Mon. July 25: Discovering Berlin,Germany

A 5:13 AM sunrise welcomed us to the port of Warnemunde, Germany on the Baltic Sea. Founded as a fishing village at the mouth of the Warnow River. It's sandy Batic beaches are a summer lure for Germans and Northern Europeans. Today was an unusual stop. Instead of exploring an area where we docked, we were escorted to a private train where we journeyed for three hours through the German countryside to Berlin, the energetic, historically rich capital of Germany, torn apart into East and West Germany during the Cold War era.

A bus took us on a panoramic tour through Berlin, once divided by the Berlin wall. The wall was constructed in 1961 to separate West and East Berlin. The wall came down in 1989 and the two Germanies were reunited. We saw a section of the wall where holes were punched in it and people took pieces of the wall as mementos of when the wall came down. Most of the wall is gone but some remnants still remain for their historical significance.

Immediately after the wall came down, artists from all over the world gathered to make their mark on the monstrous east side of the wall which was untouched by graffiti (unlike the western side).  Today the street art stands as a symbol of unity and freedom from repression.

Our guide pointed out one of the most famous paintings called "The Fraternal Kiss". It shows Leonid Brezhnev (leader of the Soviet Union for most of the wall's existence) kissing the East German Erich Honecker in 1979. It is based on the actual photo of the 2 Soviet leaders kissing at a meeting. It is intended to show the disgust the artist had for the Soviet manipulation of the East German satellite.

We visited the Brandenburg Gate, a famous landmark as well as symbol in Germany, with over 200 years of history. To get a sense of how massive the columns are, look for David with his arms outstretched!

We saw several other sights in this vibrant city including the glorious Reichstag crowned with a galss cupola intended to symbolize the government's commitment to transparency.

We walked around Berlin on our own and found Checkpoint Charlie. This was the crossing point between West and East Berlin and is historically maintained on the street at the same spot. Checkpoint CHarlie (there was also Checkpoint Alpha and Checkpoint Bravo) was the gateway where East Germany allowed allowed Allied diplomats, military personnel, and foreign tourists to pass into Germany's Soviet sector. It was just a tiny prefab shack and sandbags with a few military guards that monitored the traffic and provided information to those going into East Berlin. After passing through the checkpoint and the no man's land, the East German checkpoint had towers, armed guards, and frequently searched vehicles for fugitives as no one from the East side was allowed to leave.

 We read the street exhibits which told about the wall and the brave East Germans who tried to escape including 18 year old Peter Fechter who was shot after climbing over the wall (his friend made it) and left to bleed to death in the "no man's land"- a strip between the East German checkpoint and the Wall which provided a clear firing zone for anyone escaping East Germany for political asylum. A few made it over to the west but most who tried were killed.  US military men were prohibited from helping any East German escapee; so tragically, Peter was left in pain to bleed to death for 45 minutes while horrified West Germans looked on helplessly. A section of the wall was on display along with panels along the street telling the history of the wall and Checkpoint Charlie.  Later we saw sections of the rebar still sticking out after the concrete was removed in another wall memorial.

 We found the Berlin food trucks and  some great sandwiches and took a break for lunch. Some of us tried the Berlin local street food specialty- Currywurst. You could get East Currywurst or West Currywurst- two different types of wurst, grilled, cut up, slathered with a BBQ type sauce then sprinkled with curry powder.

We wandered around some more and found an amazing chocolate store with chocolate recreations of iconic landmarks and objects in Germany, including the Brandenburg Gate, Titanic, and an airplane.

We left Berlin, entertained by an organ grinder on our way to the train, and headed back to port on another 3 hour train ride. We were served a snack that consisted of a German pretzel stuffed with butter. The pretzel part was good but we decided we could do without the butter stuffing!

The sun set at 9:22 as we headed to Copenhagen, Denmark.

Sun. July 24: Discovering Gdansk, Poland and the Home of the Teutonic Knights

The sun rose over the Baltic Sea at 4:44 AM. After spending the previous day at sea, with no shortage of things to do aboard the Viking Sea, we docked in the port of Gdynia, in Northern Poland. We split off into two groups- Beth, Meg, Gary, and Page explored the old town of Gdansk while Dave and David headed out to the countryside to see Marlbork Castle, a sprawling Teutonic castle and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In Gdansk our first stop was a 12th century Roman Catholic cathedral, famous for its organs of 7,876 pipes, 5 keyboards, and one person playing all of this! It is the most popular church to be married in because of its melodious organs. You have to book your wedding at least 2 years in advance for this church. Our guide said, "First you book your wedding, then you spend 2 years finding a fiance!"

We arrived in old town Gdansk, a city over 1,000 years old. We crossed over the river lined by row houses, similar to the ones you see in Amsterdam. At one time this was one of the biggest ports in Europe.

 

The 14th century medieval treadmill crane (seen below) still stands along the river port. It has 4 giant wheels inside that men turned by walking in them, much like hamster wheels. It could lift 2 tons and was used to load and unload cargo.

Our guide, Agnes, was typical of hip, trendy young Poles. She was especially excited about Pope Francis coming to Gdansk in a few days for the World Youth Conference. She guides in the summer and teaches elementary school during the school year. She led us through the great gate entrance to the old city and we were immediately struck by how beautiful the buildings were. She told us how many people have an image of Poland as being made up of dull, grey buildings reminiscent of the Soviet era when in fact, Poland has always been beautiful, even when the Soviets occupied Poland. She told us it was against Communist propaganda to show how beautiful Poland is.

The many diverse facades of the buildings were so beautiful.

In the square is a monument to Daniel Fahrenheit, a physicist, engineer, and glassblower born in Gdansk. It holds an antique thermometer to honor his contribution to a universal temperature scale.

We meandered down several, narrow cobblestone streets and like most medieval cities, there was a huge, towering church in the square. This one is the biggest brick church in the world and holds 25,000 people.

Since Northern Poland was on the Baltic Sea and ship building and sea port trade was a major part of their economy, you will see several  statues and fountains with a "Neptune" theme. This one was particularly interesting with a sea horse's tail replacing the fig leaf!

There were many bakeries along the streets and families were returning from church, sitting outside at the cafes enjoying coffee and pastries. Page had one of the waffle pastries layered with nut butter and elderberry jam. It was delicious.

One of the side streets was made up of lovely homes and restaurants with front porches. Old stone gargoyles jutted out over the porches as rain spouts. Our guide pointed out this cat which belongs to the owners of this house and frequently perches on the gargoyle spout in order to be the most photographed cat in Poland!

The old town square is lined with merchants and guild houses.

Anywhere we go in Europe we see unique, interesting fountains. This fountain was a square with 4 lions in different poses positioned around the points of the square. Rubbing the lion gives you good luck!

It's hard to believe that so many of these beautiful cities were partially destroyed during World War II. This picture taken right after WW2, in the area we walked, is a somber reminder of the devastation of war and the determination of Europeans to rebuild and restore their beautiful towns to their former grandeur.

On our way back to Gdynia, where are shipped was docked, we passed Gate #2 in the Gdansk Lenin Shipyard where protesting workers were fired upon by the Communist regime in 1970, lighting a spark that led to Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement, and ultimately Polish independence.

While we went on the city walking tour, Dave and David were off to the Polish countryside in search of the magnificent Malbork Castle, the largest brick fortress in the world. (It has 30 million hand-made bricks.) No question. It lived up to its reputation!

The Teutonic Knights (part of the Crusades) built the fortress in the 1200's as their headquarters for protecting the surrounding agricultural land from the Prussian tribes. The UN designated it a World Heritage area in the 1960's because of its key place in Polish history. In between it underwent various expansions and then Germans used it as their headquarters during the war until the Soviets took it by force in 1945. (Previous to that it has never been successfully breached.)  As you can see from this World War 2 photo, it underwent a massive restoration and is now spectacular. 

The fortress has three separate castles - the High, Middle and Lower Castles, separated by multiple dry moats and towers. These features made it amazing and fun to prowl around - envisioning what it was like when the 500 Teutonic knights and 200 servants lived there. Inside the fortress was magical with vaulted ceilings, frescoes, and art work everywhere. One center courtyard in particular caught our attention. It had 50+ window-openings that had intricate relief of people, animals, dragons and other goodies. What fun it was to find and photograph them.  

 Malbork Castle: if you are ever in Poland it is a 'must see'! 

We invited a special dinner guest to join us tonight. Constantine Pappas is one of the entertainers on board. He is a young graduate of Fresno State, majored in opera, and is an amazing singer of all genres. We have enjoyed watching and listening to his performances. He entertained us at dinner with stories about the ship and what it's like to try out for theater and singing productions, including auditioning to be part of the Viking performance group. His  ultimate goal, after he finishes traveling around the world on Viking, is Broadway and with his outgoing personality and talent, we expect to see his name in lights some day soon. 

We experienced the earliest sunset on our trip thus far, 8:58 PM and looked forward to the next day in Berlin, Germany.

Exploring Medieval and Modern Tallinn, Estonia

The sun rose at 4:44 AM today, welcoming us to Tallinn, Estonia. Tallinn is an old city established in medieval times. Today's Estonia, including old towns like Tallinn, fuses modern and medieval- beautiful old buildings and traditions combined with a growing tech sector and modern buildings. It was here that Skype and Spotify started. According to the Wall Street Journal, Estonia produces more tech start-ups per population than any other country in Europe. It is a city with charm by the bucket load and its old town is a UNESCO site.

Walking into the old town, we passed many cute shops and restaurants, including this colorful bicycle-themed  bistro.

 

We walked on cobblestoned streets, headed up to the walled Upper Town, or Toompea, feeling like we stepped back into medieval times. We meandered through narrow alley ways, arches, and tunnels into the maze of this charming city.

We entered the town square where there was a huge open air market of local crafts, surrounded by beautiful  old gabled buildings.

Page bought a pair of beautiful hand painted earrings from "Pippin" who designed and made the earrings. She packaged them and signed her name for Page and drew a cat on the bag.  Many of the crafts people dressed in traditional costumes.

 As we neared the top of the hill we came upon the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox Church.

 The view of the city was stunning- red roofs, "Old Thomas" the rooster weather vane, and even a proud sea gull eyeing all the visitors as if to say "Welcome to my realm"!

We walked back down through the village encountering several interesting things along the way- an old wooden pig planter, the entrance way to Balthasar's Garlic Restaurant with a dessert called Jalkiruoat- Garlic ice cream on a bed of rhubarb with fresh strawberries, honey garlic, and a passion fruit caramel (needless to say, we didn't stop to try it), and several pretty doors. Knights in shining armor, charming door fronts and medieval dragon window ornamentation- so many things that make Tallinn such a charming town.

Tallinn is famous for their marzipan (and things made from linen and wool). We stopped at a marzipan confection shop. Marzipan candies are made from almond paste and are molded into a variety of flowers, buildings, fruits, cartoon characters, etc.  We tried the marzipan and decided they look prettier than they taste..

We noticed two interesting modes of transportation on the street- these beautiful carriage horses with longs woven French braids and an old Chrysler Imperial car decorated for a bride and groom getting married in the church nearby.

As we walked back to port, we noticed another huge ship (on the left) docked next to our "small" ship on the right. Traveling with 900 passengers seems a lot, but imagine traveling with 2,000 or more!

After another scrumptious Viking dinner, the evening ended with the Viking performance, The Long and Winding Road,  on the ship's pool deck backed up with a live band. Adam, Constantine, and Eric, 3 very talented young, professional musicians on tour with Viking, performed a medley of Beatles' hits. The sunset at 10:09 PM as the ship sailed for Gydnia, Poland (412 nautical miles). 

Thur. July 21: Exploring Splendid St. Petersburg, Russia(Day 2)

The sun rose over St. Petersburg, Russia at 4:15 AM. Today we were ready to explore one of the largest and oldest art museums in the world, The Hermitage, founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great. Catherine was an avid collector of art and bought collections from all over the world for her own personal enjoyment. In her lifetime she collected 4,000 European paintings and thousands of relics- a huge achievement in the art world. She took great pride in her collection and was acknowledged as a patron of the arts. Today the Hermitage has expanded to occupy 6 buildings around the Palace Square, including the vast Winter Palace, former residence of Russian emperors. The museum not only contains priceless collections of art from all over the world, the buildings are a work of art in and of themselves with their lavish interiors that were once the palace rooms of the Russian royal families.

 

We entered through the Winter Palace gate, beneath the gilded double-headed eagle and passed into a lovely courtyard before entering the museum.

 

Inside the museum, we started up the grand staircase, immediately captivated by the grandeur of this palace.

 

While the walls and ceilings were covered with art, we couldn't help but look down and admire the wood parquet floors. In every room there was a different design and so many types of wood arranged in a myriad of patterns. 

  We passed through one of the throne rooms and then entered a room with portraits of Russian military heroes. Our Hermitage guide, Natasha, was a wealth of information. It was like having our own private curator!

One of my favorite artifacts in the Hermitage is the Peacock Clock, made in 1772, and housed in the Pavilion Hall.   It is made of gold and when it is wound (which they do only a few times a year), the pieces move (peacock, rooster, squirrel and other animals). The mechanism is housed under the mushroom. There is a You Tube video that captures the movement when the clock is wound. 

In the small Hermitage, Catherine's own "smaller" building where she retreated to be alone with her art (she is quoted as saying, "There is only me, my art, and the mice."), there is also a roof top garden. Rooftop gardens were quite novel at that time.

As we entered the Italian Renaissance collection in the old Hermitage, we timed our visit just right! Usually there is a long line waiting to catch a glimpse of the DaVinci paintings.

 

We continued gazing at the collections of Italian and Spanish collections, including Giovanni Tiepollo's Triumph of Manus Curius Dentatus depicting an ancient conquest on elephants. Since the artist had never seen an elephant, the imagined features of the elephant are quite interesting!

 

There was also a huge vase on display in this section, taking up the entire room! It is 8.4 ft tall, weighs 9 tons and is made of Jasper.

We saw some Rembrandts in the collection of Dutch Golden Age painters. We next saw the collection of Greek Classical Sculptures and ancient Greek pottery. The men in these sculptures had abs without ever going to the gym and there were muscles in places where anatomically, muscles do not exist!  

 

There were several Greek wall reliefs. Gary mentioned this one "looks like an early attempt at photobombing!"

We concluded our visit looking at the ancient Egyptian antiquities, including sarcophagi.

We returned to the ship, prepared to set sail for Tallinn, Estonia. At 6:00 we went to the Explorer Lounge to savor a flavor of Russia- Russian black beluga caviar with blinis and champagne.

Dinner tonight was at the Chef's Table. This was our most interesting meal on the ship thus far- a 5 course chef's tasting menu designed to feature a variety of spices and prepared with molecular gastronomy techniques and a wine pairing for each course: starter- carrot and cardadom cream with orange and star anise foam; 1st course- spicy tuna tataki with szechuan peppercorns and coriander, followed by a granita of ginger and tarragon with infused vodka and lemon foam, main course- beef tenderloin (prepared sous vide) with Spanish paprika, cumin, coriander, and cinnamon served with a purple potato mousseline and oyster mushrooms, and dessert- apple tarte tatin with cinnamon and a butterscotch calvados sauce. It was amazing and each of the wine pairings brought out the flavor of each dish so remarkably!

We ended the evening listening to a cabaret song and dance performance, followed by an after sunset (9:53 PM) performance of the Rat Pack Revisted.