Farewell dinner - Berlin

Berlin was the final destination for our Trafalgar tour. We were treated to an entertaining evening at a local restaurant with music and karaoke. Our Tour Director, Malcolm, sung a song and surprised us all with his great voice. We sat at a table with some fellow Aussies and were by far the loudest table and having the best time.

A table of Aussies enjoying our last supper.

The following morning we said our goodbyes and promised to keep in touch by email.

 

Berlin

Berlin is a city alive...there is much construction and restoration work being done and the skyline is full of cranes and buildings with scaffolding erected around them.

We visited the remains of the Berlin Wall that divided the East from the West, also Checkpoint Charlie, the point where people from the West could pass through to visit relatives in the East.

We saw the Brandenburg Gates. During the time the Berlin Wall was constructed the Brandenburg gates were in an area known as no-man's-land because people in the west were not to go past a certain point before the Gates and the Wall was just the other side.

Another interesting place was the Palace of Versailles where the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28th June 1919. Next was a tour of Sanssouci Palace and its surrounding gardens.

Brandenburg Gates in the background.

Some of the remaining Berlin Wall.

Checkpoint Charlie, the only entry into East Berlin between 1962 and 1989.

The Palace of Versailles.

Sanssouci Palace.

Belarus - Minsk

Before leaving Moscow Malcolm treated us to a little gem that is a very interesting tradition followed by the Muscovites. It is something they call a Christmas Tree. When a couple marry they buy a lock and take it to a special 'tree', lock the lock and throw the key into the river in the hope that their marriage will last forever. There were hundreds of thousands of locks on many of the 'trees' as can be seen in this photo of just one 'tree'.

Traveling to Minsk we passed a collection of Russian tanks that had been used to help Russia win the war against the Germans. Of course the 'boys' couldn't resist climbing all over them.

Our local guide for Minsk was Malcolm, the Tour Director, as he actually resides in Minsk with his wife of 12 months. He took us to an appartment building where Lee Harvey Oswald, (the alleged assassin of President John F Kennedy) lived in a subsidized apartment after defecting to Russia in 1959.

The Lee Harvey Oswald apartment building.

There's a monument of a little boy in Minsk and Belarussian women rub his private parts in order to promote fertility, as you can see it is very shiny.

We had pestered Malcolm to bring his wife to the hotel so we could meet her. On the morning we were leaving Minsk he presented us to Anastasia, an extremely attractive, petite blonde. She spoke perfect English and it was pleasure to meet her.

Moscow

Moscow is different in many ways...there are 12 million people in the city and 9 million of them use the Metro every day. We were taken on a tour of the Metro which was an experience in itself. The underground rail stations are fitted out with chandeliers, paintings, statues, stained glass windows and mosaic paintings, which are the very last things you would expect to see in a railway station.

Red Square by night is beautiful...there is a large very modern department store that is positioned on one side with churches at either end and then of course the Kremlin wall forms the other side. In front of the fort there is a cemetery containing the graves of all the presidents except for Boris Yeltsin and Khrouchtchev. Because many celebrations and rock concerts are now held in the Red Square the cemetery is going to be moved because it is the general consensus that it is no longer an ideal place for a cemetery.

Us in The Red Square.

We toured inside the Kremlin...not very interesting except for the museum containing clothes worn by Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and many others from that era, along with gold trinkets, bowls and serving dishes, Faberge eggs, armory, carriages of gold encrusted with jewels and much much more. No wonder the starving peasants wanted to kill the aristocrats.

The traffic is horrendous. When Mr Putin drives to work the police stop all traffic five minutes before he is due to travel along a road causing more chaos. His officials have chauffeur driven cars with a blue light on the top and a police escort. These officials are able to drive wherever and however they like, often causing fatal accidents. This has angered the public.

 

St Petersburg.

St Petersburg is amazing, so much history, so much extravagance, so many people and so much poverty. We visited many palaces and learnt about Rasputin, Peter the Great and many more. I'll never be able to remember everything but found it so very interesting. The gold gilding throughout the palaces is extravagant, especially when you are told that it has to be re-done every 25 years. In the suburbs the poorer people live in high rise boxes with no lifts or air conditioning. The majority of the outer suburb accommodation buildings were erected in the sixties and are in need of some serious repairs.

The palaces are now museums and in every room there are ladies sitting, watching everything you do with eagle eyes and solemn faces! They are there to make sure you don't touch anything. Malcolm calls them Net Net ladies (net is 'no' in Russian) and I was Net Neted twice for leaning on a pillar.

St Petersburg is known as the Venice of The North, so it was understandable that we went for a cruise through the many canals. Malcolm produced two bottles of vodka and multiple bottles of Champagne. By the end of the cruise the tour group was very merry and we were constantly waving and greeting the passing Russians with a cheery 'how ya goin mate' in order to squeeze a smile out of them...it worked!

Several of the palaces had to be restored after the war, fortunately many of the gold ornaments and chandaliers were buried before the Germans invaded and then dug up afterwards.

Another highlight was a Russian Folklore evening with Cossack dances, songs, instruments and costumes from the region. The costumes were magnificent and the Cossack dancers were a sight to behold.

 

 

Stockholm and Helsinki

I've been extra slack in updating the blog due to the fact that for two days I was sick with a head cold and also because we haven't had Internet access for a couple of days.

Stockholm was beautiful, the architecture there was so pretty. The highlight was the viewing of a 17th century Galleon that was recovered from the seabed in Stockholm's harbour after more than 300 years and is now displayed in a museum. It was amazing to think it hadn't rotted away, but because Stockholm is in the Baltic sea and the salt level is low, the timber was in near perfect condition, also the sea wood worms don't survive in the Baltic.

We travelled overnight from Stockholm, Sweden to Helsinki, Fiinland by cruise ferry. The ferry can carry up to 2,800 people. The sea crossing was very smooth thank heavens. In Helsinki we experienced a traditional dinner of reindeer on mashed potato followed by dessert of colostrum, which was the milk from a cow straight after the birth of her calf! It was served up in slices and was like rubber, I have to say I was able to eat Rudolph, but when it came to dessert I was only able to take a couple of mouthfuls. It's not that it was awful, but the more I thought about it the more distasteful it became. Dan ate the lot with no problem.

Stockholm Royal Palace

Lost camera update.

Just to update you on my lost camera, I received an email from Eurostar directing me to the Brussels web site where I am required to fill out a form, but guess what? I only have the choice of French or German. Tonight I'm going to try to translate it into English with Google. Otherwise we have a lady on the bus who speaks French so I'll ask her for some help.

Of interest to my writing friends...I had photos of Chipping Norton and it's post office. You might all recall my Elizabeth story began in Chipping Norton and Elizabeth worked at the post office owned by Annette. I'd really like to have those photos back to be able to include them when I have the story printed.

 

Coach/bus travel

A bus tour can be very interesting, to say the least. It involves early morning rises, a bunch of travelers with varying personalities and lots of sightseeing. But the main component pulling it together is the Tour Director and bus driver. Our Tour Director is Malcolm, a New Zealander who is now married to a Russian girl and living in Minsk, Belarus. He is probably in his late thirties and his knowledge of Scandadinavian and Russian history is remarkable, what he doesn't know probably isn't worth knowing. He is caring of the older passengers and nothing is too much trouble for him. But...he can certainly keep everyone in check...most of our days have started with a wake up call at 6am, ports out the door by 6.30, followed by breakfast and departure at 7.30am on the dot. He warned us one minute late and we have to sing a song, two minutes late, we have to sing a song AND dance. Three minutes late and we would be singing and dancing on the spot where the bus was. He has a great sense of humour with an infectious giggle.

The driver, Artur, is Latvian with very little use of the English language but boy can he drive! In Russia most of the highways are just two lanes, however they have started construction on an 8 billion dollar highway between the two main cities of Moscow and St Petersburg. When you want to pass someone you straddle the middle white line and the traffic on both sides of the road spreads apart to let you through. As you can imagine there was much jaw dropping and widening of eyes when we saw this happening for the first time. Artur's handling in turning the bus and maneuvering it in tight situations is excellent.

Most of the group are couples, but we have 7 ladies traveling on their own, three of them are Aussies and four Canadians. One Canadian lady is 83 and jokingly says she is looking for a man with a full head of hair, sadly this tour isn't going to help her! There are two men on their own, one from Las Angeles and an 87 year old from Brisbane.

Comfort stops on long-drive days can be amusing, especially when we know there won't be another stop for some time and the call of nature hasn't really set in. It's become known amongst the ladies as 'producing on demand'.

 

Russia

Malcolm warned us that crossing into Russia could be an interesting experience. He said the guards would not be smiling or pleasant and that we may have to wait for some time at the border while they decided they would open the doors and let us through. Well we caught them on a good day and the we were through the border within half an hour. The guards hopped on the bus and checked it as well as checking our luggage in case we were trying to smuggle extra passengers in. We have surrendered our passports and will not get them back till after we leave Belarus. It was interesting to see most of the border guards were women. We never attempted to take photos either, just to be on the safe side as we didn't want an unscheduled extended stay in Russia.

 

Copenhagen...day 1 and 2.

Last night we had and authentic Danish dinner followed by a tour of The Tivoli Gardens. The tulips are in bloom and the gardens are full of them. They had a pantomime which was interesting and the grounds have many play areas for children. People were out enjoying the fine weather, however it was freezing with a chilly wind. I'm pleased I have a warm coat, gloves and scarf with me.

 

The Tivoli Gardens.

Today we were treated a tour of Copenhagen by a local tour guide. The city is very clean and bicycles are a popular form of transport, hence there are hundreds of them parked around the streets. We visited Princess Mary's winter and summer palaces. She was in residence at the winter palace, although Prince Frederick is currently in Stockholm. Then came a tour of the old city of Copenhagen with a viewing of Hans Christian Andersen's house, the famour Danish author, fairy tale writer and poet. We also visited the Frederiksborg Castle which is now a National Museum. It was originally built in the 1500's, however it was pulled down and rebuilt again in the 1600's. It's a magnificent building with an opulent interior. The ballroom was magnificent and the ornate ceilings were a sight to behold.

The local tour guide was very informative and worth her weight on gold.

Frederiksborg Castle.

The ballroom at Frederiksborg Castle.

 

Trains...the good, the bad and the ugly!

The trip to Copenhagen began at Banbury with a train to St Pancras Kings Cross Station. That went smoothly as did our Eurostar trip to Brussels through the tunnel. From Brussels we caught an ICE train to Cologne, which is where we were to pick up a first class sleeper for the overnight trip to Copenhagen.

It was whilst we were waiting for the sleeper, supposedly arriving at 1028pm that I found I was missing my camera. Panic set in as I tipped the contents of my backpack out three times, I just could not believe it wasn't there. Horror of horrors!! I'd been taking photos of the beautiful French countryside and that was the last I'd seen it. My original thought was that I'd left it on the Brussels to Cologne journey, however later that night I worked out it was on the London to Brussels leg, so I've sent an email to Eurostar in the hope it has been handed in to their lost and found department...the first three weeks of holiday photos are on the Sd card, about 2gb worth. Luckily Dan has been taking some photos on his camera too. Fingers crossed that one of the staff or an honest person has picked it up.

Back to the trains now...as I said the sleeper was to arrive at 10.28pm, but we were advised it would be 90 minutes late. By midnight we were freezing and weary. Finally we were in our little, and I mean LITTLE bedroom after a mad scramble to alight the train. Sleep was broken with us being shunted and air brakes letting off air regularly. We had ordered breakfast for 8am as the new scheduled time of arrival in Copenhagen was 10am. At 5.30am an alarm went off in the cabin, followed by a knock on the door by the conductor telling us the train was going no further and we had to get off and take another train to Hamburg. We were hurriedly given little boxes of breakfast (that's another story) and told to sit and wait for another train. Can you imagine many travelers with much luggage trying to get onto a normal commuter train? It was not good...with a language problem to exacerbate it! At Hamburg there was more confusion. Anyway we arrived at Copenhagen at 3.30pm yesterday. More than 24 hours of train travel has cured us of that form of travel for a while.

Heading to Copenhagen.

Tomorrow, Friday, we are catching a train from Banbury to London, then another train from St Pancras station, onward through the Channel tunnel (I'm hoping there's no leaks!) to Brussels, Cologne and finally arriving in Copenhagen where we will be joining a Trafalgar Tour.

It's been raining here in Banbury and is only 8 degrees outside. It might be a bit warmer in Europe... We are looking forward to taking heaps of photos and I'll try to put some on the blog if we have an Internet connection.

Dan now has antibiotics for his respiratory infection, and will be on the mend in a couple of days.

Plumpton Woods...bluebells.

Plumpton Woods is near the village of Weston, Northamptonshire, and the bluebells are in flower now. We drove there to look at them a couple of days ago. They make a pretty carpet of blue.

 

Banbury and Leamington Spa

Yesterday the sun appeared, so we made the most of it and walked approximately three klms into Banbury. Our first port of call was the pastie shop...Dan's favorite shop!

After our fill of pasties and cappuccinos we walked around the pretty town enjoying the quaint cobblestone streets and colorful displays of tulips which are in bloom at present. The nursery rhyme 'Ride a Cock Horse', has made Banbury one of the best-known towns in England.

The photo above is Banbury Cross.

 

 

In the evening Trina drove us to the ancient village of Great Tew in the Cotswold Hills. We had a drink at the local pub, The Falkland Arms, (photos above and below) which was built around 1625.

 

 

 

Today it has been raining again. This morning we drove to Leamington Spa, however we weren't able to walk around because of the continuous showers. Dan is losing his voice as a result of the cold he caught on the cruise.