SCANDINAVIAN CAPITALS & LONDON
ABOARD THE NORWEGIAN DREAM JUNE, 2003
FEATURING THE WULFFS AND THE MCLEANS
The Wulffs had taken this trip a few years earlier on the ship Song of Norway with Royal Caribbean. More detailed information was placed in a journal on that trip.
June 14, Saturday
Before leaving we brought many US one and five dollar bills because they were handy for street vendors and local guides. On the trip, we used the ATM machine only once (in England), but relied often on our credit cards. Fred phoned in NWA perk numbers for mileage credit for Wulffs & McLeans ahead of time. We picked up Irma and Mike and drove to the Minneapolis International Airport. Kimberly and Tom met us at the airport so they could take our Mercury van and park it at their house for the next two weeks. Very kind of them.
Our NWA international flight took us approximately 8 hours to reach Gatwick in London.
June 15, Sunday
Our Vantage representative met us outside of the customs area and transferred us to our bus which took us on a three hour trip to the pier located in Dover, England. We went through security and obtained our cruise charge card. We boarded the NCL four star ship Norwegian Dream, ate a buffet lunch on the Sun deck and relaxed.
Of course, there was the mandatory life jacket routine and we were all located our emergency meeting stations. We were all in our places with bright happy faces.
We sailed into the English Channel around 4 p.m. and observed the Dover Castle on the White Cliffs off to our left.
June 16, Monday
We watched for the Kiel Canal locks at the entrance to the canal in Brunsbuttel. The Kiel Canal is an artificial waterway in northwest Germany (across Schleswig-Holstein) linking the North Sea with the Baltic. The locks, one at each end, and canal were built between 1887 and 1895. The Iron Chancellor Bismarck secured the necessary legislation to formulate a super canal for use by the larger ships of that time.
It was in fact a military highway to quickly move the Prussian fleet from sea to sea in the event of war. After WWI the canal was internationalized by the Treaty of Versailles, but this was repudiated by Hitler in 1936 and was vital during WW II. The ship building city of Kiel was heavily bombed during the war
The eight hour excursion in the canal was a good time to bring out the binoculars for the beautiful scenery along the banks. We noticed all the cattle faced the same direction. Only the Germans could
train their livestock to do that.
Our ship was not large as cruise ships go, but it was probably the largest that could fit into this canal. Our ship captain even had to lower (tilt) the smoke stack to make it under a bridge.
Ships can travel only in daylight; there is a speed limit of 8 knots, and the boat normally cannot stop in the canal itself.
We watched for the German naval station in Kiel to the right as we exited the canal to the Baltic Sea. It was still daylight.
June 17, Tuesday
We cruised the Baltic Sea while enjoying the amenities on ship.
June 18, Wednesday
We arrived in Helsinki in the early morning. Since we did not dock at the traditional dock, we took a shuttle bus to the town center. I had been here before when Professor Levorson and I took college students on a tour of the then Soviet Union (now Russia) That tour ended here in Helsinki.
Water was safe to drink here, and for that matter, the rest of the capitals, too. Generally people in Scandinavia tend to be reserved. Tips (service charge) are usually included in the bill. The vast majority of Scandinavians are Lutheran, but only a small minority attend church services.
The Finnish language is radically different from Swedish and Danish. Finish is as difficult to learn as Chinese. More than 90% of Finns speak Finnish (the rest Swedish). The use of English, however, is amazingly common throughout Finland, especially among young people. In all major tourist businesses, English is spoken. Yet, the silence of the Finn is legendary.
Helsinki’s residents are some of the best educated, best clothed, best fed, and best housed on earth. I still remember noticing the prosperity here on our arrival from the Soviet Union -- quite a contrast to the austerity prevalent in the Soviet Union.
Finland has been called one huge forest with five million people hiding in it. Actually, half a million of those people reside in Helsinki.
We started our self guided walking tour from the Opera House and headed down the tree lined Esplanade to observe the flowers, statues and the fountain known as Havis Amana, “the Daughter of the Baltic.” The fountain’s brass centerpiece has a young nude lady perched on rocks and surrounded by dolphins.
From here we approached the Kauppatori Market Square (a little right of the center on map above -- in dark black print), a lively and colorful spot that also had Finnish art craft for sale.
Near the marketplace (a little more to the right) was the ornate 1868 Russian Orthodox Uspensky Cathedral, the biggest Orthodox church in Scandinavia
We toured the interior of the church which housed an elaborate collection of icons (pictured right). Uspensky Cathedral is a reminder of Finland’s Russian era. Finland has been independent only since 1917, having been ruled for hundreds of years by first the Swedes and then the Tsarist Russians. Finland may have once been dominated by Russia, and is a doorway to Russia, but its cultural links are firmly in Scandinavia. Finland proved to be Russia’s “Vietnam” in the Stalin era.
An uphill walk took us to the largest, but austere, neo-classical Lutheran Cathedral with its statues of Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon and Mikael Agricola (who translated the Bible into Finnish).
It has had several names during its existence. The church is currently known as the Helsinki Cathedral. It was also called St Nicolas’s Church, after the ruler of the Russian empire, Nicolas I. The name was in use until the independence of Finland in 1917 and was changed because it reminded the newly independent country of its time under the rule of the mighty Russia.
Since the cathedral was built as a tribute to the emperor, he insisted on making several significant
changes to the original design. It took over 20 years to finish the built as it proved extremely challenging. The emperor kept ordering new changes to be made even to the almost finalized building in order to reflect the latest design trends at the time.
Below the cathedral was Senate Square commissioned by Finnish Russian rulers in the early 19th century. A statue of Alexander II stands prominently on the Square.
The historic Senate Square and the three neoclassical buildings flanking it were designed by German architect Carl Ludwig Engel who also designed the Lutheran Cathedral . When we were in Tallinn and St. Petersburg we saw much of Engel’s work (St. Isaac Cathedral is an example).
From the Senatintori we stopped for strawberries at the market and again had a nice walk along the Esplanade to reach the shuttle bus. Back on the Norwegian Dream we took in a leisure dinner . The ship departed at 7:00 p.m., just before Showtime in the Stardust Lounge.
June 19, Thursday
The Norwegian Dream arrived at the industrial port of St. Petersburg, Russia around 8:30 a.m.
The city, built by Peter the Great in 1703 as his “Window to the West,” was celebrating its 300th anniversary. President Bush had visited in late May, to prepare them for our visit. Conceived in the soul of a visionary emperor, St. Petersburg is Russia's adopted child. With its strict geometric lines and perfectly planned architecture, so unlike the Russian cities that came before it, St. Petersburg is almost too European to be Russian. And yet it is too Russian to be European. A powerful combination of both East and West, of things Russian and things European, St. Petersburg owes its existence to the will and passion of its founder, Czar Peter the Great, to guide a resistant Russia into the greater fold of Europe, and consequently into the mainstream of history. That he accomplished, and more.
"The most abstract and intentional city on earth" -- to quote Fyodor Dostoyevsky -- became the birthplace of Russian literature, the setting for Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov and Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. From here, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov,Prokofiev, and Rimsky-Korsakov went forth to conquer the world of the senses with unmistakably Russian music. It was in St. Petersburg that Petipa invented -- and Pavlova, Nijinsky, and Ulanova perfected -- the ballet, the most aristocratic of dance forms. Later, at the start of the 20th century, Diaghilev enthralled the Western world with the performances of his Ballets Russes. Great architects were summoned to the city by 18th-century empresses to build palaces of marble, malachite, and gold. And, a century later -- perhaps not surprisingly -- it was here that Fabergé craftsmen created those priceless objects of beauty that have crowned the collections of royalty and millionaires ever since.
It was in 1703 that the grand, new capital of the budding Russian empire was built, its face to Europe, its back to reactionary Moscow. Unlike some cities, it was not created by a process of gradual, graceful development but was forcibly constructed, stone by stone, under the force and direction of Peter the Great, for whose patron saint the city is named. Just as that other great capital, Washington, DC, rose from a swamp, so did Peter's New Town.
Incorporating more than 100 islands and crisscrossed by more than 60 rivers and canals, St. Petersburg can be -- and often is -- compared, except for its uniquely northern appeal, to that other great maritime city, Venice.
All four of us took Tour LED 042 (3 1/2 hours, $57 each) starting with the Hermitage Museum at 9 a.m. I had been through the Museum on two earlier trips to Russia, but this was still a treat. Our tour included a walk through the art gallery with magnificent collections of not only Russian artists but the works of major European artists. One room, hosted the works of Reubens (to the right).
Van Gogh’s
White House at Night
The Three Graces
by Canova
We then proceeded to the Winter Palace portion of the complex and toured the elaborately decorated rooms.
We were given time to walk around the large Palace Square in front of the Winter Palace.
The Palace Square (above) was the site where troops were ordered to disperse a workers’ demonstration on Bloody Sunday in 1905, and here, too, the fate of the 1917 Revolution was finally sealed when the Provisional Government was ousted from the Winter Palace, and the Bolsheviks took over the capital.
Irma and Mike then took the 2 p.m. Tour LED 040 ($39 for 3 hours). Sites visited included the Spit of Vasilievsky Island (good views of the city), and a drive along side of the Neva River with a stop at Smolny Convent and Nevsky Prospect Annette and I had taken in these sites on a previous trip.
Their tour then headed to the Church of Spilled Blood (built the on site where Alexander II was assassinated the year before). Here they could bargain for crafts items.
They concluded their trip with a photo stop at St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Of the grandest proportions, St. Isaac's Cathedral is the world's third-largest domed cathedral and the first monument the traveler sees of the city when arriving by ship. The interior is lavishly decorated with malachite, lazulite, marble, and other precious stones and minerals. Gilding the dome required 220 pounds of gold.
After the 1917 Revolution it was closed to worshipers and in 1931 was opened as a museum. Since 1990, as in many other churches in the city, services have been resumed. When the city was blockaded during World War II, the gilded dome was painted black to avoid its being targeted by enemy fire. Despite efforts to protect it, the cathedral nevertheless suffered heavy damage, as bullet holes on the columns on the south side attest.
The city’s worst ordeal came during WW II when it withstood a long siege and blockade (between September 1941 and January 1943). Nearly 650,000 people died of starvation and more than 17,000 were killed in air raids and by indiscriminate shelling. The cemetery for those victims is touching.
After dinner on the Norwegian Dream, we all headed back to the central city for cultural performances. Annette and Fred took in the Ballet ($59 each)at Alexandrinsky Theater at 7:00 p.m. The repertoire includes the best of classical ballet - Giselle, Swan Lake, Nutcracker, with a Gala
Performance of Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet Soloists.
Irma and Mike took the 3 hour Russian Folklore Extravaganza ( $53), at 7:15 p.m. This featured 10 musicians, eight dancing couples and a choir of 16 singers. During intermission guests were offered champagne or soft drinks.
Overnight on board the Norwegian Dream
June 20, Friday
In the morning at 8:45, Mike and Irma took a 4 hour tour for $57 each, Peterhof -- Russian Versailles. Fred and Annette had taken this tour on a previous trip.
Peterhof is a monument to Soviet reconstruction as the palace was looted and practically razed to the ground by Nazi troops. The ducts and pipes which convey the water here over a distance of 12 miles work without pumping stations. The water flows downhill, while fountains operate on the principle of communicating vessels.
In the morning at 9:30, Fred and Annette took Tour LED 050 (4 hours at $59), called Spectacular St. Petersburg We took a short drive to the Spit of Vasilievsky Island where we enjoyed spectacular views of the city.
At the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul we heard a concert of male voices.
We toured the Cathedral and saw the tombs of the Romanovs
... and Nicholas II.
Lastly, we went past city sights to the Shuvolov palace for a folklore group accompanied by live balalaika music.
Annette and Fred took the 2 p.m. afternoon tour (3 hour, $61 each) Rasputin & Waterways. We
Journeyed through rivers and canals of the city before disembarking at Yusupov palace (1 of the princes 57 palaces) where the Holy Monk Rasputin was assassinated because of his complete control over Alexandra (and hence the nation). On the cold night of December 17, 1916, it be-came the setting for one of history's most melodramatic murders. Prince Yusupov and others loyal to the czar spent several frustrating and frightening hours trying to kill Rasputin, who had strongly influenced the czarina during the tumultuous years leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution. To their horror, the courtiers found the "mad monk" nearly invincible: when he did not succumb to the arsenic-laced cake given to him, the conspirators proceeded to shoot him several times. They then dumped him, still living, into the icy waters of an isolated section of a nearby canal, where he finally succumbed after becoming trapped under a floe of ice.
On display are the rooms in which Rasputin was (or began to be) killed, as well as a waxworks exhibit of Rasputin and Prince Yusupov. They are visible only on an organized tour given once daily in the late afternoon.
The other organized tour (given several times daily during the afternoon) takes you through the former reception rooms of the second floor. The showpiece of the palace remains the jewel-like rococo theater, whose stage was once graced by Liszt and Chopin; today, concerts are still presented here, as well as in the palace's august and elegant White-Columns Room
The Norwegian Dream departed St. Petersburg 7:00 p.m.
June 21, Saturday
We arrived in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia at 8:00 a.m. The Tourist Information Center was located in the Town Square. We walked leisurely from the dock to the small Medieval Old Town on our own. The Old Town was only a half mile long by a quarter mile wide.
We started our self-guided tour at the Three Sisters buildings (located at the very top of the map above). The Three Sisters were created by renovating three adjoining narrow buildings within the walls of old Tallinn (hence the Three Sisters). It is now used as a hotel.
Close by was St. Olaf’s Church (tallest church in Med. Europe), now a Baptist church. St. Olaf’s church or St. Olav's church (Estonian: Oleviste kirik)in Tallinn, Estonia, is believed to have been built in the 12th century and to have been the centre for old Tallinn's Scandinavian community prior to the conquest of Tallinn by Denmark. Its dedication relates to King Olaf II of Norway (a.k.a. Saint Olaf, 995-1030). The first known written records referring to the church date back to 1267, and it was extensively rebuilt during the 14th century.
With the start of the Protestant Reformation the German influence became even stronger as the city was converted to Lutheranism. In 1561 Tallinn politically became a dominion of Sweden. We saw a memorial to Martin Luther and Melanchon (see map). Largely due to the influence of Lutheran Protestantism, the literacy rate in Estonia reached 97% in the 1890s. This was due to emphasis on personal reading of the Bible. In 1726, only about 10% of peasants could read.
We continued on in the Old Town to the 14th century Church of the Holy Ghost (“city’s most appealing church”). The Church of the Holy Spirit holds a special place in Estonian cultural history. It was the first congregation that started holding services in the Estonian language (1531) after the Reformation. Johann Koell, the pastor at the time, is the author of the oldest known book in Estonian. Together with Simon Wanradt from Niguliste - St Nicholas' - Church he compiled a short catechism in Estonian and German. The book was published in 1535.
Town Hall Square, the Heart of the Old Town (used to be a medieval market). I indicated its location on the map with a number 5.
We ate lunch a little further along by the Jail (Town Gaol), number 6 on the map.
After our lunch break we visited St. Nicholas Church. St. Nicholas' Church (Estonian: Niguliste kirik) is a medieval church dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron of the fishermen and sailors. Originally built in the 13th century,it was partially destroyed in Soviet Bombing of Tallinn in World War II. After restoration it is in use as an art museum and concert hall, as well as for church services.
Our time so far was spent exploring lower Old Town. Tallinn was actually once two separate medieval towns separated by a wall. Dome Hill (Toompea), site of the upper town, was the seat of the ruling government. The lower town, site of the Town Square, was the merchant and trading center. To reach the upper town we now had to climb upwards on a steep narrow street (on right).
To our left (#8 on the map) was the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Alexander Nevsky. It is the largest and most extravagant orthodox cathedral in the entire town of Tallin and one of the most popular tourist destinations here. This Orthodox Church was designed by Mikhail Preobrazhensky between 1894 and 1900. During this time, the country of Estonia was still a part of the Russian Empire, which explains the Russian Revival style used in the construction and design of the entire cathedral.
The cathedral was built in the late 19th century as apart of the Russian domination of Estonia. Estonians viewed it as a symbol of oppression and wanted the cathedral raised, but lacked the funds to do it. Since Estonia's independence as a sovereign state in 1991, the cathedral has been painstakingly restored to its original beauty
Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, only to be conquered by Nazi Germany (1941-44) and then retaken by the Soviets. In World War II, the city was quite extensively bombed by the Soviets, even though luckily the medieval town remains. The Soviet Union undertook a program of massive Slavic migration, and just over 40% of Tallinn's current inhabitants are Slavic (compared to an average of 28% for the entire country). On Aug 20, 1991, Estonia declared independence and Tallinn became its capital once again.
The last time Annette and I were in Estonia we had an Estonia guide during the morning who was an ethnic Estonian. She continual revealed her dislike of anything Russian and talked about how their country was occupied and flooded with outsiders who lived in ugly high rise apartments. The Russian bled Estonia of its natural resources with little concern for the natives. She pointed out how brave Estonians stood up against the oppressors to gain freedom from the Soviets. Then in the afternoon Annette and I came back into the Old Town and hired our own guide -- who happened to be of Russian background. What a different story we heard this time. This guide spoke of how spiteful the Estonians were and how they made the outrageous demand that everyone must speak Estonian. Animosity is still there.
Now we turned our attention to Toompea Castle, #9 on the map. Toompea Castle is the seat of the
Parliament of the Republic of Estonia - the Riigikogu.
Note its location relative to the City Wall with defense towers, and The Russian Orthodox Church.
And then we focused our attention on the Lutheran Cathedral Toomkirk (main Lutheran church in Estonia) built in 1219, St Mary's Cathedral (Toomkirik). The oldest church in Tallinn, originally built as a Catholic church in 1229 but renovated and expanded many times since then, becoming a Lutheran church in 1561.
The last site in our lesson plan was the Overlook from the High Town . We had a bird’s eye view of the Old Town below.
We had accomplished our goals and now were ready to head back to the Norwegian Dream for dinner.
The ship departed Estonia at 5:00 p.m.
June 22, Sunday
We arrived in Stockholm, the “Venice of the North,” at 8:00 a.m.
Stockholm, a city of 1.5 million people, stands on 14 islands in Lake Malaren. King Gustavus Adolphus Gustav II Adolf made it the heart of his empire. During the Thirty years’ War (1618-48) as Sweden gained importance as a Baltic trading state, Stockholm grew commensurately.
About one mile (30 minute walk) from the ship is the Old Town, the Gamla Stan. It takes 25 minutes to walk across the Old Town with its narrow cobblestone streets, 17th and 18th century Renaissance beautiful buildings, and hairline medieval alleys.
To save time we decided to take a shuttle bus to Old Town and start our visit at Kungliga Slottet, the Royal Palace, built between 1691 and 1754.
The Royal Palace is a massive 608 room showcase that remains the official residence of the monarch. Severe, dignified, even cold looking on the outside, it has a lavish Italian baroque interior.
We watched the changing of the guard (at 12:10 p.m.).
We visited the Storkykan (Great Church), a 13th century cathedral where Olaus Petri 1493-1552 preached the message of the Reformation that spread around the kingdom. His statue stands outside the church facing the palace. Annette and Fred entered the church as a visiting choir was preparing for the service. The church’s finest artifact is the oak and elk horn-gilded sculpture of St. George and the Dragon, a 15th century Gothic masterpiece.
Fred visited the Livruskammaren, the Royal Armory (65 kr), which featured the stuffed horse and mud splattered garments of Gustavus Adolphus, who died in the Battle of Lutzen in 1632, during the Swedish phase of the 30 Years War. He had been shot in the elbow, in the back, and finally point blank in the head.
A walk over the bridge to Langholmen took us to a virtual park on what was for many years a prison. The female inmates planted thousands of trees to transform this island into a “green lung. ”Continuing northward we reach the nearby Kungstradgarden city park (Kings Garden) where we stopped for sandwiches and refreshments.
A towering statue of Charles XII stood at the entrance of the park.
After lunch we headed westward to Gustavus Adolphus Square (Gustav Adolfs Torg). The statue of the great king dominated the square. Next on the agenda we walked over the bridge back to Stortorget, the main square and marketplace and the heart of the ancient city. On the map above we had left on the bridge to the right and now we return to Old Town by way of the bridge on the left.
At Stortorget (Square), in 1520, Christian the Tyrant decapitated some 80 city notables. The square never was the stylish show-piece occupying the centre of many other European cities during the Middle Ages; it was created gradually, buildings and blocks around the square, still sloping west, occasionally added haphazardly.
We spent as much time here as we dared and then took the last shuttle bus back to our ship. We sat on deck and soaked up the scenic shoreline and scattered islands as the Norwegian Dream headed out into the Baltic Sea.
GO ON TO 2003 BALTIC CRUISE II
