I just returned from another adventure! This time not for work. This was for pleasure, and what a pleasure it was! I took my kids and my daughter’s best friend on a trip to the countries that border the Baltic Sea. It’s an area of the globe I’ve always wanted to visit. From biking through Copenhagen to touching a section of the Berlin Wall, to eating lunch with a Russian family in their pre-Soviet era flat, we did it all. I just adore traveling and think I am a gypsy at heart. My kids have caught the bug, too. Especially my daughter who said when I asked her where she wanted to go next, “I don’t care, as long as it’s traveling.” I’m with her! I didn’t want to come home!
Here are a few of the 900+ photos. This trip pumped up my muse so much, I have stories bursting out of me.
First we visited Tallinn, Estonia. It is one of Europe’s finest examples of a medieval walled town because of the city’s miraculous survival of the wars. The turreted wall is still mostly intact. We had fun exploring the nooks and crannies, and feeling the ancient vibes.
But modern tech is slipping in everywhere–note the satellite dish on the centuries-old building:
Then it was on to Russia. The cathedrals of St. Petersburg were stunning works of art. Many like St. Nicholas were badly damaged during WWII. The city is adrape with scaffolding and canvas coverings as the city painstakingly repairs the neglect leftover from Soviet times:
I never thought about the individual domes, or that they would have so much detailing. But they do!
I like this photo of a Russian grandfather that I took in the gardens of the Catherine Palace outside St Petersburg. His little granddaughter kept him on the move, and I had only a fraction of a second to shoot, but I think his expression says it all, the love between members of a family:
The palaces were extraordinary, the wealth displayed staggering. No surprise there was a revolution. We visited both the Catherine Palace and Peterhof, the summer palace of the Czars:
Next we traveled to Finland. As I will post in my writing news below, I’ll be doing a Christmas themed novella in 2008. It just so happens that while in Finland I spotted Santa on his day off. You know he lives in Lapland, right? Here he is in the Kauppatori Market Square in Helsinki, calling The Mrs. on his cell phone, when I got this pic of him using my zoom lens:
I think the camos were left over from the last elf uprising. (The Claus needs to know when to be alpha or the elves will roll right over him)
I was so taken with the fresh produce in the market. This is only one of many photos I took of the stands. I love salmon–raw, cooked, smoked, barbequed–and so do the Finns. The extent of salmon varieties had my mouth watering:
But they eat … reindeer. (Do you think Santa knows? Was that why he was at the market that day? I wonder what happens to the sled pullers when they retire…or the ones that don’t make the team…oh God…)
From Finland we sailed to Sweden. On the way I witnessed an area on this beautiful planet Earth to where I must return. It’s called the archipelago and it consists of 10s of thousands of islands and islets,
many with lovely little summer homes. It takes five hours at least to sail through. This is where the Swedes vacation, and my God, they do it right. I was transfixed by the serenity. My only regret? It was overcast and the lighting did not do the scenery justice. But, I’ll be back…
I was enchanted by Stockholm. The time there was all-too short. It is a city to be revisited when I have more time and money. My friends know that I love Absolut Vanilla vodka. I sip it from the freezer and straight-up. Needless to say, the Absolut Ice Bar was a must-see stop on our itinerary. All of us loved it! It is the first of the ice bars now cropping up around the world, built by the Ice Hotel people. The ice is imported straight from Santa’s backyard–Lapland. The kids sipped lingonberry juice, and me? Absolut Vanilla, of course!
Just mosey up to the bar (made of solid ice) and grab a glass (also ice.)
Take a seat on the reindeer skin lined seats (all ice, of course). It’s minus 20F inside, so a warm place to park is a must!
And enjoy…
Since Stockholm is built on a marsh, many of the old buildings have started leaning. That above shot reminds me of a beginning art student’s attempts at learning perspective!
Then I had a majorly fun “author moment” when I was drawn in to this book store in Old Town Stockholm. With a sign like this, how could I not?
Just for fun, I asked if they carried any Susan Grant books–and they did! How fun is that?
After Sweden we crossed the Baltic Sea once more to Germany, where we traveled 3 hours roundtrip on a bus to have the opportunity to visit Berlin. This was a favorite stop. My kids will never learn as much history in school as they did witnessing it in this incredible, resilient city.
Here is my son, 6-feet-tall but dwarfed by the memorial built to remember the Jewish citizens killed by the Nazis. It’s an eerily beautiful but controversial structure. Controversial because there are no signs telling you what it is (or even that there’s a museum underneath), our guide explained. Some say it’s this way because the Jews didn’t know what was to happen to them when they were “relocated” and this attempts to express that:
The Berlin Wall.
Most of it has come down, but the entire length is still marked by cobblestones:
Some areas are intact and you can touch:
Some are on display behind plexiglass and you cannot:
All the panels left tell a story I hope the world never forgets. Unfortunately, history repeats itself.
After Berlin, we traveled to Denmark and the city of Copenhagen, where we went on a 5 hour bike tour of the city with Jon Martin, operator of City Safari. It’s just him running the company, so don’t expect big-business, but that’s precisely why I loved the tour he gave us. I loved the colors of the buildings lining the many canals in the city.
I have to admit the love story between Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik has me charmed. I’ve followed it since I saw banners in Sydney announcing their engagement(she is from Australia). I’ve even been to the Slip Inn, the bar in Sydney where they met. Sigh. 🙂
This trip was a fantastic experience.
So my friends, how is YOUR summer going? What have you read lately that you loved? Where have you traveled and enjoyed? And as always, talk food to me. Food! I adore food! (everything but black pudding which I smartly avoided while in Europe! I must have a dozen or more photos from the meals we had, everything from beef stroganoff and borscht in Russia to pastries in Germany.
