Each time we go
overseas I write a blog so when people ask me how was the trip (or trips in the
past) or any tips I point them to my blog.
The flight from Sydney
to Dubai was on a Emirates 380. The
whole of the top deck was business class and there would have been 30 rows at
least or 120 people. We were at the
front so got served first. Dubai to
Stockholm around 6.5 hours was even better as we were upgraded to first.
We arrive in Stockholm
at around 1pm and had a chauffeur driven Mercedes take us to our hotel in Gamla
Stan which is in the centre of Stockholm and easily the best place to stay in
Stockholm. We were located next to the
Royal Palace, the hotel the Lady Hamilton has tremendous character and is
really cool.
That afternoon we
staggered around the island, (Stockholm is built on 14 of them) grabbed a great
meal at Osterlangg 17. I also made my
first mistake at a money changer who charged me a percentage 14% instead of fixed
amount. The address was 29 Vasterlanggan, don’t go there. The standard charge is 50 kroner irrespective
of the amount.
The next morning we
set off to the biggest department store NK to buy some boxer shorts I had
forgotten to pack and mummy then bought some shoes. We ended up going to a tour at the
Konserthuis, a big blue building where besides concert they do the annual Nobel
Prize Awards of 1 million dollars each for physics, chemistry, literature, and
economics. The event started in 1902 and
is funded by the Nobel estate (inventor of dynamite). The peace prize is done in Oslo in accordance
with the will of Nobel to try to keep Sweden and Norway together. It failed as 3 years later Norway split
off. We also heard a lunch time concert
there.
That afternoon we did
the Royal Palace tour. The palace is the
second biggest in Europe after Versailles and is really impressive. We learnt a lot about Swedish history;
nothing else matters as long as they beat the Danes. Sweden broke free from the Danes in 1523
which is the most common pin code in Sweden.
The other interesting item was that due to assassination they had to
import a Napoleonic Marshal in 1809 to become king with instructions to regain
Finland which had just been lost to the Russians. He decided that was too risky so he invaded
Norway and conquered that country instead.
This was the last war Sweden fought.
Since then the country has been neutral.
Now you know why Sweden appears to be very wealthy.
That night we has an
Italian meal at Sally's which I booked online via trip advisor and got a 30%
discount.
The next day began
with a 2.5 hour boat tour under the bridges.
It gave us an excellent understanding of the Stockholm topography. There are 14 islands and 60 bridges and we are
staying on the oldest and most central.
In the afternoon we went to the Vasa Museum. In 1628 the Vasa was built on the orders of
the King to be the first double decker warship.
Unfortunately it was top heavy and on its first voyage made about 800
metres before a slight breeze caused it topple over and sink. They managed to salvage nearly all the 64
cannon but the location of the ship was lost and only raised some 333 years
later in 1961. 98% of the original boat
was salvaged and they then built a museum around it. It is a really unbelievable sight. The boat is massive and the exhibitions
superb. It turned out that everyone
thought the boat was unstable but no one had the courage to tell the King.
That evening we had
another Italian on Vasterlanggan. I ate
Bambi, it was my first reindeer filet.
It was excellent and much better than venison.
The third day we
walked south to Sodermalm, Stockholm's hipster area and the setting for The
Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. We foud it
disappointing so after an hour we returned to the centre. We did a tour of the Riksdag or Parliament
House and learned how their democracy worked.
44% of the 350 members are women.
They abolished their Senate in 1961.
If only we could do the same in Australia.
Then in the afternoon
we did a tour of the Opera House. During
the summer they drop rhe massive chandelier to change the light bulbs. They have over 250,000 costume which are worn
by various singers and dancers. Each
costume has the date and wearer sewn in and some costumes are over 50 years
old. The back stage was massive with 75
different drops possible. During the
tour we met a couple (Jacqui and John Baker) with whom we had done our Turkish
tour in 2014. It truly is a small world.
The next day was the
start of our Baltic Cruise. We were to
board our boat at midday so we took the opportunity to tick off two more nearby
sites. The first was the Stockholm
Cathedral which is the most important church in Sweden. It is famous for a massive statue of St George
slaying the dragon. According to the
Swedes St George is Sweden and the dragon is Denmark. Nothing else matters if you are beating
Denmark. The second was the Nobel Museum
which is dedicated to the Nobel Prize.
We had a very interesting talk.
Alfred Nobel was the inventor of dynamite and held over 340
patents. When he died it was estimated
his estate was worth $1.4 billion. He
had no wife and children. To the chagrin
of his remaining family he left them nothing.
Instead he said every thing was to be sold up and invested prudently and
that the annual interest was to be distributed to five prizes:
physics,chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. The first four were to be decided in Sweden
and handed out there while the peace prize was given to Norway. The first prizes were handed out in
1901. The peace prize was given to
Norway in an attempt to keep them in a union with Sweden. The union was terminated in 1905 but Norway
kept the Peace prize organisation. The
only problem is that the prizes are handed out on the date of Nobel’s death 10
December which is not the greatest time to visit Stockholm. The prizes are awarded internationally only
to living people. At the time of the
first prize the King of Sweden joined the family in trying to get the will
overturned because he wanted the money to stay in Sweden. 900 Nobel prizes haven awarded, no more than
3 people per prize. Prize currently
worth $1 million and prize winners can invite 14 people to prize giving and
dinners etc. So far 48 women have won
the prize.
We then got on the
boat and did the life boat drill and then had our first of many enjoyable
meals. Oceania claims to have best food
of any cruising line and they could well be right. I would not know as this was our first
cruise.
The next day (30 July 2016)
we woke up in Helsinki. It was a very
full walking tour lasting some six hours.
Helsinki is only around 800,000 people.
It is clean but not rich as Finland has only 5 million people, fought on
the side of the Germans against the Russians and suffered badly in WW2. Not so much in damage but in very tough
repatriations it had to pay to Russia which it did. Funniest thing was at the end of the tour when
we viewed the Jean Sibelius monument. Very modern art that looked like a mass
of disjointed organ pipes supposedly to represent the birch trees of
Finland. The Finns demanded a portrait
of Sibelius be installed along side the work.
The other interesting thing stop the Rock Church which as in name implies is a
modern church inside a rock. We arrived
as a wedding was being held (Korean groom and Finnish bride - very
multicultural). We only had 15 minutes
viewing as another wedding was happening, it was Saturday. The guide was very negative on the Russians
and the current EEC immigration policy.
This message was repeated at every stp.
The next day we were
in St Petersburg. This was meant to be
the highlight of the trip. Unfortunately
it was Russian Navy day, so Putin and about 250,000 Sailors and their families
were walking the streets, many staggering under the influence of too much
vodka. We had booked an excursion to
Catherine’s palace which was quite stunning and the site of the famous Amber
Room. The original was stolen by the
Germans during ww2, the city then called Leningrad was the site of 900 day
siege where some 1 million Russians died most through starvation. Then we had a typical lunch borscht –
Beetroot and cabbage soup with a glass of vodka. That afternoon we went to the first building in
St Petersburg the Peter & Paul Fortress where the church is the resting
place of the Tsars and their families.
Fairly amazing history. Finally
we went to the outside of the Church of the Spilled Blood where Tsar Alexander
2 was assassinated in 1881. He survived
a bomb thrown by a first assassin, got out to remonstrate with him, and was
then killed by a second bomb thrown by an accomplice. It is fair to say that since then
remonstrating with assassins has not be the preferred choice of action.
That night we were
meant to go to the Hermitage for a music evening and private viewing. That had been cancelled due to lack of
interest according to the ship but as we met two other couples who hoped to go as
well we decided the Hermitage had been taken over for a special function by
Putin. So what had been the main raison
d’etre for doing the cruise went up in smoke.
But that’s life.
The next day we had
another excursion to the Peterhof Palace which has all the trick fountains and
gold plated statues. Peter the Great
spent very little time in it dying way before its completion. It was destroyed during ww2 but has since
been rebuilt. So that was our visit Leningrad;
SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) is not interested in returning.
2nd August
saw us in Tallin in Estonia a country of 1.4 million unified by their language
and getting rid of the Russians in 1991.
The old town is small (450,000) and
quite charming. We visited the top town
which is the political centre as part of the tour and then went to the Kadriorg
Palace started by Peter the Great and now is a 25 room art museum. In the afternoon we wandered around the lower
old town. Quite charming and not much
damage during ww2. Again the guide had
little love for their neighbours or the EEC immigration policies.
The next day was at
sea. We had a bridge lesson in the
morning and then took part in a 7 table duplicate session. We played east-west and won. Vivienne has yet to recover especially as she
played most of our hands.
3 August saw us in
Poland at the port of Gdansk where both ww2 started and Solidarity was born in
1980 which eventually led to the fall of the communist empire and the rise of
Lech Walenska. Gdansk again is a small
town with a very interesting history. Teutonic
Knights, Hanseatic league, Polish-Lithuanian Commonweath, Prussian occupation
renaming city as Danzig you have it all.
Extensively damaged during ww2 by both the Germans and the Russians the
city was rebuilt post ww2 by the Poles removing all traces of any German
presence. The layout comprises one long
street called the Royal Way with the Golden Gate at one end and the Green Gate
at the other. The largest brick church
in the world St Mary is here. Of course
Poland is very Roman Catholic so the images of Mary are every where. However the church does have the stark white
walls of the Lutheran churches when Gdansk was under Swedish rule. The guide was anti Russian saying the Communists
had taken away 30 years of her life and wishing she was born 30 years later and
was another anti immigrant.
5 August saw another
sailing day this time going through the Kiel Canal which is quite impressive
and you see the neatness and productivity of the Germans in action. Another bridge lesson and another duplicate
match. Not so successful this time.
The next day we docked
in Bremenhaven and did a day trip to Bremen.
Again a small town of 500,000
people but a fascinating history. The
city has always been fiercely independent.
In 888 it secured self-control to mint its own coins and hold its own
markets and it 1386 elected its own mayor and senate. You can see SPQB carved in the beautiful town
hall. Our first guide was fiercely independent
and very anti Merkel. The town square has
a statue of Roland and the four musicians: donkey, dog, cat and rooster of the Grimm
fairy tale. You have to grab both front
hooves of the donkey when taking a picture.
Grab only one and you are a second donkey shaking hands. The Cathedral is very ornate for a Lutheran
church. We then had a second tour around the town along the river where there
was an exceptionally tacky flea market and also the Schoor which is a village
of crooked lanes and small houses including a 1 room wedding hotel. Bremen is the home of Becks beer so I had a
half litre. On the bus trip to Bremen we
saw loads of wind turbines. The guide on
our bus said there was a big problem in that energy generated in the North
lacked the infrastructure to ship the power to the energy deficient south. This I have confirmed with around 850 km of
power lines being blocked by environmentalists.
He also said the windmills were not generating electricity but being
turned by petrol engines to keep them potentially operational. This claim seems unbelievable and I have not
been able to confirm it but he was adamant it was true.
The next day we were
in Rotterdam and we did the tour to The Hague and the Martinhaus Museum which
contains the famous Vermeer painting Girl With A Pearl Earring. We started with a drive through Scheveningen
accurately described by Lonely Planet as perhaps the tackiest beach resort on
the North Sea. We did a photo stop at
the Peace Palace and saw all the embassies The Hague being the political
capital of the Netherlands.
Our next stop was
Antwerp where we took a day trip to Bruges.
This would be the one place I would return along with Bremen. We manage to go to the chocolate museum and
the diamond museum and had the mandatory beer with fries and mayonnaise. Bruges does have a great ambience about it
with horse drawn carriages clip clopping every where and amazing architecture.
Our final Stop was Dover. It was probably our sunniest day and the
white cliffs of Dover never looked more beautiful. Off the boat at 8:45 we eschewed the offer to
get us to London by coach for $199 each by the cruise line which was leaving at
10 and getting into London by 1. Instead
we took a taxi to Folkestone for 20
pounds, took the fast train (1 hour) to St Pancreas for 30 quid each
(discounted as after 10am) so for 80 quid or $105 we were in London at 11 at
one quarter the price.
Summing up not cheap,
great food, very comfortable. My good
friend Anthony describes sailing as camping for rich people. I would describe cruising as coach tours for
rich people. You go to a lot of places
you would not go but you don’t really get inside each stop. We really enjoyed
Stockholm, Bremen and Bruges.
Chris Golis
Australia's expert on practical emotional intelligence
website: www.emotionalintelligencecourse.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgolis
Email: cgolis@emotionalintelligencecourse.com
mobile: +61-418-222219
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