Back in the U.S.

Lisa and I arrived back in the United States on July 20th. Our trip with our niece was a success and she had a blast! Lisa is now in California and I am in Virginia for until early August. Most of August I will be in Vermont then late August we move out to Napa.

This blog might have a little break for a while. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading.

The adventure isn't over; it is just changing.

Ted and Lisa

Germany

We crossed Poland by train with a stop in Warsaw. We spent one night in Berlin, one night in Erfurt and then one night in Frankfurt before we picked up our niece for the last two weeks in Europe before we head back to the U.S. on July 20. I am having problems uploading any photos. Sorry. We did spend two days in Wurzburg then on to Nuremburg for two days where we visited the Documentation Center and the Nazi Party's Grounds for their parades and speeches. As seemed appropriate we then went to the Nuremburg Trials Museum and visited the actualy Court room (room 600) where the trials were held. Very interesting as this museum has only been open since November. We then took a bus to Prague on the Autobahn and have been in Prague three nights. Tomorrow we take a 8 hour train to Innsbruck, Austria.

Lithuania

Lithuania was great as well. The highlight of our 5 days there was biking the 30 miles in one day on the Curonian Spit. This is the strip of land that runs along the Baltic Sea. It runs along Lithuania and Kaliningrad (Russia). We only biked the Lithuania part as our transit visa for Russia was only for a single entry. (And we really didn't want to go back to Russia) The ride was beautiful and fun through pine forests, along the coast and through a couple small towns.

After returning to Klaipeda on the mainland, we took a 5.5 hour train ride to Vilnius, the capital. This allowed us to see the country from one side to another. It is a small but pretty country. Lots of farmland and farms.

After wandering around Vilnius for a day and a half we took a train to Warsaw, Poland then to Berlin then to Erfurt, Germany and now we are in Frankfurt. We spent one night in each place.

Tomorrow we pick up our niece who is flying over to have a visit of parts of Europe with us as her travel companions.

Estonia and Latvia

Up the stairs in the tower in a castle near Sigulda, Latvia.

Our hotel room was in the upstairs of this place in Sigulda

The Castle outside Sigulda.

In Riga

What appears to be a movie set in Hollywood is actually a street in Riga.

Wonderful architecture in Riga, Latvia

Close up of one part of a building in Riga

A park in Riga

A pigeon in Riga

The entrance to a wine cellar/restaurant we spent our anniversary.

Tallin.

Tallinn

Tallinn

ESTONIA--

After arriving in Tallinn, Estonia by ferry from Finland we enjoyed 3 days wandering around the medieval city. Again, it seemed as if we had the city to ourselves, there were people sure but there just seemed to be so much unused space on the sidewalks and parks. We have had several meals in restaurants where we were the only people in the room if not the entire restaurant.

Tallinn is a beautiful city full of cobbled streets and really old buildings from the 13th and 14th century. While reading about them it was funny to read signs that told us the last "renovation was completed in 1802..." And we thought our house was old in Hinesburg.

Due to the width of the streets and the height of the buildings it seemed that nearly every picture I took was with the camera positioned vertically instead of horizontally.

There were several beautiful parks, some modern buildings too that looked like an architect had some fun. Lots of people feeding the ducks or pigeons in the parks and wonderful public transportation on narrow electrified trams that run on rails in the cobble stoned streets.

LATVIA--

The most common form of intercountry transportation between the Baltics is bus we have discovered. The bus stations are easy to use, buses are frequent and comfortable and relatively cheap. We boarded a bus from Tallinn to Riga, the capital of Latvia, a trip of only a couple of hours. Riga has several beautiful Art Nouveau areas full of striking architecture. More empty parks, with green grass, hardly any people and no litter.

There is a small town of only 10,000 people called Sigulda an hour outside of Riga, we spent two nights there in a small hotel/bed and breakfast place at the edge of the woods. We had our own room in a separate building with a think reed roof. It was wonderfully quiet and we spent one day hiking in the woods and another walking to a castle and climbing its tall tower in narrow brick passages that spiral around the perimeter inside the walls.

We have been walking a lot! Many of the places we go, like Sigulda, are usually visited by people visiting by car. Since we don't have a car we just walk.

Returning to Riga, we boarded a bus for Lithuania and made it to a college town where we spent the night in a college dorm that fuctions as a hostel during the summer. The following day we bused out to the Curonian Spit along the Baltic Sea. The scenery on the way was similar to parts of Vermont, with people cutting hay and tractors on the road.

FINLAND!

Our 5 days in Finland was really great. Helsinki was incredibly clean, organized and easy to navigate. The whole country has 5.3 million people, Hanoi has nearly 7 million. So needless to say, it was a pleasure. We spent one night in a cabin. We took an overnight train to the Arctic Circle, went fishing (no luck) and took the train back to Helsinki. After eating reindeer and walking around the parks we boarded an afternoon ferry to Tallinn, Estonia.

A market in Helsinki where we bought, dill, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, garlic, and plums. We cooked these at our cabin in Porvoo an hour outside Helsinki.

Standing at the Arctic Circle a bit north of Rovaniemi, Finland.

Fishing in the Kemijoki River.

In Helsinki.

A buffet breakfast spot in Helsinki.

Our little cabin we stayed in in Porvoo.

St. Petersburg

Part of the outside of the Hermitage Museum.

The ceiling in the main staircase up to the 2nd floor.

One of the many rooms.

There were about 30 chandeliers in this one room.

One of many different wooden floors. The different colors are different types of wood.

Lisa standing under a green marble carved urn?

Another room in the palace.

Monet. In the Garden.

Is there money in St. Petersburg??? How about buying a Mercedes with gold paint?

Only in St. Petersburg!

Singer building (sewing machine headquarters)

St. Petersburg was pretty incredible. We arrived in Moscow at 1:55 pm after departing Beijing 5 and a half days before. The train arrived exactly on time as scheduled. We had some difficulty buying a ticket for a night train to St. Petersburg. There are several places to buy tickets, there are more than 2 train stations and, this is a big one, we don't speak, write or read Russian. So we went from line to line, building to building, one window to another before buying our 3rd class tickets to St. Petersburg leaving at 10:30 pm that night. We killed our time wandering around the train staions and mall before boarding our train. Interesting experience. Pretty packed with people in 3rd class but everyone was very quiet. Our "beds" were what appeared to be a shelf that Lisa slept on with 2 straps to keep her from falling out onto the aisle. My "bed" was created once a table between two chairs was flipped over and connected to the wall. I was to sleep in a space running in line with the direction of the train and it was exactly as wide as my shoulders, I measured. The length was shall we say, not enough.

But we arrived in St. Petersburg on a chilly, drizzly day at 6:30am. We found our way to our hostel and walked in at 7:30am. We were told that we couldn't check in until 1:00. So we wandered around in the cold until then. Much of the area we were in was closed and the place seemed abandoned.

Sleeping in bunks in a 14 bed room in a hostel was an experience. Most of the Germans, Brits, and Scottish 20 somethings didn't come back to the hostel to sleep until waaaay past midnight. They were ready to go out when we were going to bed. Geezers.

The highlight of our time in St. Petersburg was visiting the Hermitage Museum a.k.a. a museum in a palace from the early 1700s. INCREDIBLE. A place like this must be visited and although we'll include a few pictures of the inside, it is just too hard to describe. Totally over the top. The building was the winter palace used by Peter the Great and Catherine. Imagine having more money than you knew what to do with and designing a palace. Marble staircases, 40 foot tall solid granite columns. painted ceilings, gold leaf, intricate wood floors... Hopefully a few pictures will give you some idea.

After 3 nights in St. Petersburg we woke at 4:45am to walk to the train station (not the one we arrived at from Moscow--there is more than one train station in SP as it turns out) We boarded a brand new tilting train called the Allegro that goes over 125 mph from SP to Helsinki. The passport checks are done during the train ride. It was really nice. And entering Finland from 9 days in Russia was like a leap into the future in infrastructure, civil liberties, cleanliness, and smiles.

Lisa's favorite pictures from the Trans Mongolian

And we have so many more!