Working on my Bucket List

It has taken me two months to post the five photographs below and hopefully to be able to recollect a few highlights from my May trip to the Baltics. As always, Susie is a great travel companion and adds to my wonder and enjoyment seeing the world.
Obviously, one of the highlights of the trip was meeting Lene Thorbjornsen Andersen-Gott in Copenhagen. Forty one years evaporated instantly and we chatted as if we had seen each other the week before. We were suppose to meet at the main entrance of Tivoli, but literally ran into Lene and her friend as we were getting off a bus. Lene looked just like she did the last time I saw her in 1969 at her parent's home in Oslo. Trond Forshaug and I went there to visit Lene and to meet her husband Leif.
Susie, Lene and I had coffee at a Tivoli cafe and enjoyed the warm, sunny Saturday talking like three school girls. Susie stayed with us for awhile and afterwards Lene and I continued talking through the afternoon into the late evening. Before meeting Lene, Susie and I went to Christiana or "Free Town. a 85 acre During the early 70's a group of hippy-types took over an abandoned Danish military garrison just a few metro stops from the center of Copenhagen. Since that time, it has enjoyed a special arrangement with the Danish government, where the inhabitants govern themselves, where hard drugs are illegal, but where pot and hash are used and sold openly. The authorities in Copenhagen have been at odds with the residents of Christiana and would like to see it vacated; the land is much too valuable, the residents do not pay taxes. going into Christiana. I'm sure you can all imagine how conspicuous we must have looked: two middle age, white haired Americans. In August of 1969 Susie and I were in Copenhagen and the city center has not changed much since that point in time. "The Stroget", the long pedestrian street in the city center filled with shoppers and tourist is still as crowded as it was then and at noon each day the Palace Guards. in their blue ceremonial uniforms. march through the streets. The harbor, across the roundabout from The Storget is a busy with canal boat tour operators trying to lure the tourist who are enjoying a good time eating and drinking at the cafes along the water front. The Little Mermaid, who recently returned from being on exhibition in China was back on her permanent rock in a water front park. Bicycles were everywhere and of course Tivoli Gardens filled with music, food, beautiful spring flowers, amusements and fun....some things never change!
The Metro system is excellent and we used our all-day passes on the train, bus as well as the metro. Considering that Copenhagen is one of the world's most expensive cities, it is one of the few bargains and the most efficient way to get around the city. .

BERLIN

We arrived in Warnemunde, Germany and drove for four hours to Berlin. Warnemunde is the port for the old Hanseatic town of Rostock. During the cold war it was located in East Germany.
Not wanting to miss seeing as much of Berlin as possible in one day, it is safe to say we saw a lot but, at the same time saw very little. Berlin is a city of 3.4 million people and Germany's largest city. It is nine times bigger than Paris. It enjoys a temperate seasonal climate and a third of the city is forest/parks/gardens/rivers and lakes. It has been a capitol city since the 13th century. First to the Kingdom of Prussia, then to the German Empire, Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, Divided after WWII into East and West Berlin and in 1990 with reunification it became the capitol of Germany. That is a lot of history to try and absorb in eight hours.

TALLINN, ESTONIA

Susie was in Tallin, Estonia a few years after the collapse of the Soviet and it's re-establishment as a democratic independent country in 1991. In 2004 it became a member of the European Union. When Susie was last in Tallinn, the city (and all of Estonia), was economically depressed and the infra-structure of the roads, buildings and port was very poor. The port has been re-built obviously to accommodate cruise ships which has helped make tourism a vital part of their economy. Susie and I would like to suggest to the local authorities that second to a new port they should have a national campaign called DON'T RIP OFF THE TOURIST. We had (and later found out we were not alone) a bad experience with a cab driver and as a result of that Tallin will be associated with negativity. The old city is a labyrinth of winding, narrow streets nice for walking and especially good for getting lost. Not a lot of English is spoken, a fact we experienced first hand trying to find our way out of the old city (even with a map and compass we were hopelessly lost). The old city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been a port for trade between Russia and Scandinavia since the Middle Ages.
Once again, we had unseasonably warm and sunny weather and after viewing the few open old churches, walking the old city and getting lost we found the best way to enjoy Tallin was to sit at a cafe and enjoy their wine!

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

This was what I came on this trip for and I was not at all disappointed. St. Petersburg enjoys on average only 30 days of sun A YEAR and we had three gloriously warm and sunny days.
St. Petersburg has also built a new seaport since Susie's last visit and she continually remarked at the improvement in the roads and the condition of the buildings. One guide even "apologized" for the condition of the streets: saying St. Petersburg is a northerly city with a long, cold and snowy winter and the roads hadn't been completely repaired since it was still early spring. That was one of the funniest things I heard considering I'm from Chicago. The streets in St. Petersburg are in far better condition than those in Chicago! Note to the newly elected Mayor Emmanuel of Chicago...fix those pot holes!!
We drove to Catherine's Summer Palace outside of St. Petersburg in the town of Pushkin. Pushkin is about 15 miles outside of St. Petersburg, but the drive took approximately an hour because of the traffic congestion. Cars are everywhere and generally they are all late model Mercedes, BMW's, and varying Toyota models. The highway was excellent. Huge western-style shopping centers with big movie theaters, restaurants (many U.S. fast food chain franchises) were newly built or in the process of being built along this road filled with new home and apartment developments. I'm sure that once you get into the Russian countryside you do not see this kind of prosperous development but in the greater St.Petersburg area you do. Catherine's Summer Palace was a bold architectural monument to the Baroque style. In all it's glory it is a perfect example of the boundless wealth of the Russian Tsars and caused Susie to comment "no wonder they had a revolution!".
The Hermitage, originally built as a palace for the Russian Tsars is located along the banks of the Neva River. The Hermitage, which was known as the Winter Palace grew into what is now considered the world's most expansive and famous art museum. The beginning of The Hermitage's treasures is credited to Catherine The Great purchasing a collection of 255 works of art. The interior of the building is grand....I could imagine music playing, women dressed in silk and jewels traversing the grand marble staircases and the gilded halls. Now those hallways are filled with tourist, school children, serious student's of art and Russian's wanting to get a glimpse of the interior (a work of art in itself) and to see the massive collection of fine art on display. I was not able to see the Dega painting "Place de la Concorde". It had been lost four four decades following WWII and it seems as if the Russian's have lost it again......my guide could not find it, nor could anyone else!
Because St. Petersburg is located so far north it enjoys nineteen hours of daylight during late May through late July. Evenings are called "WHITE NIGHTS". We got to experience the White Night first hand returning from an evening performance of Russian music and dance.
Gosh, there is so much to say about St. Petersburg....it did not disappoint me int he least and as a matter of fact it far surpassed what I thought I was going to experience. I was impressed with the effort the government has put into restoring the city and it's historical sites and to preserving their cultural and historic history.

HELSINKI

Our good weather ended when he arrived in Helsinki. Away went the sun glasses and out came the rain wear and umbrellas. Nevertheless, we enjoyed a busy day (again using public transportation) seeing the sites in downtown Helsinki.
When my sister-in-law was living in Moscow a trip "out" of the USSR often was to Helsinki and here she (and sometimes Bob and the kids,if the were with her) could enjoy the freedom of being in the "west". She always had a long, long shopping list and headed to Stockmam's Department Store. I too went to Stockman's, not to purchase anything but to see this place that Liz had often talked about.

STOCKHOLM

In 1962, Susie and I were in Stockholm with our parent's and younger sister, Vicki. One of the memories Susie and I both had of Stockholm was our Father buying us our first pair of wooden Swedish clogs. For whatever reason, all three of us had blisters and complained that we couldn't walk in our shoes. Perhaps our complaining was a planned conspiracy; I know we all wanted a pair and Daddy was our "soft touch". Both of us also remembered going to see the movie THE WINDJAMMER because it was raining so hard (again the three of us were probably complaining!).
I remembered the King's Palace and Gamla Stan (the Old City, the bridges and islands (Stockholm is often called the Venice of the North). What I didn't remember, or what this sixteen year was in incapable of appreciating , was how pretty Stockholm is. It dates back to 1250 and the Stockholm archipelago consist of fourteen islands. The city is made up of 30% parks and green space, 30% city (commercial and residential) and 40% waterways. It clean, friendly, modern yet old, energetic and expensive!