Departed Windsor on schedule in the am with stops in Winchester to view the cathedral (I'm sure everyone recalls the snappy tune Winchester Cathedral where the singer complains of the Cathedral letting him down). A right amazing place is the Cathedral. Ditto the one in Salisbury, which is a full twenty-five miles away. Two massive and beautiful medieval cathedrals this close. Amazing! However, some airhead deleted the outside picture of Winchester. Sorry bout that. By the way William began Winchester in 1079 with completion occurring fourteen years later, I think. At any rate we arrived in Bath about 4pm on 4 June after circling around the area several times where our apartment is located. Followed a similar lost tourist procedure in procuring a few articles from the grocery store as we remain here a week. Finally ... read more

Okay troops, you have enjoyed a four-year reprieve from Bird and I; we conclude you are sufficiently recovered to tolerate more of us, so again off we go. Yes, we know there remains a COVID threat out there, but we will be in Europe where people are a bit more rational about mitigation than the U.S. Furthermore, we are fully vaccinated with two boosters, and we are careful. At any rate we are off to England, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland on 31 May, returning 25 July. The itinerary is noticeably less ambitious than in the past-remaining a full week at some places and close to a week in a number of others. We ain't spring chickens any longer! Perhaps as an added benefit accruing to our long-suffering readers, there will likely be fewer posts per ... read more

Your trusty travelers had two exhausting days in St. Petersburg. A ton of walking, but most thankfully the city is flatter than a pancake. Pete usurped the land upon which the city was built from the then powerful country of Sweden who attacked him through Poland and the Baltic countries. He eventually defeated Sweden during the summer campaign of 1709 and continued construction of his magnificent city. Indeed the city is magnificent. The roads are wide and arrow straight. Buildings majestic, yet we wonder their condition and use during the soviet era. Our street is the very long Nevsky Prospekt, which is filled with commercial enterprises interspersed with historical buildings and monuments. These capitalistic shops were not here in 1955, we feel sure. We have a couple of pictures as we walked "a gazillion miles" according ... read more

We have now been in Helsinki for a couple of days before departing tomorrow evening on a ferry (Bird says surprise Vicki and Carol Ann) for St. Petersburg, Russia. Even bumped into our ship as we departed Tallin, we'll show you. Helsinki doesn't have a great number of sights. For the considerable majority of it's history Finland was the property of someone else (Sweden and Russia). It was not even founded until the mid sixteenth century (by the Swedes who owned the place and wanted to compete with the trading city of Tallin). It remained a speck on the map until the nineteenth century. Thus, there is little history here. However, the people are wonderful. There were a number of times someone noticed airhead tourists struggling and spontaneously offered assistance. Just nice. Yet they clearly think ... read more

Since we last chatted with you folks, the wanderers have accomplished a bit of traveling. From the Lofton Islands, through almost the entirety of Sweden to losing our wonderful car and boarding a ferry in Stockholm with a Tallin destination. We'll show you some shots along the way. Our fright at not seeing Rudolph above the Artic Circle in Norway has been assuaged. We spied not only Rudolph, but Dancer, Prancer, Vixen and others in Lappland (Sweden). We had always heard of the area and expected something exotic. Well no; have you ever been to south Georgia? If so, you have a good representation of Lappland. From there we continued south until arriving at the IceHotel. It was okay. The roads we traveled in Sweden were a tad varied. There were a couple of times up ... read more