Cruise first days

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Our cruise has come to an end but as we had very poor Wifi we have not done many blogs, so this will be a short up date.
Highlights of the cruise first days-:
walk around small village which seems to survive on souvenirs sold to wealthy tourists, wooden architectural village, vodka tasting, lots of beautiful views along the way.

I will publish this while we have good access then try some more blogs.

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Photos

Svirtsky first stop
This was a very basic village, quite poor, but the flowers were pretty

War mamorial for 1941-45
This is one of the many war memorials to the occupation of 1941-45, it was a tiny village and there were so many names on the plaques!

wood craftman
Lots of things are made from linden tree and birch wood and bark, this man had some beautiful products. They used to store honey cheese and other foods in Linden tree boxes as it has antibacterial properties.

wooden architecture
A perfect morning as we arrived at this little island.
This church was built with no nails, they are having to restore some now but are using nails.

baby walker
There was a typical house set up including a lady doing weaving, cooking utensils, farming implements and they even had baby walkers.

wooden churches
2 chapels and the bell tower, amazing to think this was constructed of pine for the main structure, Aspen for the shingles, all shaped with an axe an no nails

Tanya and the vodka lesson
We had a lesson on the types of vodka and decorative storage continers.

Vodka tasing with pickles
Then the vodka tasting, 5 good shots, including chilli vodka, mid afternoon with some very tasty accompaniments went down with HK

Comments

[Dave]

Silly me
Have been looking for updatesthought you had not made any new entries and only just saw the red writing in the corner that said next entry. Daaaaaaaaaaa ! Well now I know. Had lunch with Mum and the boys in Hutt st. yesterday wasfresh but nice and sunny same as today. Take care. Enjoy and look forward to hooking up for a live update when you get back.