Our Baltic Trip

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We continued our journey going to London and staying in a very expensive hotel with a horse called Jacob outside.We were near the Tower Bridge,and walked across it. At night we went to see “The Mouse Trap” which was very well done.We wandered the streets after the show..dark alleys but we were safe and we eventually found the railway station. Next day we went to our ship the Marco Polo, the same ship we had sailed on before around the Mediterranean. Most of the passengers were our age, and we befriended a Welsh couple whom we may visit before we come home. We were at sea for two days and landed in Copenhagen where we looked around the town and went to a typical Danish Village Dragor on the Baltic. In Germany we looked around an ancient Minster in Warnemunde and had a trip on a very old steam train, named Moli. Next day we went to Estonia and looked around the city of Tallinn which has changed little since medieval days. We next visited a seaside resort Rocca al Mare set up for the heroes of the Soviet. For the next two days we were in St Petersburg and saw the city, the Peterhof and Catherine’s Palaces, St Isaacs Cathedral and finally the Hermitage, all of which were so ornately and expensively decorated as to be unbelievable. If we were peasants I am sure we would have revolted.

We then went to Finland where the snow had melted only two weeks previously. Helsinki is a beautiful city with extensive parklands and well behaved traffic. We visited an historic river town called Porvoo, which was the original capital when Russia owned Finland, where we spent two hours looking around. It would have been better to have been able to walk around Helsinki itself. Our last port of call was Stockholm where we were allowed to stay for a whole three hours, fortunately we spent it in the company of Pella and her mother. It was a complete shambles and the passengers could not reach the shore for several hours. An American politician was in town and security was a major concern. The Kiel canal was impressive and picturesque. We returned to a cold and windy London where we froze by going to an open air rendition of Shakespeare’s Tempest, in the Globe theatre .We stayed at Kew Gardens which was very nice ,and the next day walked the streets of London for about 7 hours.....we were exhausted but happy. Tomorrow we are off to Cornwall!

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