Saturday 19 July

Goodbye Latvia & hello Lithuania. Today was long with over 450 kms covered & several sights visited. We left our hotel at 8.30 & drove 1 1/2 hours to the Latvian countryside to visit Rundale Palace which in many ways was a smaller version of the Catherine Palace in St Petersburg. We had a guided tour through the palace which was built by a German Grand Duke who also had 6 other similar palaces.

The palace is still being painstakingly restored after suffering considerable damage during the war & during the Soviet era. The Russian communists never had any appreciation for beautiful interior or exterior design. We continually see grey plain buildings especially blocks of flats throughout these formerly Soviet countries.

Another 1 1/2 hours driving & into Lithuania. Next stop was the Hill of Crosses which was started as a memorial with 3 crosses over 200 years ago & over the intervening years thousands of crosses have been added by people visiting the area. Pope John Paul visited this spot in 1993 & held a mass there.

We had lunch & then drove a couple more hours to an old town of Kaunas & had a walk around. By 7.15 we arrived at our hotel which is set in a lovely spot in the middle of the old city. After a lovely dinner all together, we (Jan & Bob) did a short walk from the hotel enjoying the warm light summer evening.

Friday 18 July

Riga is the capital of Latvia & is a bigger city than Tallinn. We started the day with a drive around the city followed by 21/2 hours walking through the old city led by a local guide. We have learnt a lot about the Soviet times & it is amazing how much development has happened in the last 23 years since freedom came to the Baltic States. Riga is a UNESCO World Heritage city because of it's many Art Nouveau buildings - from late 19 to early 20th century. We saw many of these buildings as well as some dating back centuries before. 

After this we were driven 30 minutes to the seaside resort town of Jurmala where we had lunch in a very nice restaurant - a standard meal of beef a few veggies & lots of boiled potatoes, followed by ice cream. There were about 5 tables with young Russian men at them, then during the course of our meal they started singing - still sitting - and in fact sang about 4 songs. I hope they got to eat their lunch. Apparently this happens quite a bit during the Choir festival. We have seen lots of young people from all over the world here, mostly in choir groups. 

We walked along Jurmala beach which was full of people swimming & sunbathing & not an umbrella or shade in sight! This resort area is very popular with wealthy people including those from Russia & we passed some lovely homes.

Back to Riga, we had a free evening so we had a light dinner in a outdoor restaurant then went to an organ recital in a cathedral in the old city & walked back to our hotel in the warm sun at 8.30.

Thursday 17 July

Another day & another country! Latvia. But first we drove through the Estonian countryside for a couple of hours then reached the seaside resort town of Paernu which I had been looking forward to seeing. It was in Paernu County that my grandfather grew up & where his parents were peasant farmers. We stopped there for awhile & walked down to the beach. It was quite popular with beach volleyball games going on & people swimming & sunbathing. There was also children's play equipment on the beach as well. It had nice wide sand but a cool breeze but the locals didn't mind. It was nice to be in grandad's town about 100 years after he left! 

Next we travelled on to Latvia with a no hassle border crossing &went to a restaurant situated in a national park for lunch. This was in the most pleasant setting & the 7 of us had an interesting discussion comparing the different electoral & legal systems of Brazil, USA & Australia. Our Brazillian friend (a legal prosecutor & his wife a lawyer) made it clear their elections were rigged which he didn't like at all. He had & his family - 5 people- had voted for a particular candidate & after the elections, this candidate was said to have had zero votes! 

After lunch we visited 2 medieval castles either side of a river & also walked through an interesting sculpture garden. This was a quite hilly setting which is unusual in the flat Baltics. 

Sometime after 6pm we arrived at our hotel in Riga. Riga is currently the location of the Choir Olympics held every 4 years bringing choirs from all over the world. The city is abuzz with singing in all kinds of open air arenas. Our hotel is full of visiting choirs. For dinner the 2 of us walked through the old city & found a lovely place to eat in the main city square.

Wednesday 16 July

Today was spent getting to know the city of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Our local guide was a young man called Eero & he was very informative. He has no love for Russia as Estonia was under Russian rule for 200 years then free from 1918 to 1940 when the Germans invaded Estonia then they were returned to Russia & were part of the Soviet Union until 1991. They are now rejoicing in their freedom & Estonian nationalism. We did a tour of various parts of Tallinn in our mini bus then went to the old city where we saw buildings & churches dating back to the 12th century. The churches had originally been Orthodox & so very ornate but following Martin Luther there was a full scale change to Lutheran. Ornate decorations & icons were removed & churches whitewashed & made simpler. My grandad's family were Lutheran but changed to Orthodox. Our guide said this was very common among Estonian peasants in the 19th century as they were told that if they became Orthodox they would be given land by the Russian occupiers, but the land they were given was in Siberia! 

During some free time in Tallinn we found a glass blower (Eero had mentioned one & my ears pricked up) & so bought our momento piece of Estonian glass. It is great to buy from a local. Now we were ready for lunch but where to go revolves around who might make the best coffee & we found just the place - a bit hipster (Eero's word) but great coffee & lovely salads. 

Back with our tour group we travelled out of Tallinn to the Ethnolographical Parkmuseum where a peasant village from 19th century had been set up using original buildings which had been transported to this site. This actually gave us a great example of the type of life grandad & his parents would have had as they were peasant farmers - have included some pictures.

In the evening we all went back into the old town for dinner & learnt more about our fellow travellers.

Tuesday 15 July

Today we left the boat at 9.00am and boarded a bus for Estonia - just 7 of us on this tour in a small bus & with our own tour guide. Our group consist of 3 Americans, 2 Brazilians (who partly left the country to avoid the Soccer World Cup) & ourselves with a Lithuanian tour guide. Before midday we had lunch at the Russian border. And then took about 1.5 hours to negotiate customs at the Russian and Estonian border checkpoints. After entering Estonia we had another lunch! Perhaps the tour people thought the Russians had not fed us well enough!! Anyway, the 2 1/2 hour drive to Tallinn along a major highway financed by the EU was fairly uneventful, but it was evident that the country of Estonia was more advanced than Russia in the rural areas.  English is widely spoken & many signs are in English.

During dinner we heard of the Metro crash in Moscow and were grateful we had left 10 days ago as we had spent time riding the Metro. We went for a walk in the Old Town area of Tallinn tonight after dinner and we have included some pictures.

Monday 14 July

Our last day of the tour in Russia, forecast rain but instead was beautiful sunshine & 30degrees - the rain finally came as we sat down to our final on board dinner! This was another full day with a lot of walking. Firstly we went to The Catherine Palace built in the 18th century originally designed by Italian Architect Batolomeo Rastrelli then changed & considerably enlarged by Catherine the Great using designs by a Scottish Architect - Charles Cameron, so he toned down some of the Italian Baroque style. The palace is set in 500 acres with numerous out buildings for a variety of uses. The Germans actually occupied this palace in the war as it is set some distance from St Petersburg & it was very badly damaged by them as well as having many masterpieces stolen. The Russian government is trying to restore this & many other palaces that were left to decay during the Communist era. Seeing the extraordinary wealth of the Russian royals & nobility, it's not hard to understand why the common people finally had enough & the revolution occurred - a bit like the French Revolution. In fact the Russians royalty were greatly influenced by the French aristocracy as we saw in the afternoon. 

We moved on to Peterhof - Peter the Great's summer Palace where he entertained European royalty. Peter so admired the gardens of Versailles with it's many fountains that he had his 250 acres made into elaborate gardens with 187 fountains & many gold statues. This was quite stunning to see in the beautiful sunshine & quite amazing as no pumps were used for the fountains, just gravity. There were also some trick fountains he planned that were likely to squirt you when you weren't looking. We saw little children jumping on large prebbles then suddenly fountains would squirt up & soak them causing squeals of delight. 

Finally after a brilliant day we arrived back at the ship for our final dinner, saying goodbyes to new friends & packing to leave tomorrow.

Sunday 13 July

Our second day in St Petersburg saw another early start leaving for the Hermitage Museum. The Hermitage was formerly a Palace of Catherine the Great and now is a world famous gallery housing so many items it would take 7 years to see them all if you stood for one minute in front of each one! Even though our tour group had a set entry time, many other large tour groups also had similar a time & our guide was very surprised at the length of the queue to get in. Once inside the masses of people made movement through the gallery slow, however we did many to see 2 paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, a Michaelangelo sculpture, a number of Rembrandts & Raphaels & various others. We also saw a magnificent gold peacock clock that spreads it's tail feathers on the hour. However, it is only wound up once a week to perform. There are many stories about the art works to do with them being hidden during WW11 to protect them. However, some pieces have never been found & although the Germans never occupied St Petersburg, they got close & certainly ransacked some outer palaces & took valuable items. (We will have to watch Monuments Men again!). We did love the Hermitage but our time there was too short & we feel that St Petersburg in General requires another visit!!

After lunch we went on a tour of Yusupov Palace where a plot was hatched & fulfilled to murder the "mad monk" Rasputin who had undue influence on the royal family. This happened in 1916 & within 12 months the Tsar, his wife & 5 children were murdered. This was the beginning of the Bolshevic revolution.

Another sumptuous dinner (photos included) on the ship followed the Captain's farewell cocktail party & we had a lovely evening with new found friends.