Have you noticed the Tumblr pictures and links on this page?  Click on the date link to see our pictures.

At least that’s what I’m calling it for now.  Bryon is posting daily on his blog.

Lots of Buddhas today at the temple of Wat Pho.  We started our gate 1 tour today with 39 people in it.  That just seems like a huge number.  I’m beginning to see the pluses and minuses with taking a tour.  On the plus side you don’t have to think or worry too much about what to do or how to get places.  The air conditioned bus is nice when it’s hot and muggy outside.  The hotels are nicer than I would choose.  On the downside you don’t see as much and get less cultural immersion.

Since our flight back to London departs from Paris, we decided to visit Paris for a couple days before departing the continent. On our first full day in Paris, we visited the Musee de l’Armee (including Napoleon’s Tomb) before embarking on a nighttime bike tour. On the tour, I was tasked with being the trailing member of our bike team and to wear a reflective yellow jacket. Our tourmates referred to me as “our intrepid derrierre”.

On our last day in Paris, I woke up not feeling very well. We abandoned our plans to visit Versailles and instead ate a nice long lunch near Gare du Nord. We stopped by the Grande Epicerie de Paris and picked up some food for our friends and family back in the States.

After disembarking the ship and dropping off our bags, we visited the Thorvaldsen Museum, which contains an interesting collection of statues and modern art. Next, we visited Christiansborg Palace, where the queen receives guests, and Rosenborg Palace, where the Danish crown jewels are stored. After that, we took the Rick Steves’s walking tour through Copenhagen. Exhausted, we headed back to the hotel (Wake Up Copenhagen) where the desk clerk was surprised that we were repeat customers (who would want to stay here twice?).
The next day, we ate lunch at a relatively affordable vegetarian buffet called Riz Raz. The eggplant salad was quite delicious. And then we headed off to Paris.

In my opinion, Stockholm is the nicest capital city in Scandinavia. Stockholm consists of a collection of islands (archipelago). There was a convenient and affordable priced hop on hop off boat connecting many of the islands of interest to tourists (much better than a HOHO bus).

We started by wandering around the old town, admiring the narrow cobblestone streets and old churches. Next, we visited the Vasa Museum which contains the almost complete remains of the doomed warship Vasa which sunk 20-50 minutes into its journey from Stockholm to Poland. Because of the muddy floor of Stockholm Harbor, the ship was preserved for hundreds of years before it was salvaged and restored in the 20th century.

Since we left the Star late and it was departing early, we rushed back to the ship to head back to Copenhagen.

The Star’s next stop was Helsinki, Finland. It was raining when we got off the ship. Usually, we would have walked into town, but because of the rain, we took the Hop On Hop Off bus into town. After circling the city, we got off and took Rick Steves’s walking tour from the Harbor to the Church in the Rock, stopping by at the Stockmann’s department store to eat a sandwich. The Church in the Rock is about what it sounds like, a church built into an outcropping of rock.

(I don’t like HOHO buses and this was no exception. They are overpriced and come around too infrequently to be a good transit option)

On the ship, we signed up for the Chef’s Table, a once-per-cruise multi-course gastronomical delight for 14 passengers. This Chef’s Table was similar to the Holland America version with a few differences. There were fewer wine pairings (only 3) and the executive chef actually came to the table to talk to us. The following morning, the chef led us on an extensive galley tour where we saw many of the food production and storage areas. The galley tour was a highlight of the cruise and definitely justified the Chef’s Table’s hefty price tag.

Because of the quagmire that is the Russian tourist visa system for Americans, we took an overpriced but worthwhile two day guided bus tour around St. Petersburg. As the bus left the port, I was greeted by the communist-era concrete apartment complexes that I was expecting in Estonia. According to our tour guide, these now rent for top dollar.

The whirlwind tour took us to many of the major tourist sights of St. Petersburg. The first stop was the Hermitage museum. Because of all the tour groups, it was super crowded in the museum and we spent most of the time rushing from room to room to see a small painting of Di Vinci or a small statue by Michelangelo. We also visited the Church on Spilled Blood, which Valerie was really looking forward to seeing. The rest of the tour was a series of palaces (Catherine’s, Peterhof, Yusupov), boat rides, and hydrofoils. One of the recurring themes on the tour was that most of the historical places were destroyed (either by WWII or communists) and were rebuilt for cultural and touristic purposes. Sadly, due to a lack of funds, most of the reproductions are slightly lacking. For example, the amber room in Catherine’s Palace contains only one piece of amber. The rest are fake.

The Star’s next stop is Tallinn, Estonia. Before embarking on this journey, I didn’t do much research on Estonia and I didn’t know what to expect. Given its proximity to Russia and its former status as a soviet republic, I assumed that there would be a lot of concrete communist-era buildings and cheap prices. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the entire Old Town of Tallinn is a UNESCO world heritage site. Complete with cobblestone roads, city walls, and the among the lowest prices in the Baltic eurozone, Tallinn was a pleasure to visit.

We ate lunch at a medieval themed restaurant called Old Hansa. In a manner similar to a Rennaissance Faire, the waiters dressed up as medieval servants and served some approximation of medieval foods. I had a soup of wild boar and other meats. Valerie had the wild boar plate in gravy with pickles and saurkraut and a “cake” of cheese. We washed it down with a pint of honey beer (similar to mead, but not as good). The overpriced, but tasty meal came with a small complentary glass of schnapps.