Long Island -- May 25-26, 2015

Monday morning, we flew to JFK where Dave's company picked us up in a limo and drove us to a hotel on Long Island -- near his office.

Missing our London flight caused us to miss our flight home on Monday, so we were able to take a tour of McKeon Door Company where Dave works -- including the factory.

Tuesday, we bid adieu to the New York skyline and headed for home.

Copenhagen to London -- May 24, 2015

Sunday morning, we arrived back in Copenhagen.  We bid farewell to "Huger," returned to our rental car that we had parked near the dock, and drove to church.  We attended small ward in Copenhagen, then drove to the airport.

Our plane was delayed 3 hours and we missed our connection in London, so British Airways put us up in London overnight.

At Sea -- May 23, 2015

Saturday, we spent the whole day at sea, so we slept late again.  It was a little too cold for Alice to sunbathe on our balcony, but she did pose for a picture!

Dinner was formal and included a "Baked Alaska Parade" with the waiters each brandishing a decadent desert.  It tasted even better than it looked.

I got a couple of good pictures of the sunset, but...

...Gwen did even better.  She got a picture of the sunset as we went under a bridge.

I thought we were going under the Øresund Bridge (the 4th picture posted on June 16), but then I noticed that it didn't look right, so I did a little research.  I found that the Øresund Bridge, which goes from Copenhagen, Denmark to Malmo, Sweden (the yellow arrow below) isn't tall enough for most cruise ships to go under.  So, it appears that we went under the Storebælt Bridge, which connects the 2 main islands of Denmark (the red arrow below).  Although the yellow route to Copenhagen would be much faster, the size of the ship ("Huger") necessitates the red route.

Stockholm, Sweden (Sverige) -- May 22, 2015

Friday morning, we arrived in Stockholm, Sverige (sveh-REE-uh).  (It troubles me a bit that we Americans so cavalierly change the names of other countries and cities -- e.g. "Sweden," instead of "Sverige."  It's no wonder some Europeans think Americans are arrogant -- and most of us aren't even aware of the correct names.)  First, we boarded a "tender."

The small boat, above, is called a "lifeboat tender."  It serves as a lifeboat if needed, but is usually used to transport passengers to shore when the port is too shallow to dock the cruise ship.  These "tenders" hold over a hundred people comfortably, so it isn't as small as it looks beside "huger."  It was less than a 10 minute ride to the dock and the first picture, below, shows the tender that took us there.  7 hours later, we rode another tender back to the cruise ship.  Notice how the ship drifted in those 7 hours.

Not only was our ship unable to dock, it was also unable to go to Stockholm.  The town where we disembarked was Nynäshamn, a small town (14,000 people) about an hour south of Stockholm.  We had to stand in line at a "convenience store" (the only place to buy anything in the little town) for about an hour to acquire train tickets.  Then we rode the train 30 minutes to Västerhaninge, a small suburb of Stockholm (15,000 people) where the Stockholm Temple is located.  Not only did we visit the Temple, but we also had a nice chat with the head groundskeeper and learned that he had attended Alta High School as a foreign exchange student in 1993.

We got back on the train and rode another 30 minutes to Stockholm.  When we got to the central station in Stockholm, we asked for directions to our sightseeing destinations and were told that we had to catch a tram at the other end of the train station.  Well, Stockholm's train station is nearly a half mile long -- with stairs, escalators, and turnstiles -- so we spent about an hour traversing the station.  And, when we got to the other end, we realized that we really didn't have time to do any sightseeing, so we bought some lunch, walked back through the entire station, and boarded the train back to Nynäshamn.  So our sightseeing in Stockholm consisted of a tour of Stockholm Central Station.  Gwen did get a couple of photos (below) of the Central Station restrooms.  We had to pay $1.50 each and it was one big room of stalls -- no separation between men and women.

We got back to Nynäshamn with a little time left, so we visited the "House of Chocolate" (ChokladHuset).  I read that they had provided pralines for the Nobel Night Cap every year since 2006, so I assumed it was a huge operation.  Well, it's a small town and the "House of Chocolate" turned out to be a small room in someone's house...... but the chocolate was VERY good.

I also got a picture of the nearby boat harbor.

Then we returned to the ship and I finally got a picture from far enough away to see the entire Regal Princess.

Helsinki, Finland (Suomi) -- May 21, 2015

Thursday morning, we arrived in Helsinki, boarded the "Hop-On Hop-Off" bus, and went to the "Rock Church" -- so called because it was built into a rock.  It's real name is "Temppeliaukion kirkko" and this is what it looks like from the outside.

It is a Lutheran church that was built directly into solid rock and opened in 1969.  Obviously the outside isn't very impressive, but here's what it looks like inside.

The center of the ceiling is a copper dome, surrounded by by skylights.  Because of its excellent acoustics, it is often used as a concert venue.  Our next stop, Senate Square, features the Helsinki Cathedral (below).

Just a short walk from Senate Square is Market Square.  In the first picture below, you can see Helsinki Cathedral in the background.  Market Square is right on the edge of the harbor (as you can see in the fourth picture below).

Our last stop was the Helsinki Temple.

St. Petersburg: Day 2 -- May 20, 2015

After the "Folkloric Show" Tuesday night, we returned to our overnight accommodations on the boat, then got up early Wednesday morning for a second day of Russian sightseeing.  (Dave called it an "ABC" tour -- "Another Boring Castle," "Another Boring Cathedral," etc.)  The first stop on Wednesday's tour was about an hour bus ride from the boat, but only about 12 minutes outside the city limits.  It was good to get outside the historic part of town and see houses of the rich...,

housing for the poor...,

life in the suburbs...,

and church in the suburbs.

But, of course, what the Russian tour guide wanted us to see was more opulence.  Our destination was Peterhof Palace, built by Peter the Great in 1725.  It was expanded by his daughter, Elizabeth, in 1755.  Work on the fountains continued into the 1800s.  Below is a portion of the palace from the back.

Here's what it looks like from the front.

It's hard to see the fountains in the picture above, but this is what they look like when they're not going.
 

But, every day at 11 a.m., they're turned on for a few minutes.  The interesting thing is that there are no pumps -- the fountains are operated by pressure from an underground spring.

Next, we went to the Yusupov Palace, which was constructed in 1770.  The Yusupovs were extremely wealthy Russian nobility.  I didn't take a whole lot of pictures because by this point I was experiencing some of Dave's "ABC" sensory overload.  You have to be in the river to get a complete picture of the outside of this palace (a different river that those we were on).  The picture below is as much of the front as I could get without falling in the river, but the palace is much larger than this.

There were a lot of lavish furnishings, but this is one of only a few pictures I took inside.

We finished our day at Peter and Paul Cathedral (Петропавловский собор), which is on an island in the Neva River (see the May 19th Neva River pictures).  

This cathedral is inside the Peter and Paul Fortress.  The fortress was used mostly as a prison for political prisoners, but the cathedral houses many imperial tombs -- including that of Peter the Great.

The highlight of the day was 5 Russian monks singing in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.  We weren't allowed to film them singing, but you can listen to them below.  The guy with the very low voice at the end is the guy at the right in the picture below.  They said no one has ever been known to be able to sing as low as him.

St. Petersburg (Санкт-Петербург), Russia (Россия) -- May 19, 2015

Early Tuesday morning, we left the boat and boarded a bus for St. Petersburg (Sahkt Pee-TARE-borg).  Even though St. Petersburg is the showplace -- and the most European city -- of Russia, we noticed immediately that the "non-tourist" parts of the city had a more drab look than anything we had seen in Europe.

Our tour actually started on the Fontanka River.  In the picture below, our group is on the right (walking through a slight drizzle with their coats & umbrellas), heading for one of those long, squatty river boats. 

The Fontanka is one of 93 rivers and canals in St. Petersburg and the reason for the "squatty" boats is that the bridges are only 2.5 meters (8 feet) above the waterline.

The front of the boat is covered and there are stairs down to the seating area.  If you ride in the back of the boat (where I took all my pictures), however, you must watch for bridges.  Even as short as I am (5' 6"), I could not stand up straight under most of the bridges.

As you can see in the pictures above, the Fontanka River is lined with the former private residences of the Russian nobility.  Most of these buildings are used for museums, restaurants, and other purposes now.  But you don't see the REAL wealth (or former wealth) of St. Petersburg until the Fontanka empties into the Neva River.

Below is the Peter and Paul Cathedral (see the last entry on May 20th).

The famous Hermitage Museum, which boasts the largest collection of paintings in the world, is so huge that it can only be seen from the Neva River.  The picture below is the old Winter Palace which is probably considered by some to be "the" Hermitage Museum, but...

...there are actually 5 buildings.  The "New Hermitage" (which is located behind the Winter Palace above), the "Old Hermitage" (the yellow building below), the "Hermitage Theater" (only partially visible to the left of the yellow building below), "Small Hermitage" (to the right of the yellow building), and the "Winter Palace" (the picture above -- also the far right of the picture below).

Also, from the Neva River, it's easy to see "Senate Square" (the yellow building in the middle below), "St. Isaac's Cathedral" (the gold dome to the right of the yellow building), and their location in relationship to each other and the Hermitage (at the left in the picture below).

Next, we saw the INSIDE of the Hermitage.  Even after our river tour, we were still able to arrive before the general public was admitted.

But, even arriving before opening time -- off season -- it was still VERY crowded inside.  The museum has about 3 million visitors a year.  Our 3-hour guided tour was definitely a huge sensory overload.  My advice to hard-core art museum fans: take a couple of days to see it.  My advice to everyone else: keep the tour under an hour.  View the opulence in a few rooms...

  ...Go see Rembrandt's "Old Man in Red" (below) and maybe a couple of other famous paintings, then go take the "river tour."

We had lunch in an upscale restaurant.  The building was fancy (I think it was formerly a noble's mansion), but the food was quite plain.

After lunch, we visited "The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood."  It's not the Savior's blood they're commemorating, however -- Alexander II was mortally wounded here.

The inside walls and ceilings are entirely covered by mosaics.

Our last stop of the day was St. Isaac's Cathedral.  As I mentioned earlier, it's almost impossible to get a good view of many of the sights from up close (as demonstrated by the picture below).  However, you can match the gold dome below with the gold dome in the last Neva River picture above.

We returned to the boat for dinner, but our fun wasn't over.  The best part of the whole St. Petersburg experience, in my opinion, was that evening.  We boarded another bus after dinner and headed back to the city for a "Folkloric Show" -- traditional Russian music, singing, and dancing.  Because of the stage lights, I wasn't able to get many good pictures, but it was the highlight of the day.