petersburg.

We got back after midnight and the passport control and guards were jovial for the first and only time! We were in bed and asleep by 1am with an alarm set to wake us by 7:30am on Saturday.

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Private tour in St. Petersburg, Day 1

Thursday, July 9, 2015

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Clay was up first again. I don’t know if he’d been to the gym or not. He says he is getting a sore throat, so maybe not. We thought we were in no rush this morning. We arrived in St. Petersburg Ocean Terminal about 8am. We were not the first ship in and by the time we were docked, all 6 berths were occupied. I don’t think we ever went past the place on the Neva River where we saw 3 ships docked before. We went to Terrace for breakfast and it was so crowded we were forced to sit outside. We wouldn’t normally mind that but we have only had inattentive to non-existent service out there and sometimes with a big side helping of sass. So, generally we try to avoid sitting out on the back deck. Today, it was just slow service. We ate lightly so as not to tax the service system and got out of there. We left the room about 8am and entered a world we had not previously encountered. We were out of the room as Dottie, the cruise director, was making the announcement that the ship was cleared and she was calling the O tour groups. Evidently the last time we were here we had left the cabin prior to any of that because that day we just walked all the way down the front stairs and out the gangway on deck 4 and arrived at passport control without any lines and 15 minutes later were ashore and waiting. Today we walked down and got stopped on deck 5 as deck 4 was only for O’s tour groups. We were sent aft to join a line at least 200 people long from the deck 5 gangway back past Jacques. We stood there as they released 20 people about every 10 minutes. It took us over an hour and 10 minutes to get ashore today. I am not sure whose idea it was to limit the departure of independent guests. It may have been a way for Oceania to minimize the passport control wait for their own tour participants. I have no idea if they were doing this on our previous cruise because we didn’t witness it before. It was a new day in Russia today! The other complicating factor was that we were sharing a passport control area with a much larger MSC ship that was disembarking tours at the same time even though they had been docked there when we arrived.

Today was our weird private tour day in St. Petersburg. Months ago when planning this, we knew 2 things. We didn’t want to repeat the standard Alla Tours here and it would be more crowded here now that it was earlier in the season. So, Clay picked St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral in Kronstat. It was an hour drive each way and he mostly picked it for that. So we could see something different of and around St. Petersburg. It worked. We saw some repeat stuff, but mostly we saw countryside and suburbs. We drove outbound from the north and returned from the south. We saw even more variety. From the north was the earlies road and it went over a dam. From the south was the newer road and it is part of a St. Petersburg ring road. The cathedral was built in 1906, I think, and was hardly ever used as a church since religion was outlawed shortly after it was completed. It had very recently been renovated and re-consecrated. It was a spectacular Byzantine-style Orthodox church. It was worth the drive. I picked the Kunstkamera. It is the oldest museum in Russia and was started from the private collection of biological and medical specimens of Peter the Great. It was fascinating and disgusting and disturbingly crowded. But, the most amazing thing of all was that Alla had arranged a private museum guide for our visit. So both our weird things turned out to be good things. For lunch, we went to a Tepemok. They are a chain of blini fast food cafes. We liked it. It was a very different experience too. They had toys for kids’ meals. Our guide, Anya, explained that they were Russian Winnie-the-Pooh characters from a TV cartoon show. They had Pooh, Rabbit, Eeyore and Owl. Once she explained it, I could see it, but I wouldn’t have figured it out on my own. We stopped to see the smallest statue in St. Petersburg. It is a little bird on the water side of a bridge. Pedestrians try to drop coins on the pedestal for good luck. I guess like a wishing well or something. We had seen if from the boat tour last time but Clay couldn’t get a photo. It is called Chizhik-Pyzhik and though fairly new is fairly famous for tourists and locals alike. After lunch, we took about an hour long stroll through the Summer Garden instead of on Nevsky Prospekt because we didn’t really have any souvenir shopping to do. At 3pm was our guided tour of Kunstkamera and by 5pm we were back at Marina. We said good bye to Anya as we will not see her again. We don’t know who we’ll have for Moscow tomorrow or how many in our group. On the third day and our 2^nd day of private touring in St. Petersburg, we will have our same driver again, Slava. We paid Anya $50 for our 3^rd day added visit to the Impressionists building of the Hermitage. We showed her our paid invoice from June. She seemed surprised as she was telling us we needed to pay her today. We were surprised she was expecting anything more than the $50 but she must have phoned in and verified it because later all she asked us for only the $50. We sadly did not get a receipt for it! She confirmed with Slava and with us and we thought with someone on the phone that we would need to be outside passport control tomorrow morning at 6am to go to Moscow. As I was typing this up, the cabin phone rang and it was a fellow passenger named Zach. He said he would be going to Moscow with us tomorrow and had been asked to please notify us that we had to be outside by 5:30am or miss the departure to Moscow. Clay thought in June it was even earlier. Well, stay tuned.

We’ll have an early dinner in Terrace and an early bedtime and a long, long, hard day tomorrow on our whirlwind tour of Moscow. I will probably not get a post published tomorrow, so look for it in 2 days.

The Queen Elizabeth that was here when we arrived, left before dinner time. While we were having dinner Celebrity Silhouette must have slinked off silently because we didn't see them or hear them leave while up in Terrace.

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Porvoo, Finland

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

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We had a great sunset last night! It was the first one we’ve seen in months it seems like.

Clay was up at 6:30am and went to the gym. I didn’t get up until 7:30am and we made it to breakfast after 8am. Evidently we were not the only ones running slow this morning because there was hardly anyone in Terrace and it had been open an hour when we got there. Unlike lunch yesterday at noon when we couldn’t find anywhere to sit in Terrace.

We had to meet in the theater at 10:05am for Picturesque Porvoo. So, we got to watch the entire sail in and it was scenic like Stockholm’s without being as extensive. We traded our tour tickets for bus 5 tickets. We waited another half hour or so before we were called to go out deck 4 to our bus. We got right out and managed to get front row seats. Not that the drive was very scenic. We spent the first hour driving around Helsinki before heading out of town to Porvoo. Porvoo is an old wooden medieval city. It is the 2^nd oldest city in Finland. It was a small charming old cobblestoned town. It was hilly and really tough walking on the rounded stones. But, it wasn’t raining in Porvoo. In fact it was sunny and warm. When we got back to Helsinki around 2pm, it was cool, gray and raining as it was when we left this morning. That made our decision for us not to stay in town but to return to the ship for the afternoon. That and the fact that I had used a small nasty restroom by the bus parking lot and got my pants soaked with urine! We did walk through the dock side shops to check for Moomin and found some, but bought nothing. We didn’t hear about Moomin our first time here. They are white marshmallow looking hippo shapes that are Finnish forest-dwelling trolls. There are a series of books and comic books about them. Once they had been pointed out, we saw them everywhere.

We came back aboard and I changed and showered and we made it up to a late Mexican buffet lunch in Terrace. We left for the 3:30pm lecture about Russian urban architecture over the past century or so. We both fell asleep! The ship doesn’t leave until 7pm. The Captain’s welcome cocktails are tonight so I am thinking about an official nap. That brings me to the precious cashmere lap blankets. A pair has finally been delivered to the top of our closet. I had to look for them because I would call them shawls or pashminas. They are a cashmere/silk blend and the size of a large shawl. Clay laughed when I spread one out on the bed for him. He said you wouldn’t get much use out of that and he’s right, you wouldn’t. You certainly wouldn’t pay more for a concierge level cabin to get to use one. The sturdy blue acrylic lap blankets they have up on the pool deck are much more useful.

We’ll just go to Terrace for dinner tonight and we won’t go to the show. Last night was a standup comic and tonight are Mark and Rodi, who they are billing as 2 of Florida’s most popular entertainers.

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