Northern European Adventure

Here's the post I know that you have all been waiting for! Well, you are in for a treat (or a bore, depending on how you look at it)

Allen and I went on a trip without Saha from May 24-Jun 3^rd. We covered 5 countries and had a great time. My mom came for 2 weeks and stayed with Saha, and they both had a blast. I’ll do a post on their time together after this one on our trip.

We were able to do the trip with backpacks, so it made all the travelling much easier. Below is a day by day recap. I was going to scatter some pics in, but there are just too many and this post is way overdue. You can click here to view the web album. All the pictures have captions. Don't worry, I did whittle it down from 1117 pics to only posting 313 online!

Friday – Iceland

We took an overnight flight to Iceland. We arrived at 6:30 am, got our rental car and drove south, away from the airport and Reykjavik. We went along the coast, saw various geothermal mud springs, some awesome cliffs and more of the natural beauty of Iceland. 

We made our way to the Blue Lagoon Spa, and got there just a little before opening time, around 10 am. We spent a couple hours lounging around in the geothermal baths, got a lava scrub and an algae scrub, had a drink, a snack and then continued on our way to Reykjavik.

Because Iceland is so far north, it was daylight the whole time that we were awake, and it was also cloudy, so it was a bit disconcerting. We walked around the town, taking in the neighborhoods, and then made our way to the main church. We went up the tower to take in views of Reykjavik.

We had probably the best meal of our whole trip that night. After looking over at least 10 different menus, we settled on a tapas place, because they had a set menu of Icelandic fare. We ended up having puffin, minke whale, lamb, beef, scallops, salmon, and some veggies. It was a great dinner.

Saturday – Helsinki

We had to wake up quite early the next morning, as our flight to Helsinki was at 7:30. The flight itself was pretty uneventful. We arrived in Helsinki around 2 pm, and had a little trouble finding out hotel. Part of it was because I had forgotten our folder of the print outs of all our hotel/travel stuff in a different suitcase, since I switched to the backpack at the last minute the night before we left (no worries, this hotel had a printer and computer for guest use and we were able to print out everything again, phew!). After settling in, we went in search of food, since we hadn’t really had any food since breakfast in the airport. We found a nice café along a main pedestrian mall and had a light dinner while people watching. From there, we took a ride on the beer tram, which took you around town and had beer for sale. We then walked around town some more before making our way back to the hotel around 9:30. There was still plenty of daylight left, but we were beat.

The good and bad thing about each place that we stayed was that there was free wifi (along with all over the towns, in cafes and even on the newer trams in Helsinki!). We were able to Skype with mom and Saha every evening and we even skyped with Allen’s parents a few times, too. It actually came in handy having the internet so readily available, just to find restaurants, figure out where things were, hours for museums, etc.

Sunday – Helsinki and Tallinn

The next day we had most of the day in Helsinki. We took the ferry over to Suomenlinna Island, which was a military outpost for a long time, under every different regime that controlled Finland throughout history.

After that, we visited the three main churches in Helsinki, the Uspenski Cathedral (Russian Orthodox), the Lutheran Cathedral, and the Cathedral in the Rock (also Lutheran). Generally, in this part of the world, we found that the historic churches were either Russian Orthodox (from that period of control/occupation) or Lutheran (from the time of German control/occupation). We arrived at the Cathedral in the Rock a few minutes before it was set to open (it had been closed for an event) and because it is a big tourist draw, there were a lot of people waiting outside, and most seemed to be with tour groups. This area also had a lot of cruise ship day-trippers, of the gray-haired. There were some very rude people who started knocking on the door when it wasn’t opened precisely at the time stated on the sign. When we did get in, we discovered that the church had been closed for a baptism. Heaven forbid that a church is closed to tourists to perform something that is part of its main purpose!

After the church excursions, we made our way to the ferry terminal, where we had dropped off our bags in the morning before going to Suomenlinna. The ferry wasn’t very full and it was a pretty short trip, only an hour and a half. On the ferry, we met another American couple who were from St. Louis. We ended up chatting with them for the ride over.

In Tallinn, our hotel was about a 10 minute walk from the ferry terminal. We checked in and then started walking through town, to explore and also to find some dinner. We discovered that a performing arts festival was just wrapping up, but another festival was about to begin. It seems that this time of year is festival time in Tallinn. We had dinner in one of the restaurants in the main square and, surprise, surprise, we were able to get wifi and actually Skype with Allen’s parents from the restaurant. Allen started calling it “communist wifi” and then corrected that to “socialist wifi.” It started cooling off drastically during dinner, so we went back to the hotel to change into some warmer clothes and then went in search of somewhere to have a drink. After walking around for a while, and even trying to find that last outdoor film screening from the festival (and being unsuccessful) we turned in around 12:30 am, and it was actually almost dark!

Monday – Tallinn

Because we had such a late night, we ended up sleeping in until about 8:30, but that meant that we didn’t beat all the cruise ship day-trippers to the main attractions, so by the time we got to the upper part of the old city to visit the churches, it was mobbed with people. The first church was the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (guess the religion!) We weren’t allowed to photograph inside, so you’ll have to be content with my exterior shots only. The interior was very ornate, similar to the other Orthodox churches that we saw on the trip. There was some restoration work going on at one side of the church, and I was able to talk to one of the workers and he told me that they were having problems with water, from a roof leak that had been fixed 10 years ago, but that there was still water in the wall causing on-going damage. I don’t think that water can really stay in a wall for that long, but maybe in this case it can. They were repairing plaster and frescos on the arched surfaces.

The next church was the Cathedral of St. Mary the Virgin (Lutheran). Again, no photos allowed inside but it was very different from the Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. The walls were plain white but then covered with elaborate painted wooded crests. The pews were wood and ornately carved.

We then headed to the lookout over the city, which had a great view across old town Tallinn to the ferry port.

From there we headed back toward our hotel to visit St. Olaf’s church. Most of the church towers that he have seen along the way are accessible, so we climbed this one. It was windy, uneven stone steps, and at the top was a catwalk-type structure that Allen did not like at all. We didn’t spend much time up there! 

Next came the adventure to do laundry. We hadn’t seen a single Laundromat anywhere along our trip, but we were coming to the end of the 5 days of clothes each that we had brought. Allen was able to do some online research and found a laundry service nearby. It was only 2 euro/kg, which wasn’t too bad at all. From there, we decided to do some tram exploring, to see the locals only parts of Tallinn. We took a tram out towards Kadriorg Park, where a lot of the museums are. Most are closed on Mondays, which is why we didn’t have any on our itinerary for the day. We had a nice late lunch and then took the tram back into old town and wandered around some more, through some art galleries and did some souvenir shopping.

From there we climbed up one of the city wall towers and were able to walk along the top of the city wall. After St. Olaf’s, Allen’s fear of heights (which we both can’t figure out when it hits and when it doesn’t) reared it’s head again, so we walked down and back, and then came down. I love being up high, so I wanted to spend more time up there!

Dinner was at a place called “Brewery.” They had some traditional fare which we decided to try, which included fried pig ears and dried fish. The pig ears we just weird, they had a strange texture. and the dried fish was NASTY. It was bitter and hard to eat and just not good at all, but hey, at least we tried it. The waitress laughed when we asked her how to eat it and another waitress gave me a very concerned look when she saw the look on my face when I tried it, yes, that bad, really. Don’t ever eat it, ever. On the upside, we got this deep fried garlic bread that was really good and these deep fried cheese/chocolate/sesame balls that were also very good, plus beer, so we didn’t leave hungry, even though we really only ate half the food we ordered.

After dinner, we walked back to the area we had visited earlier, where we had gone to some art galleries. There was a café called “Chocolate and Coffee” and we had a dessert and a beverage and just relaxed. It was a very eclectic place, with all sorts of random furniture, lighting, etc. Reminded me a bit of this place in the West Village that Allen and I used to go to, a coffeeshop called “The Factory” which also had a mishmash of furniture. This place though, was darker and more random, like an out of the way antique shop that time forgot.

Tuesday – Tallinn and Riga

After breakfast, we headed back up to the lookout above the city, and very few people where there (it was still early for the cruise ship tours) so we were able to take in the views a little better. Then we decided to just head out back toward Kadriorg park, since we had plans to visit the Kumu Art Museum (national museum). We stopped at a café and had a snack in the park, where a couple of ravens were trying to get our food! They really came very close, as in, the chair across the table from me. We spent a few hours at the museum, mostly going through the sculpture and modern art exhibits. From there, we headed back to old town, stopped at a grocery store to get some food for lunch, picked up our laundry, and then had lunch in the park behind our hotel. We made our way to the bus station, for our train to Riga. We had found the station the day before, so it wasn’t too hard to find it this time. We got there and were having trouble finding the right gate. I overheard a couple of people talking to someone who works at the station, and he said something about this being the local bus station only and that international buses left from another station. Commence freak out time, because by this time it was about 15 minutes before our bus to Riga was suppose to leave. Luckily, he helped us out of the station and to a tram, but we decided that we had just enough euros to take a cab, so we hopped in a cab and made it to the other station and on our bus with less than 5 minutes to spare! What’s a European trip without some kind of travel-related adventure?!

Bus ride to Riga was uneventful, and yes, the bus had wifi, too. The landscapes that we drove through were pretty non-descript - forests, fields of crops, etc, similar to what you would drive through in Virginia. The clouds started coming in as we got closer to Riga and it started sprinkling, turning into more of a full rain by the time the bus arrived. We mad sprinted into the station to gear up for the rain and then made the 10 minute walk to the hotel. This hotel room was quite spacious and had a nice deep tub, the first tub in any hotel of the trip so far. We walked toward the central squares (our hotel was in the old part of the city) and found a restaurant for dinner. We had a nice dinner, beer, and there was even live music.

Wednesday – Riga

Today was a very busy day. Everything may be not recorded in the right order (at the end of the day, when I made a quick list of everything, both of us had a hard time remembering the exact order of events!) but it’s all here.

First we went to the Riga Dom, the main cathedral. It is completely covered in scaffolding and is undergoing major restoration inside and out, including a new roof, restored stained glass, and a restored organ. From there, we went to St. Jacob’s Cathedral, which is the Catholic archbishop’s seat of Riga. It has started raining by this point, but not too hard so we made out way to the Art Nouveau district of Riga, which was outside of the historic center, on the other side of a park belt. On the way, we stopped at the Architecture Museum, which is really just one room in a 17^th century house. The building is part of three houses called “Three Brothers,” which combined are the oldest complex of dwellings in Riga.

The Art Nouveau district has some pretty fantastic houses. I would have loved to take some photos to montage together into streetscapes but it was raining and unfortunately cameras and rain aren’t the best playmates.

We then made our way to the Orthodox Cathedral, again no pictures allowed inside. It has the same highly decorative interiors.  It has stopped raining by this point, so we walked through the park a bit and then over to the Opera House to see if we could get tickets for the ballet for that night. Unfortunately, they were sold out for the next few days.

From there we walked over to the main market, which was a bunch of huge buildings that were re-purposed zeppelin hangars – large arched truss spaces, with stands similar to Eastern Market. Each one seemed to have a different theme, meat, veggies, cheese/bread, housewares, fish. We got some delicious fresh donuts and had lunch at a little traditional lunch-counter type place. Along with the covered market, there were also outdoor stands selling fruits and vegetables, and little permanent huts selling everything else that you could possibly want. Strawberries were in season and it pretty much every stand was selling them. I did end up getting some the next day to take on the ferry and they were awesome.

We paid a visit to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, which was really interesting but we only had about 45 minutes because they were closing for a special event. We also stopped at the tourist office and bought tickets for a organ concert that night at the Dome Cathedral. Right next to the Occupation museum, is the House of the Blackheads, which was a guild house starting in the 14^th century. It was heavily damaged during WWII and then completely demolished afterward. In 1999, it was rebuilt almost exactly, the largest major reconstruction in Riga.

From there we went up the requisite tower, this time it was an elevator to the top of St. Peter’s Church, to get our views of the city. I love how all the cities have tall tower that are accessible to the public. St. John’s church was next. It was interesting because the alter side was completely different from the nave side in terms of the ornamentation.

After a little nap back at the hotel, we had a coffee and snack in the Baltic equivalent of a Cosi/Starbucks called “Double Coffee.” The food menu was pretty extensive. We did some souvenir shopping on our way over to the Dome Cathedral for the organ concert. Now, I usually don’t get tickets to non-rock concerts because I have a hard time staying awake when there’s nothing to watch. In a church it’s even worse because the organ is behind you, so you want to face it, but that would be weird to have your back to the altar. This church also didn’t have much in the way of artwork to look at, so I did some sketching to help keep me alert. I was surprised at how many younger people were there, like under the age of 12, and I was especially impressed with this boy in the row in front of us who lasted pretty much until the lst 15 minutes or so, when he and his mom left early. The concert turned out to be the final concert for a woman who was getting her degree in the organ, she looked to be about our age.

From there, we went to get “garlic-i-fied” as in we went to a restaurant where 95% of the menu had garlic in it. Allen even had a garlic beer, which was surprisingly tasty. I think that we each had at least 1 ½ heads of garlic each, if not more, in various forms.

Thursday – Riga

Slept in a little and then walked over to the City Museum. It had a wide variety of exhibits, from prehistoric time all the way to the modern, with some very ornate sculptures from silver.

We stopped for lunch in the Dome Cathedral Square. The weather was great and we were able to sit outside. From there, we went on a quest to find the Modern Art Museum. We found where it was suppose to be and a building with a sign on the side that looked like it was the Modern Art Museum, but we couldn’t actually find any galleries, so we gave up and went back to the market to pick up some food for the ferry ride to Stockholm that evening.

On the way back to the old town, we stopped to try a Hesburger, which is kind of the Eastern European equivalent of McDonalds, and it was about that good. We were probably the oldest people in the joint by over 10 years (except for the grandma with her grandson).

We had our first adventure with a post office. They really like the “take a number” system in this part of the world, but they aren’t always so clear that you need to do that. At the post office, there was a fancy “take a number” machine that had to take a number based on what you were there for. Well, we needed stamps and we needed bus tickets, so we just picked one. Luckily, when our number came up, we didn’t have any trouble getting what we needed.

We went back to the hotel to pick up our bags and then made our way to the ferry terminal. It was also the “pick a number” system, but we didn’t realize it until we’d already been standing there for 5 minutes. They really needed to put a huge sign on the wall above the ticket windows in all languages.

The ferry left pretty much on time and we spent the first hour on deck, since we had to sail out of the Duagava River into the Bay of Riga and then across the Baltic to Stockholm. The ferry was quite fancy, pretty much a cruise ship, at a smaller scale. We just hung out on the decks, had some beer and our food that we had bought. The deck on the top level turned into a dance club promptly at 11, which helped us to decide to go to bed. It was all 20 year old girls going crazy, quite amusing.

Friday – Stockholm

We had breakfast in the restaurant at the back of the ship. It was already raining and would continue to rain the entire time that we were in Stockholm (I know that I’ve already told EVERYONE this fact, but I thought I’d add it in one more time!). By the time that we had gotten to breakfast, we were already going through the archipelago. There were amazing houses on these islands and it was interesting to see the variety of architecture. We docked in Stockholm at around 9:30 and started walking toward the T (metro). Allen decided that we should follow this group that looked like they were going that direction (or at least that’s what he thought). We ended up walking through the embassy district and by the time we found a map somewhere, discovered that we had walked way past the T and a different direction. Remember, it was raining, but luckily my backpack comes with a rain cover (picture a really big blue shower cap) and we both had our raincoats, so we were staying pretty dry considering. On the upside, Allen discovered that we were pretty close to the Vasa Museum, so we decided to just go there, figuring that they would have lockers for our stuff, which they did.

The Vasa is a 17^th century wooden warship, that sunk on its maiden voyage, in Stockholm harbor due to a poor design. It was too top heavy and when a breeze hit the sails for the first time, it started to roll, couldn’t right itself, and water poured into the open gunports, sinking the ship. It was discovered in the 1960s and raised, to great pomp and circumstance. Probably 80% of the boat was intact and it sits in a museum specially built for it. We ended up spending a good 4 ½ hours there, going through the various exhibits. By then, it was 3 pm and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and we were a bit tired, so we made our way to our hotel to check in.

We went to a food festival in a park north of the city center, but like most food festivals, it had food from everywhere except the place where it was! This trip we had the hardest time finding local food in each city. We ended up having some sushi from one stand (really good salmon) and a saffron cake thing at another (also delicious) and then went to check out NK, a big department store that is like Harrods. At this point, we were ready for dinner, but after walking around for a while and not finding anything, we took the T back to our hotel’s neighborhood and finally stopped at a kebab place. The food was pretty good and abundant! Had coffee and dessert in another place and then back to the hotel, to use the sauna and then head to bed.

Saturday – Stockholm

First on the list was City Hall. We did the tower climb, to get our requisite city views, and then did the tour of City Hall, our only actual tour of the whole trip.

The main room in the building is called the “Blue Room” but it isn’t actually blue. Here’s the story. It was designed to be painted blue, and during that 10 years that the building took to construct, it became known as the blue room. Near the end of construction, the architect came to observe the progress, like the brickwork so much, that he decided not to paint it after all but by then the name had stuck, and so to this day it’s still called the Blue Room. This is where the Nobel Prize banquet is held every year. We also walked through the Council Chamber of Stockholm, which had a roof that looked like an upside down ship’s belly. The building was designed with a modern HVAC system but the architect didn’t want radiators because they looked too “modern” so there are just random large holes in the wall in various places. Another large room is covered in gold glass tile mosaic. An interesting fact is that during the Nobel Prize dinner, the Royal Family of Sweden is served dinner first and then everyone else is served within three minutes! Just imagine how many servers you need for that!!

From there we made our way to the Stockholm Public Library, designed by Gunnar Asplund. It’s a pretty amazing space.

Then we went to the National Museum and went through their design permanent collection, which was pretty extensive. We also went through an exhibit called “Slow Art” which was all about art that takes a long time to make.

We rounded out our museum day with a visit to the Architecture Museum and the Moderna Museum. The Architecture Museum had one side that was a strange exhibit that was too haphazard for my liking. It was a bunch of random things from the permanent collect loosely around the theme of consumerism, but I thought that it wasn’t done very well. The other half of the Architecture Museum had an exhibit on the history of architecture in Sweden from the beginning of human settlement. It was quite extensive with models and lots of text. The Moderna side had a lot of modern art that I don’t really like. It was a lot of stuff that I don’t consider art, but that’s just my opinion. The one surprise was that as we were walking down the hall, Allen sees three people walking past and says to me “That’s Yoko Ono.” Well, she did have an exhibit opening there in just a couple days. After all that time living in NYC, I had to travel all the way to Stockholm to see her.

From there, we just barely made a boat tour around the main island in Stockholm, but it was still raining, so we could kind of see out the window, but mostly listened to the audio tour that went along with it.

Then it was time to find dinner, as we had only snacked on dried fruit and nuts since breakfast. We walked around a bit and finally found a place that had some more traditional Swedish fare. After dinner, back to the hotel, Skype with Saha and mom, a little sauna time, a nightcap in the restaurant bar, and then to bed.

Sunday – Flight home

Woke up at 7 to have breakfast and then made our way to the train station to catch a train to the airport. We got there quite early, did some non-liquid duty free shopping, had second breakfast, and then boarded our flight home, which was through Reykjavik. The flight was pretty uneventful. Got some duty-free alcohol to bring home at the Reykjavik airport and then had lunch while we waited to board.

That’s it, I hope you enjoyed my novel of a recap!