Tish and Andrew

TishandAndrew

Tish and Andrew

We are two travellers exploring Scotland in a camper, Norway by cruise ship, Ireland (mostly Cork and Ring of Kerry) and having our first look around Scandanavia.



Europe » Finland » Uusimaa » Helsinki August 31st 2018

The last full day of our holiday has finally come as we are due to fly out of Helsinki at around midnight to Singapore and then onto Melbourne and Adelaide. But before then there was much to see around Helsinki before we left. We started the day packing up our apartment, repacking our suitcases to ensue we met the 23 kg limit, placed our suitcases into luggage storage and headed for the Helsinki marketplace full of eats, souvineers and Knick knacks servicing the thousands of cruise ship passengers that must pass through this area each day. After 2 days in bed, Tish was well enough to venture out for a full day but we were still going to take it easy. However, taking it easy didn’t last for long as the ever adventurous Tish decided to ... read more
Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki

Europe » Finland » Uusimaa » Helsinki August 31st 2018

Tish still needed rest to vercome her illness so Andrew headed out to Suomenlinna Island which is a UNESCO sea fort originally constructed by the Swedes when they invaded ad conquered this part of the world but as a sea fort, it was used by Russia in the 1800’s and Germany & the Soviet Union in the 1900’s. The fort is pretty much intact and there are 800 people living in the accommodations on the island which ensures buildings and structures are maintained. The stone structures including bunkers and tunnels are impressive and there is plenty of Military hardware around the islands to give the visitor an idea of life in the fort. Th most impressive structure is the dry dock which used a windmill and horse driven pump to empty the drydock after a boat ... read more
Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki

Europe » Finland » Uusimaa » Helsinki August 30th 2018

With Tish still recovering from her illness, Andrew stepped out into Helsinki by himself for the day checking out the harbours both north and south of our apartment which is located on Katajanokka, a peninsular on the east side of downtown Helsinki. There are lots of walking tours through our neighbourhood so it obviously has played a part in Helsinki’s past but the quality of apartment buildings here is second to none. Down the bottom of our street stands the Uspenskin Cathedral which has a grand viewing platform overlooking th north and south harbours. The Cathedral has an amazing dome and while compact inside, it was very busy with antiquities. The viewover the north harbour included the Helsinki Eye and a number of cruise ships and ferry’s docked for the day. There was a large market ... read more
Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki

Europe » Estonia » Tallinn August 29th 2018

We spent our last day in Tallinn on a medieval walking tour of the lower part of Tallin with our two tour guides dressed in medieval garb. The tour took us around some of the most important medieval sites around old town Tallin and gave us a great insight into the towns history and boom to bust fortunes. One great story was of the Danish Conquerer who constructed the first castle overlooking Tallinn who was captured in his sleep, killed due to debts he owed and body placed in the St Catherines church cellar where it was forgotten. More than 100 years later, someone opened the cellar and found his perfectly preserved body and so Tallin’s first tourist attraction was born - people would travel from all around Europe to view his body and poke his ... read more
Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn

Europe » Estonia » Tallinn August 28th 2018

We started our second day in Tallinn with a 2 hour free walking tour around the Old Town which started in Independence Square where we received a rundown on Estonian Customs and history which was very relevant to where we were standing as it is the centenary of Estonian Independence (1918-2018) even though that first independence would only last 1 day. Estonia has however enjoyed 27 years of independence since the fall of the iron curtain in 1991 however we were left with the impression that the multiple conquests over the last 600 years by the Fins, Swedes, Russians, Germans etc have left their mark on the country’s 1.3 million inhabitants in 2018. From independence square, we walked up into the Toone area of Tallin visiting the old town wall and towers and hearing about the ... read more
Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn

Europe » Estonia » Tallinn August 27th 2018

After our high paced tour of St Petersburg, it was good to relax in our Princess Anastasia cabin for 18 hours as we travelled to Helsinki (arriving at 7:30 am) and then onto Tallinn in Estonia arriving at 12:00 pm. We had priority exit so we were whisked through Estonian customs at 12:30 pm and walked with our luggage around 1 km through the twisted cobblestoned streets of Old Town Tallinn. After checking into our Hotel on Munga Sreet we wen exploring the medieval town of Tallin. Old Town Tallinn remains untouched with most of the buildings dating back to 14th and 15th centuries. Many parts of the original Old town wall are still standing but there is only a 320 meter section that people can walk on top of with the remainder of the wall ... read more
Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallin

Europe » Russia » Northwest » Saint Petersburg August 26th 2018

Our last full day in St Petersburg was spent taking a 3 hour walking tour from the Anichkov Bridge on Nevsky Avenue Where we met our tour guide Glenn. It was a rainy start to the day so we were the only ones that turned up so we ended up having a personalised 3 hour tour of St Petersburg. Glenn took us around the back streets of St Petersburg where we learned that St Petersberg is a young City mostly built in the 1800’s by 5 Italian and French architects who left their imprint on this city on a big way. St Petersburg has borrowed its sense of place from all the great European cities so there are parts of St Petersburg which make you feel like you are visiting Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Venice, Florence. We ... read more
St Petersburg
St Petersburg
St Petersburg

Europe » Russia » Northwest » Saint Petersburg August 25th 2018

After a big day yesterday we had breakfast at the hotel and headed for the hop on hop off bus at St Isaac’s Cathedral and headed along the Main Street to Victory Square where there is a huge granite column commemorating the 900 day siege of Leningrad from 1941 to 1943 which without the bravery of the citizens of Leningrad would of almost certainly fell to the Nazi’s and the city destroyed. Around the perimeter of Victory Square, we visited the “Moscow“ Railway Station (main train line to Moscow) which is the last surviving structure by a famous French architect as well as a brand new western style shopping mall “The Galleria” which included most of the high end fashion labels in Andrew’s Wardrobe except for Harris Scarfe says Tish. We visited a number of shops ... read more
St Petersburg
St Petersburg
St Petersburg

Europe » Russia » Northwest » Saint Petersburg August 24th 2018

The Princess Anastasia arrived in St Petersburg at around 8:00 am and after breakfast, we joined the VIP departure at 8:50 am towards Russian Immigration then followed by the Shuttle Bus to St Isaacs Square. After all the travelling we have done over the last 36 hours coupled with arriving in a place with a language that is very different to English we were both pretty disorientated but the penny finally dropped with our orientation on the three maps we were carrying and we made the short 5 minute walk to our accommodation. After dropping our bags off, we headed straight for St Isaacs Cathedral and the hop on - hop off bus and travelled the two routes around St Petersburg, The audio narration of the bus was excellent and provided us with a background to ... read more
St Petersburg
St Petersburg
St Petersburg

Europe » Finland » Uusimaa » Helsinki August 23rd 2018

Today was another travelling days as we moved from Copenhagen to Helsinki where we boarded our Ferry (The Princess Anastasia) to St Petersburg Russia. We packed our bags and left our Copenhagen hotel room around 10:45 am headed for Osterport train station, catching the first train to the airport. We had already checked in the night before so upon arriving at the airport we adjusted the weight in our bags to be 23 kg each and then had to print our luggage tags from a machine before dropping them off on a conveyor belt, scanning the luggage barcode and sending them on their way. Before long we were on our Finnair flight to Helsinki and 1 hour 45 minutes later we were in Helsinki airport making our way to the underground train station. We caught the ... read more
Copenhagen
Helsinki
Helsinki




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