London

October 23, 2019

We are happily ensconced in London.  London may well be our favorite city in the world.  Every time we come here we feel like we have come home. Part of that feeling may be the fact that we can actually read and understand the signs and nearly everyone is speaking English. We have an Airbnb apartment just two blocks off of Tottenham Court Road and just two tube stops north of Leicester Square.  Each time we are here we try to stay in a different neighborhood.  On this trip we are staying in the Fitzrovia area of London.  It is a wonderful neighborhood filled with interesting shops and a large selection of restaurants representing a wide range of cuisines.  It goes without saying there are also several wonderful pubs.

Lynda did the planning for London, finding a contemporary art gallery named White Cube. This gallery is located in southeast London south of the Thames River in an area called Bermondsey.  It was a bit of an adventure locating the Gallery but was worth the find.  Contemporary art can occasionally push the envelope of what is truly creative and what is just stuff thrown together.  For example, yesterday there was one “work of art” that looked like the artist had bought 8 black shelving units at IKEA and put them in an interesting geometric shape and called it art.  But that was the exception at the White Cube Gallery.  One stunning work was a globe of the world done as a mobile. It was hung in a 9 foot square room and took up most of the space.  Each of the continents was cut from large pieces of glass.  One needed to walk about the room looking at the mobile from different angles to recognize each continent.  They were cut in straight lines and sharp angled corners but still recognizable. In another room Tim was standing in front of a large ball resting on the floor that appeared to be covered with some sort of fabric that the artist had arranged in an interesting pattern. Tim asked a docent about a nearby sign that warned people with pacemakers that there was a light magnetic field in the room.  The docent told Tim that the ball he was standing next to was actually made up of magnetic plates and what Tim thought was fabric was actually millions of metal filings. This led to a discussion of how long magnetic plates retained their magnetic properties. Tim wondered if some morning they would open the gallery and find all of the fillings laying on the floor.  This was not a particularly large gallery so our stay was short but enjoyable.

Borough Market

Our plan on leaving White Cube Gallery was to somehow make our way back to Borough Market where we would have lunch. The people at the gallery said it was just a short walk and pointed us in the right direction and off we went.  We ended up walking along a street full of art galleries and museums. We spent a few minutes in the gallery of what was said to be the oldest glassblower in London.  The work area where the glass was being blown was open at the back of the gallery so visitors could stop and watch.  There was actually more then one glass artist at work and none of them were particular old. As you know we have  several glass objects de art in our house so we were very interested in the works on display. They were beautiful. Unfortunately, those works that caught our eye were well beyond our budget.

Borough Market is a place we discovered on one of our last trips to London.  It is a combination of shops selling meat, cheese, seafood and produce along with a number of food stalls. We separated briefly agreeing on a place to meet and set off to find lunch.  Lynda ended up with raclette. Raclette is a type of Swiss cheese that melts easily.   A large half round of the cheese is placed under a heating element and the melted cheese is scraped off of the round onto various food items.  In Lynda’s case it was scraped over boiled potatoes.  She had eaten this on our previous visit to Borough Market and she made a bee line to the same food stall on this trip. Tim found a stall selling Argentinian empanadas.  He had two ham and cheese empanadas that were also delicious.

Raclette

Lynda Enjoying Raclette

After a delightful lunch we crossed the Thames and visited the Monument.  That is its name: the Monument.  It is a large column that commemorates the Great London Fire of 1666.  The fire started near the location of the Monument and burned for 4 days destroying much of the city.  The rest of the afternoon was spent in our apartment doing the usual, napping and reading.

In the evening we went back to the Monument area to visit a new skyscraper.  In recent years Londoners have started giving names to new buildings based on their shape. A few years ago a new building was built that had a rounded shape to it. Everyone now refers to it as “the Gherkin”.  Another building across the river from the Gherkin is called “the Shard” because it looks like a broken piece of glass arising out of the ground.  The building we visited is called “the Walkie Talkie”.  When we first saw it we thought it looked like a cell phone but decided Walkie Talkie is more descriptive and more fun. The reason we visited it was because the top floor has several restaurants and bars, a garden and a large viewing area with spectacular views of London.  While we did not eat or drink here, the views were all they were cracked up to be, particularly after dark.  We finished the evening at a local pub eating fish and chips.

Tower of London and London Bridge (still standing)

The Gherkin

St. Paul's Cathedral

October 23, 2019

Today was a fairly leisurely day. We first explored several home goods stores in the area, looking for new duvet covers.  Ended up buying a new serving bowl. Go figure.

Pick and Cheese

After Tim returned the bowl to our apartment, we took the tube to Covent Garden. Years ago Covent Garden was home to a fruit and vegetable market. Now it is a tourist area, home to a plethora of shops, restaurants and street performers. Our destination was a restaurant called “Pick and Cheese”.  It consisted of a long bar with stools. The bar contained a conveyor belt that ran constantly in a circle. On the conveyor belt were small plates of cheese with an accompanying condiment.  Each plate had a glass cover with a number attached.  We were given a menu that explained what type of cheese and condiment each numbered plate contained. The color of the plate indicated the price ranging from 3 pounds to 6 pounds. Once we decided which numbered plate we wanted we waited for it to come by on the conveyor and lifted it off.  When we were done a wait person came by, collected our plates and brought us our bill. We tried two different cheeses, one a gorgonzola, a type of blue cheese, and the other an English variation of a Swiss emmental cheese.  If your entire meal was going to be eaten at the Pick and Cheese it would get pretty expensive in a hurry.  But it was a nice appetizer for a full meal someplace else.

Leaving Covent Garden, it was a short walk to Leicester Square. Last fall when we were here with Jeff, Heather, Cole and Kelsey we discovered a store dedicated to M&M’s in Leicester Square. The store is full of all sorts of products with the M&M logo. Tim even saw golf balls for sale.  In the lower level there are individual dispensers of every type and color of M&M’s produced. Much like going into a donut shop, you get a bag, or bags, and fill them with whatever type or color you would like.  Tim stocked up on green and white M&M’s for upcoming tailgates. After wandering around Leicester Square a bit more we took a bus back to our apartment.  We finished the day with a pub dinner.

Tomorrow morning we will take the tube to the airport for our flight home. As always we find ourselves in the same place mentally.  While we both thoroughly enjoyed this trip, Lynda would be more then happy to prolong it for however long. Tim, on the other hand, is ready to be home.  For those of you who have followed the blog, thanks for being along. We hoped you enjoyed it too.  Here is a heads up. We already have a trip booked in January that includes both Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, Victoria Falls and 6 different safari experiences. We will let you know when we are leaving.

See you in January.

St. Petersburg

October 18, 2019

It is a cold, dank, foggy day in St. Petersburg.  A perfect day to be inside which is good because this morning we tour the Hermitage, the largest art gallery in the world and also one of the most important. The Hermitage today consists of 5 different buildings, all interconnected. The original building of the Hermitage was built by Catherine as her winter palace, her summer palace being in the countryside. Nine years ago we were on an ocean cruise from Dover, England, to Stockholm, Sweden that docked in St. Petersburg for two nights. On that visit to St. Petersburg we visited the Hermitage.  We decided to visit it again on this trip because of the rich treasure trove of art as well as the beauty of the building. We enjoyed our return visit. The building itself was no less stunning then the first time we saw it. While most of the art that we saw was not to our taste,  our lives were enriched by the several Rembrandts and Rubens that we saw.  There was also a hall of statuary that we enjoyed.

The Hermitage

Grand Staircase at The Hermitage

As you can imagine, Russia has many strange laws. One of them requires river boats to dock at a pier that is about five miles away from the city center of St. Petersburg. Depending on traffic, that can be a 25 to 45 minute trip.  We returned to the boat this morning after our visit to the Hermitage and were back on the bus after dinner to return to St. Petersburg for a “Russian Ballet experience.” 

Hermitage Theater

We did not find out until on board our boat that the ballet would take place at the Catherine Theater in the Hermitage and that the ballet we would see was Tchiakovsky’s “Swan Lake."  Needless to say we were thrilled. The theater, seating between 200 and 300 people, was as stunning as the rest of the Hermitage. The music was typical Tchaikovsky: at times bombastic, at other times light and ethereal, interspersed with soul wrenchingly beautiful melodies. The orchestra was somewhere around 30 to 35 pieces and played at a very high standard. The four main dance soloists were excellent, but, to our untrained eye, the corps de ballet did not demonstrate the precision of a top flight ballet company.  The four stars were truly top flight athletes. One look at their bodies, particularly their legs, in their tights, confirmed that.  Like all professional athletes they demonstrated strength and power. However, they also showed amazing balance, grace and fluidity not always shown by top sports figures but always on display with ballet dancers.  We read a synopsis of the ballet before it started, but because there was no dialogue we had to imagine when different parts of the story were taking place. The hero and the villain ended up competing for the fair maiden, in this case, a white swan who turns into a princess.  The last scene of the ballet featured the battle between the hero and villain. Evidently, in a ballet the battle consists of the two combatants leaping at each other until the hero rips something off of the villain who then dies in obvious agony. The hero and maiden then show their love for each other by performing a short dance together that ends with them in positions that are impossible for the human body to perform. Despite this rather tongue-in-check description of the end of the production we thoroughly enjoyed our first experience at the ballet.

Nevsky Prospekt

We did not get back to our cabins aboard ship until almost midnight last night. Nevertheless, we were on the bus Saturday morning at 8:00 for our “up close” tour of St. Petersburg.  It began with the bus taking us on a short ten minute ride to the nearest subway station for our subway ride into St. Petersburg. The city is built on a swamp so it was necessary to tunnel down over 100 meters(yards) in order to safely construct the entire system.  We took the worlds longest escalator, 89 meters long, down to the platform to catch the train. When we first got on the escalator we could not see the end of it. Leaving the train we came out of the station on Nevsky Prospekt, prospekt being a Russian word for avenue. Nevsky Prospekt is the main shopping street of St. Petersburg, much like 5th Avenue in New York or the Miracle Mile in Chicago. The street had an interesting blend of upscale shops, souvenir shops, cafes and food stores as well as McDonalds, KFC and Starbucks. While walking down Nevsky we stopped at a Russian Armenian Church that was interesting because it actually had pews where the people could sit during the worship service.  The other notable fact about the Armenian Church is that it had an altar similar to the altars we find at the front of our churches in the States. Russian Orthodox churches have what is called an iconostasis at the front of the church. An iconostasis is a wall containing icons of religious figures as well as two doors in the middle of the wall that lead to the altar behind the wall. Only the priest can enter through these doors.

Grocery store on Nevsky Prospekt

For the worshipers these doors represent the doors to heaven.

Our Lady of Kazan

Further down Nevsky Prospekt we came to the Church of our Lady of Kazan. Having heard of the wonders of St. Peter’s in Rome, one of the Czars had this church built as a miniature replica of St. Peter’s.  An icon of the Lady of Kazan, who represents the Virgin Mary, is on the iconostasis wall of this church. We witnessed a long line of people waiting to pray before this icon and then touch and kiss the icon hoping for their prayers to be answered. From Our Lady of Kazan we walked beside a canal to the Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood. The church gets its name because it was built on the site of the assassination of Emperor Alexander II.  Because this church is on the tour we are taking on Sunday we did not go inside.  We continued to walk along another of the many canals in St. Petersburg passing several foreign consulates as well as a different side of the Hermitage from what we had seen before. Our walk ended at the St. Isaacs Cathedral, one of the largest Cathedrals in Europe.  It was turned into a museum by the Soviets in 1917 and remains a museum today.   It was fun to walk along the streets of St. Petersburg and watch everyday Russians going about their everyday lives.  We spent the rest of Saturday relaxing and reading on the boat.

Our Lady of Kazan Icon

Church on Spilled Blood

Church on Spilled Blood

Sunday afternoon we took our last tour of the trip as our cruise officially ends tomorrow morning when we disembark the boat.  We have mentioned that St. Petersburg is sometimes called the “Venice of the North” because of all of its canals.  In fact, St. Petersburg has more canals then any other city in Europe. Before getting on a canal boat for our cruise we spent some time inside the Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood. We have been inside this church on a previous trip to St. Petersburg and consider it one of the most beautiful churches in Europe.  The entire interior of the church is decorated in mosaics. We did learn two new facts on this tour.  First, we had noticed previously inside at the back of the church a canopy but did not know that the canopy covered the exact spot where Alexander II was assassinated. There are cobblestones marking the spot.  We also learned why onion domes sit atop most Russian Orthodox Churches.  The onion dome is in the shape of the flame at the top of a candle so that these millions of onions domes throughout Russia represent candles of peace lit for all Russians.

Our canal boat cruise gave us a different view of St. Petersburg. While we saw most of the places we had already visited, seeing them from the water was different. We also cruised by the homes where Tchaikovsky and the famous Russian author, Alexander Pushkin, lived as well as mansions where the Czars and their families lived. We also saw, at a distance, the second largest mosque in Europe. From a distance it looked beautiful and we wished that we had time to visit it. This relaxing cruise was a nice way to end our trip to Russia.

Cruising St. Petersburg's Canals

Monday morning we left the Viking Ingvar at 6:00 a.m. taking the bus to St. Petersburg airport for our flight to London where we will spend three days before flying home on Thursday.  We had a great time on this cruise and are glad we have experienced Russia, despite several of our friends questioning why we would go to Russia given  the governments  behavior, think Vladimir Putin, on the international stage. While Russian politics can never be far from any discussion of all things Russian, we attempted to separate the political from the cultural and enjoyed learning about and experiencing the rich culture of this fascinating country.

Russian Potpourri
October 17, 2019

Many years ago Tim went on a fishing trip with teacher friends.  They fished in the Canadian wilderness several hours north of Sault Ste. Marie.  The picturesque wilds that we have been cruising through remind Tim of that part of Canada.  When we docked on Tuesday it was on one lone pier with just a few small wooden buildings about.  Our guide book told us we were in Kuzino, Russia.  You could have fooled us.  After a 10 minute or so bus ride we arrived in a small village that looked none too prosperous.  This was Kuzino.  Our destination was the local primary/secondary school. The school was constructed in 1974 and did not look that much different from a similarly aged school building in the states.

Kuzino Primary/Secondary School

Kuzino Student

As we gathered in the front lobby of the school a bell rang and students changed classes.  The interaction of the students as they moved from one class to another was very much like what you would see in an American school.  Our tour group was taken to an empty classroom where we were introduced to a 16 year old student of the school. She talked to us briefly about the school and then there followed a question and answer session.  It became obvious that there were not many differences between Russian and American schools. At one point someone asked her what occupation she was looking forward to.  She said that last year she was hoping to become a doctor but now she wanted to become a liar.  After a few moments she said “I’m sorry.  I meant lawyer”, a comment met with loud laughter from our group.  The poor girl was quite embarrassed, probably not totally understanding what she had said.  A few minutes later we were escorted to a small auditorium where we were shown art works and crafts that had been produced by the students.  Some of the craft work was for sale, the proceeds going to the school.  A 12 year girl then sang a Russian folk song and performed a Russian folk dance.  The only disappointment in the visit was when Tim questioned the student about music in the school and found that there were no performing groups. The only music class taught music history.

The other stop in Kuzino was the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.  This monastery was founded in 1397.  Interestingly, the monastery was inside a walled fortress with another wall inside the fortress dividing the fortress into two parts.  The larger of the two parts was actually a military encampment; the smaller part the monastery.  The monastery was our primary point of interest.  At one time the monastery housed 200 monks but now there are only about 60 living in the monastery.  One of the buildings has been converted into a museum where we saw an impressive collection of icons and other religious artifacts. As part of the tour our guide took us outside the back wall of the monastery to show us the lake that bordered the facility.  She seemed very proud of this lake. We didn’t have the heart to tell the guide that, while the lake was very nice, when you live near the Great Lakes this lake was not all that impressive. Of course, as with tourist sites the world over, we exited the monastery through the obligatory gift shop.  When the bus returned us to our boat we discovered the boat had moved a short distance down the river to a different pier. At this dock we had to work our way through a number of booths offering locally produced fur coats, hats and gloves as well as other souvenirs.

The Monastery

Military Encampment at the Monastery

Wednesday our cruise boat left the Volga River and entered Lake Onega, the third largest lake in Europe. During lunch we docked at Kizhi, a small archipelago at the north end of Lake Onega. Settlements were know to exist on Kizhi as early as the 15th century. The island became an important agricultural center and by the 18th century was home to several thousand people.  However, by the end of the 19th the population had dropped significantly as people left the island for the big cities.

Churches and Bell Tower

During the early 18th century two churches were built right next to each other;  The Church of the Intersession of the Virgin Mary and the much larger Transfiguration Church. The smaller church was also called the Winter Church and the larger the Summer Church.  This was due to the fact that the smaller church was easier to heat in the winter.  Both churches are beautiful structures made entirely of wood. The Church of the Intersession  is built completely without nails. By the 1880’s the Transfiguration Church was leaning perilously enough to force its closure. Soon after its closure there were already discussions about renovating the church. By the mid 1900’s it was decided to create an outdoor museum on the island with the two churches and bell tower the centerpiece of the exhibition.  Other similarly designed wooden structures from nearby islands were brought to Kizhi and the Open Air Museum of Architecture was born, eventually becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The large farm house situated near the churches was a prime example of farm life on Kizhi. These houses were large enough to house entire families; grandparents, children and grandchildren. The fertile soil was excellent for barley, wheat and root vegetables. The family hierarchy was male dominated. During the winter the men went off to St. Petersburg and other nearby cities to find jobs for additional income while the women remained on the island caring for the farm and the older women teaching the younger girls how to weave and embroider so the young girls could go about preparing their dowry.

The All Wood Transfiguration Church

Thursday morning we were cruising on the Svir River that connects Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga. If it is even possible the scenery on the Svir River has been more beautiful then earlier scenery. This morning we docked at Mandrogy, Russia.

Mandrogy, Russia

This village was totally destroyed by the Germans during World War II and was literally wiped off the map.  In 1996 an enterprising and wealthy Russian decided to rebuild the village as an open air museum featuring 18th century construction as well as highlighting the traditional arts and crafts of Russia. While there are several hotels and the village tries to encourage Russians to come to the village for a get away weekend, we are sure that the lion’s share of the tourism is from the river boats that stop for a few hours.  Everything in Mandrogy is within easy walking distance of the dock so the cruise offered only optional tours.  We opted for the Matryoshka Painting experience. Matryoshka are the traditional “nesting dolls” that we are sure you have all seen. There was a group of 16 of us who were taken into a room where two large tables with 16 chairs were arranged. In front of each chair was a kit with everything we needed for painting our Matryoshka.  We had a tray with 7 or 8  different water colors to choose from, a selection of different size paint brushes and 3 small matryoshka. Each doll had a design already stenciled on the birch wood dolls.  The three dolls in each kit each had a different design and the designs from kit to kit were different.  We had an hour and a half to do our painting.  The time flew by and we were hard pressed, read Tim was hard pressed, to complete all three dolls in that time span.  Surprisingly, it was a pretty intense 90 minutes but both of us were excited and pleased with our results. When we were finished we still had time to visit the other shops in the village. The quality of the arts and crafts on sale was considerable higher then we had seen at our previous stops.

Tim & Lynda Painting their Dolls

Our Final Matryoshka Dolls
(Any guesses who painted the Green & White ones?)

Soon we will be entering Lake Ladoga, the largest lake in Europe and the second largest lake in Russia. Think about that for a while! Once we have crossed Lake Ladoga we will enter the Neva River leading to our final port of call, St. Petersburg.  We have a full weekend of activities scheduled in St. Petersburg so check back in a couple of days to vicariously enjoy our experiences in this wonderful city.

Uglich and Yaroslavl

October 14, 2019

Happy Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day.

Ever since we have arrived in Russia the weather has felt like the middle, late November back home.  It has been windy, rainy and generally damp with temperatures in the low to mid 40’s. We are probably missing Indian Summer in Michigan.

To refresh your memory, on Saturday we left Moscow cruising through the Moscow Canal.  We passed through a series of 7 different locks before sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning  entering the Volga River.  Our Russian guides have told us that the Volga is the longest river in Europe.  They may very well be right but given how they have told us how everything Russia does is better than anyone else, there is reason to have a bit of doubt over that claim.

On Sunday our first port of call on the Volga River was Uglich, a town of 35,000 people. The first destination on our tour was the Kremlin of Uglich.  Unlike the Kremlin in Moscow, the Kremlin in Uglich did not have walls surrounding it anylonger. On the grounds of the Kremlin were two churches, the Transfiguration Cathedral and the Church of St. Dymitry. 

Church of St. Dymitry

The Church of St. Dymitry was named after Dymitry II, the son of Ivan the Terrible.  He died when he was 10 years old when he had an epileptic seizure while holding a knife resulting in him stabbing himself to death.  There is serious doubt about this legend with the prevailing opinion being that he was murdered. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the Transfiguration Cathedral. While in the Kremlin we also went into another building where we heard a quartet of men sing two Russian folk songs. They were accompanied by balalaika and  bass balalaika players. As with the concert we attended in Russia, the playing and singing were outstanding.  Tim could have listened to more.   Unfortunately, the two songs were a tease to get us to buy one of their CD’s.

From the Kremlin we boarded buses, 15 passengers to a bus, each bus taking us to a different home for a home visit with a real Russian.  Our hostess was a divorced women who served us sandwiches made with homemade pickles and locally produced goat cheese, and homemade vodka that our guide as well as the hostess called moonshine.  Nadia's house was a lovely one bedroom home with a living/dining room, kitchen, and bedroom/bathroom.  The house was surrounded by a garden where she grew her own vegetables and also contained a green house where she raised her own roses and other bedding plants.  We spent a delightful hour with our hostess.  She told us about her family and each of us talked briefly about ours. She also showed us the beautiful dolls and aprons she sewed and gave us the opportunity to purchase them.

Lynda & our Russian host, Nadia

This morning we docked in Yaroslavl, a city of 650,000 situated at the confluence of the Volga and Kotorosl Rivers. Here we took a walking tour that our cruise director called an “ABC tour”, Another Bloody Cathedral tour.  For a country whose Soviet government for over three quarters of a century attempted to suppress organized religion, Russia has an amazing number of churches.  After walking along a beautiful promenade along the Volga River, we visited the Cathedral of the Assumption. 

Cathedral of the Assumption

This church was destroyed 4 times, the first three by fire and the fourth by the Soviet government in 1930. A wealthy Russian businessman paid over 130 million rubles to have the cathedral rebuilt in time for the 1000 year anniversary of Yaroslavl in 2010.  The interior was beautiful but there was a service being conducted when we visited so we were unable to take pictures.  Like all Russian Orthodox churches, there were no chairs or pews with the parishioners standing for the entire service. There are also no organs in the Russian Orthodox churches.  All singing is done a cappella.

Church of Elijah the Prophet

Altar at Church of Elijah the Prophet

From the Cathedral we walked through a lovely park arriving at the main city square.  Here stood the Church of Elijah the Prophet. In the 1930’s the local communist party leader called for the destruction of the church.  Fortunately, before this occurred a new communist leader rescinded the order. Three of the interior walls of the church were vibrant frescoes painted in the 1700’s. The artist mixed the paint with egg yolks and fish glue made up of crushed bones from the fish so that the frescoes retained their original colors. The front alter, carved from Linden and Birch trees contained many beautiful icons framed in gold. After leaving the Church of Elijah the Prophet,  we were given an hour free time where we joined the Johnson’s in a café for a cappuccino then browsing in the local market before returning to our boat.

We are once again cruising through scenic forests occasionally passing by picturesque villages. 

Midnight in Moscow

October 12, 2019

As Tim sits down to write this blog entry, to be edited by Lynda before posting, we have just left our port in Moscow.  The port was on the Moscow Canal about 10 miles north of Moscow so once we set sail we were immediately in a very scenic area with lots of trees sporting their fall colors.

Yesterday, Friday, the only shore excursion we booked was a Moscow by Night tour.  That left the rest of the day to relax, read, nap and prepare our first blog posting.  Our night tour took us back to Red Square where St. Basil’s and GUM were spectacular after dark.  Hopefully we can get some pictures posted. 

St. Basil's at Night

GUM Dept Store

Chris Columbus/Peter the Great

We spent about 30 minutes at Red Square giving us plenty of time for pictures and to marvel at the beauty of the architecture around the Square.  The next stop was to board a small tour boat for a 45 minute cruise on the Moscow River.  From the boat we had more views of the Kremlin and St. Basil’s as well as the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.  The only other structure of interest was the statue of Peter the Great. This statue is consider a big joke in Moscow because the statue was original erected as a tribute to Christopher Columbus, showing him at the helm of one of his ships. Years later the powers that be wanted to build a statue in honor of Peter the Great, however, there was no money.  It was decided to cut off the head of Christopher Columbus and replace it with a head of Peter the Great.  Problem solved.   There evidently is no record of Peter the Great having ever captained a three masted sailing ship. 

As we were to find out tomorrow, this was not an unusual occurrence in Moscow.  After the cruise we went to a former nunnery to see a bronze statue of a mother duck followed by her 8 ducklings.  This statue was in honor of a children’s story that was popular in Russia.  Barbara Bush gifted the sculpture to Mikhail Gorbachev wife. It is a replica of a sculpture on the Boston Commons. It was after midnight when we finally returned to the boat but the 30 minutes at Red Square made the night worthwhile.

This morning we took a tour of the Kremlin. The tour started out as the tour from Hell. It seemed like every five minutes we needed to stop for someone to use the restroom.  Tim mentioned that he never wanted to travel with old people again.  Then it took us 45 minutes to get through security just to enter the Kremlin.  Just before finally getting to the entrance to security someone behind Tim in a crush of people announced in very loud voice “This is the line for the toilet, right?”  This comment caused raucous laughter in the immediate area going a long way to relieving the tension. Fortunately, the rest of the tour was good. The word kremlin in Russian means fortress which is what the Kremlin, in fact, is; a large fort. We saw a large 17th century building that houses the Kremlin and Presidential guards as well as a similarly designed building that contains the offices of Vladimir Putin as well as other central government offices. 

Putin's Office

On the grounds of the Kremlin there is also a building constructed in 1960 to house the Soviet Congress that was expanded and remodeled and now  is a concert hall. Additionally, there is a presidential palace in the fortress as well as 11 different churches and cathedrals.  One of the surprises for us was the number of churches we saw throughout Moscow.  While the Soviet Union tried to suppress religion in the country, Stalin, in particular, forbid the destroying of churches.  After the breakup of the USSR, the new leadership allowed more freedom of speech so the general population was free to openly attend church.  Every Saturday at noon there is a military parade in Cathedral Square inside the Kremlin.  This parade is more of a demonstration then a parade.  There is a 25 piece band that provides music for the 64 soldiers carrying rifles with bayonets and a troop of 10 horses. Both the horse troop and the soldiers did interesting drills to the accompaniment of the band. For Tim anyway, this was the highlight of the tour of the Kremlin.  Unable to see a football game today he was at least able to see a halftime show of sorts.

Military Parade

Having left Moscow, our cruise, until we reach St. Petersburg, will be stopping at small towns to visit lots of interesting sites.  At least that’s what the cruise brochure indicates.

Dasvidaniya (that means “goodbye” In Russian)

From Russia with Love

Friday, October 11, 2019

Lynda turns into an entirely different person when we travel. She is absolutely giddy with excitement. Even a 7 hour flight from Detroit to Paris followed by a 3 hour flight to Moscow does nothing to diminish her fervour.  Tim, on the other hand, barely tolerates flying. It’s not that he is afraid of flying.  It’s that everything involved with getting from point A to point B is excruciatingly annoying.  Once he arrives at our destination, Tim joins in with Lynda’s excitement.  We left Detroit at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, stepping aboard the Viking Ingvar at 3:45 p.m. in Moscow on Wednesday. The rest of the day was spent unpacking, reconnoitering the boat and meeting up with our good friends, Lyn and Don Johnson. We have traveled with them before and it has always been an enjoyable experience.

Thursday was an arduous day of touring. Yes, we know. It’s a tough life we live. On Thursday the cruise offered two different tours of Moscow: the Panoramic tour and the Up Close tour. The difference was the Panoramic tour was mostly by bus while the Up Close tour was a walking tour.  We don’t do bus tours well. Don’t like “on your right is the Kremlin, and then on your left is St. Basil’s Church”.  Naturally we opted for the walking tour.  The tour started with a 15 minute walk to a Metro stop, the Metro being the Moscow subway.

Moscow Subway Station

Moscow claims its subway stations are the most beautiful in the world.  We passed through 6 stations before reaching our destination. While these 6 stations appeared to be nice, cleaner than many other cities subway stations, they were nothing special.  However, the station we alighted on was all it was advertised. It was decorated in an art deco style with a pleasant mixture of marble and stainless steel. After giving us 5 minutes or so to take pictures and take in the beauty surrounding us we got back on  the train and went two stations further for our ultimate destination, the Red Square.  Before taking the escalator to street level we passed through a section of the station called Revolution Square.  This was a long rectangular area with various statues depicting soldiers of the Revolution. One of the statues had a dog standing beside the soldier.  It is considered good luck to rub the snout of the dog. Our guide was nice enough to take a picture of us rubbing said snout.

Revolution Square Below Ground

Once we were at street level, we walked through a second square called Revolution Square.  Our guide admitted to having no acceptable explanation to having two squares with the same name. Two highlights of the street level Revolution Square was seeing the Metropole Hotel, that Lynda claims is very famous, and the Bolshoi Theatre, home to the world famous Bolshoi Ballet Company.

Having walked through Revolution Square, a block later we stood before the imposing entrance to Red Square.  After a few instructions from our guide we were given an hour and a half of free time to explore the square. There were three major attractions on Red Square; the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Church, and the GUM Department store.  We were told that there was an ATM machine at GUM’s so that was our first stop.  We were under the assumption that GUM was a department store similar to Harrod’s in London or the old Hudson’s in Detroit.  To our surprise it was just another indoor mall albeit with only exclusive high end shops, names which you would readily recognize. Later, when talking to our guide about this, she told us that during the era of the Soviet Union it was, in fact, a department store, but when the Soviet Union broke up GUM became the mall that we visited. Needless to say we were disappointed. Harrod’s is always on our itinerary when we are in London and we were looking forward to a similar experience in Moscow.

GUM Dept Store

 The next stop was St. Basil’s Church.  Dear Readers, we are sure you have all at one time or another seen a picture of St. Basil’s without knowing that’s what you were seeing.  Like many large Russian Orthodox churches, it has several of the iconic “onion domes”.  St. Basil’s stands out because these onion domes are very colorful. Tim, in particular, was looking forward to seeing this church and he was not disappointed.  At least not on the outside.  On the inside the four of us wandered up and down stairs and through a maze of halls looking for the main worship area that we assumed would be as striking as the outside of this edifice.  We never found it.  It turns out the inside is a bunch of rooms, each called a church, each church having a different name. The décor throughout the building was very ornate but not necessarily in a breathtaking way.

St. Basil's Church

The Kremlin

Leaving St. Basil’s we returned to the Square and faced the imposingly tall red wall of the Kremlin. We made no attempt to enter the Kremlin as we have booked a tour through the Kremlin on Saturday.  We spent the rest of our free time wandering about the square.  There were many booths around the square selling a variety of Russian items, mostly food stuffs, jars of jelly and jams, breads, sausages, and a few booths with take away cooked food.  This week the Golden Autumn Festival is taking place in the square. There were lots of straw and pumpkins and other squashes on display as well as a display of vintage tractors, surprisingly including an old John Deere tractor.
Having re-assembled our group our guide took us through the Alexander Gardens, named after Czar Alexander.  While the few flowers still in bloom were not at their best we could tell that in the summer the garden would be stunning. This garden also was home to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Much like our Tomb in Arlington Cemetery, the Russian version had guards who rotated every hour.  There was no mention of a changing of the guard ceremony like we have.

Our last stop of the walking portion of the days tour was the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Unlike St. Basil’s, Christ the Savior did have a central worship sanctuary. Evidently in Russia it is traditional for the worshipers to stand throughout the entire service as there were no pews.  The Cathedral of Christ the Savior is among the largest Cathedrals in Europe, able to hold 10,000 people at one time.  The inside of the Cathedral was stunning both for its size and beauty.  While Lynda found a bench to sit on to rest her weary legs, Tim wandered about looking at the various icons hanging on the walls. These icons were nothing more then paintings of different Saints. Because many of visitors were stopping in front of these pictures to pray and then kiss the glass protecting the picture, we assumed this raised the pictures to the level of icons. As Tim approached one of these icons our guide happened to be standing there and pointed to this particular icon as being significant. He pointed to the center of the icon telling Tim this was a picture of the last three Romanofs, the family that had been in power before the communist take over. Surrounding this central part of the painting were smaller paintings depicting the Romanofs being murdered and their bodies being removed.  In Tim’s mind this seemed  a strange painting to be hanging in a magnificent Cathedral.  On our way to a bus that would take us to the next stop of our tour we walked across a pedestrian bridge that had a wonderful view of the back of the Kremlin bathed in lights as dusk was falling.

The walking part of the tour as we have described sounds a bit idyllic and would have been if we had not spent the whole time walking in the rain with temperatures in the low 40’s.  Despite the miserable weather it was an exhilarating day.

With great relief  we boarded a bus that took us on a 30 minute trip through Moscow’s city center to a small concert hall where we attended a wonderful concert of classical and traditional Russian folk music.  The orchestra consisted of 15 musicians playing traditional folk instruments; dora’s, a smaller version and precursor of the balalaika, three different sizes of balalaika, a harp like instrument that is beyond our ability to describe in words, an accordion like instrument, a flute, and a percussionist playing a variety of traditional and non traditional percussion instruments. The dora’s and balalaika are guitar like instruments. The playing was quite remarkable and the concert was very entertaining. It was a wonderful way to end an exciting beginning to our cruise.

Monday, January 21, 2019
Saturday morning our ship entered the harbor of Havana, Cuba as the sun was rising. We had an early tour booked for the day so while Lynda was preparing herself for the day in our state room, Tim was on his way to breakfast.  The breakfast buffet was on the same deck as the swimming pool and as Tim was crossing the pool deck on the way to the buffet he stopped to watch the ship enter the harbor.  In the early morning dawn, under a cloudless sky the Havana skyline was quite beautiful.  The first thing Tim noticed was the absence of any modern skyscrapers. The skyline was dominated by the domes, spires and towers of obviously old buildings.  Tim’s first impression was that Havana was going to be a beautiful city to explore.  Our previous reading about Havana had mentioned the beautiful old architecture.  Upon leaving Havana on Sunday we reflected back on our two days in Havana and decided she was like an aging movie star, still beautiful from afar, but up close you could see the wrinkles and the aging.
Our Saturday excursion was a day long bus tour of Havana.  The tour started at Revolution Square. This was not a square in the sense of a beautiful Italian Piazza or a lovely village square, a green space surrounded by buildings.  Rather it was a huge open area dominated by a tall obelisk built in memory of Jose Marti, a national hero who led the fight for Cuban independence from Spain.  Across from the Marti Memorial Tower and a very large green space are two large government office buildings.  Each of the buildings is about 10 stores tall and each features the image of a famous revolutionary figure.  One  is Che Guevara and the other is Camilo Cienfuegos a renowned  guerrilla fighter.  Revolution Square is one of the largest squares in the world.  In the parking lot just off of the square we discovered a least a dozen restored 1950’s era American automobiles.  The Chevy Bel Air seemed to be the most popular. Most of these cars were convertibles and were for hire for the driver to take you on a tour of Havana. Our guide told us that while the exteriors were beautiful, replacement parts for the cars were impossible to obtain so that most the cars did not run very well.  Still, it was a nostalgic delight to see.
Our next stop was a rum and cigar store.  It was one of several in Havana that owed its existence to the tourist industry.  We were there for about 45 minutes, the sole purpose being for us to buy rum and cigars. As we don’t really enjoy either we pretty much sat and watched Jeff and Rob as they were in seventh heaven.  Our biggest disappointment was not being able to see a demonstration of the rolling of Cuban cigars.

Two babes in a vintage car

Our lunch stop was a lovely open air restaurant that, like the cigar and rum store, catered to bus loads of tourists.  We all sat at large tables with the meal being served family style. The meal started with a small glass of rum and plates of hors d’oeuvres consisting of chicken wings, potato croquettes and plantain chips. The main course was roasted chicken and rice with black beans. We enjoyed a Cuban beer with our meal.  As we ate we were entertained by a Mariachi Band.  As far as tourist lunches of this sort go, this one was very nice.
After lunch our bus took us to the Colon cemetery, named in honor of Christopher Columbus. It was very large and the tombs and grave sites were crowded so close together we needed to walk single file between them. We were shown two notable graves. The first was actually a memorial to 37 firefighters who had entered a burning building not knowing the building contained TNT. The massive explosions killed these 37 men.  The second site was that of St. Amelia, also known as La Milagrosa, the Miraculous One. Amelia died during child birth with her baby dying a day or two later. They were buried together with the baby at Amelia’s feet. Some years later the bodies were exhumed and Amelia’s body was found to be uncorrupted, a sign of sanctity in the Catholic faith. Her baby’s body was reportedly found in her arms. It has become a tradition that people bring flowers to be placed on the tomb of St. Amelia with hope of St. Amelia solving the flower bearers’ problems.
The last stop of the day was a large indoor market next to the harbor.  This market had hundreds of small booths selling t-shirts, leather goods, wood carvings and other souvenir type goods.  These booths held little interest for us, but we did discover and enjoy a section of the market that had displays of art work by local artists. During our last several trips we had been looking for something new for our dining room with little success.  As we were nearing the end of this section of the market we finally found a painting we really liked.  The artist took the painting off of the frame it was on and rolled it up, placing it in a tube for us to safely bring home.  We are looking forward to getting it reframed and hung.
Saturday night was a real treat. We took a cruise sponsored trip to the Tropicana Club, the iconic Havana cabaret that opened in the 1930’s, and has hosted such entertainers as Nat “King” Cole, Josephine Baker, Carmen Miranda, and Frank Sinatra.  It was also a meeting place for many  infamous Mafioso from the States.  Since the revolution in 1959, the government has taken over the operation of the club. The Tropicana is a large outdoor venue and on this Saturday night  was packed to overflowing as the result of two large cruise ships docked in the harbor. As we entered the club, it appeared that there were no seats available. However, as we followed our guide we discovered we were sitting at a table that ran perpendicular to the very center of the stage.  Once the show began we were virtually in the middle of the show as there were stair steps right next to our table that the dancers were using throughout the show.  With the exception of opera in the middle of the show, it was entirely Cuban music.  There was a live orchestra accompanying the dancers and singers. The music and dancing was frenetic and at times sensual.  The costumes were exotic, colorful and often skimpy. The men were treated to the joys of observing the female derrière. At times the women were treated to the same view of the male dancers.  It was a specular show, unlike anything we’ve ever seen, that at times overloaded our senses. It was a wonderful end to our first day in Havana.

Sensual dancing at the Tropicana

Sunday morning we awoke to our first day of lousy weather.  Unfortunately, we had booked  a walking tour of Old Havana. Lynda decided to skip this tour but the other five of us soldiered on.  It is unfortunate that it rained, sometimes quite hard, during the entire walking portion of our tour. The architecture in Old Havana was beautiful, although a bit shabby at times.  We were able to see of bit of how the locals lived.  Eventually, all of us, soaked to the skin, were led to a bus that took us on a ten minute ride to a neighborhood tavern.  While this tavern regularly hosted tourist groups it had a feeling of being a place locals visited often.  Once we were seated we were each brought a shot of rum and a small cup of coffee.  The five of us were at a table right next to a small raised stage where a five piece jazz combo began entertaining us. After a few numbers, the band took a break, cigars were passed out and we were all given a lesson on the proper way to smoke a cigar. It was interesting to see how many women in our group participated with the men in this lesson.  Soon the band was playing again and we were given the opportunity to relax and enjoy the rum, cigars and music.  We all agreed that as spectacular as the show at the Tropicana had been, this seemed more authentic. Reluctantly, we got back on the bus and returned to the ship.  Sunday was the last day of our cruise. Tomorrow we would dock in Miami and be on a plane flying back to Michigan and reality. This was a different trip then we usually take.  Other then the two days in Havana there was no sightseeing.  But we were ok with that because the purpose of the trip was to share a major life event, our 50th anniversary, with our family.  That being the goal, this was the best cruise we have ever taken.

Cienfeuegos, Cuba

January 17, 2019
Leaving Cienfeuegos, Cuba
A week from tomorrow, January 25th, we celebrate our 50th anniversary.  In planning for our 50th celebration we decided to take Jil, Jeff and their spouses, Rob and Heather on a cruise. The only ironclad requirements for this cruise were that the cruise take place in January and there were ports of call in Cuba.  It was also decided that this would be an adults only cruise, no grandchildren.  After much research we booked a cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Empress of the Seas, departing Miami on January 13 and returning to Miami on January 21. There were three ports of call: Cozumel, Mexico, Cienfuegos, Cuba and Havana, Cuba.  On Saturday, January 12, the six of us flew from Detroit to Miami and the following morning boarded the ship.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we stayed on board the ship.  Tuesday was a port of call stop in Cozumel.  As we had all been to Cozumel on a previous cruise only Jeff and Heather left the ship to do some souvenier shopping.  Tim tagged along just to keep them company.  It was a fun four days at sea.  We drank, layed in the sun, drank, played some games, and drank some more enjoying the warm temperatures and abundant sunshine. Two of the nights, one in the main dining room and the other in a specialty restaurant,  we were feted by the waiters singing “Happy Aniversary” to us and presenting us with a small cake.  Jil, Jeff, Rob, and Heather decided that the meal in the specialty restaurant would be our official celebration aboard the ship. We all dressed up a bit with Lynda looking particularly ravishing. Jeff offered a touching, heartfelt toast. It was a special evening.  The cruise, as a gift, also offered us a very nice discount at the spa. We took a 50 minute hot stone massage together that we both thoroughly enjoyed.
Today, Thursday, the 17th, we docked in Cienfuegos.  Actually we anchored in the middle of the harbor and took tenders into the pier. As we have told you in the past, cruise ship docks generally are not in the best part of the town we are visiting.  That was the case in Cienfuegos.  We did not book a ship sponsored tour in Cienfuegos, but opted to do a walking tour on our own through the historic town center. We took a 10 minute walk through some rather depressing neighborhoods  before arriving at the historic city center. It was a lovely plaza with flowering trees, benches, and statues surrounded by colorful and architecturally pleasing buildings. As we were walking through the plaza we passed by a human statue, a person dressed and made up to look like a statue standing perfectly still.  This is something we have seen in many places, but Jil obviously was not prepared for the “statue” to move its head and stare at her. It scared Jil to death and provided the rest of us with a hearty laugh. Jil told us she was about ready to comment on what an ugly statue it was. She was quite relieved that she didn’t.  We enjoyed walking the streets around the plaza, stopping in several interesting shops along the way.  We had lunch at a little café on a side street that had only 6 or 7 tables. It was a bit of a step back in time as we watched videos from the 70’s of Abba, A-Ha and the “We are the World” video that was a watershed moment  in music history. After lunch we found a pedestrian street with many  booths set up in the middle of the street selling an assortment of leather goods and wood carvings. There were also a number of store fronts selling paintings by local artists.  The people were friendly, the weather was beautiful.  It was a wonderful first taste of Cuba.

Cienfeuegos plaza

Classic cars in Cienfeuegos

Tomorrow is another day at sea. We arrive in Havana on Saturday and have two days of ship sponsored tours booked. Because of the way the itinerary worked out and the fact that there is no internet access in Cuba, the entire blog of our cruise will not be posted until we get home.  We apologize for this but hope you will still enjoy our trip after the fact.  It will be diary entrée for us that will provide us with fond memories of a very special anniversary celebration with our children and their spouses.