Thursday, May 10- at 6:15am the sun shone brightly as we walked around the upper deck. We were in Sweden, making our way through the archipelago towards the port in Stockholm. I’d never been to Sweden but it felt like I was passing cottages in the Muskokas; the rock formations, the islands, the trees and the buildings were so familiar. The ship docked at 8am. We quickly disembarked and …
We took the shuttle bus from the port and were dropped off in central Helsinki. We walked down the tree-lined Esplanade Avenue to the docks of Market Square. From the docks we boarded a small ferry headed to the Suomenlinna Sea Fortress. I now know why there are so many Finnish people in Northern Ontario. Here I was in Helsinki, Finland but it could easily have been a sunny …
Blessed with another sunny day in St. Petersburg, we boarded the tour minibus at 7:45am and headed to the river for a boat tour. The canals we saw were lined with beautiful palaces and often crossed by ornate bridges. The boat let us off at Catherine the Great’s Hermitage, which houses one of the world’s greatest collections of art; DiVinci, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Raphael and Botticelli to name a few. The …
Russia! It took awhile to exit the ship because of the incredibly strict border security. We had pre-booked our two day St. Petersburg tour in Canada and met our guides at the port. There were fifteen people in our group. Maria, our guide, and Alexi, our driver, were delighted because it was a bright sunny day. Maria informed us that usually they get about fifty sunny days a year …