Finally. St. Petersburg, Russia.

A visit to Russia is not something one does on the spur of the moment. They won't let you in without a visa. Getting a visa can be complicated, so after starting the process online, on the advice of someone born in St. Petersburg and who visits there regularly, we paid a visa agency to get our visas. We didn't really think about cost. Turns out they charge Americans what we charge them. The visas were $200 each plus another $100 fee for the agency. The only way to avoid this is to come in on a cruise or ferry and stay less than 72 hours. We were flying in and staying for 4 1/2 days. It was pricey but ultimately worth it to see an iconic city that sits on the border of Europe but most definitely is not Europe.

Our hotel for this last stop on the trip was located just off Nevsky Prospekt, the main street lined with shops, stores, restaurants and historical sites. Just walking up and down this street and people watching gives a pretty good slice of St. Petersburg life. It is two miles long and goes from the bullseye of the city, the Admiralty building with its golden spire, to Uprising Square. We walked this street for a couple of hours on the day we arrived and marveled at the churches, stores, museums and, of course, people - lots and lots of people. During our stay, we learned that Peter the Great who established St. Petersburg was enamored of the Dutch and designed the city with canals that cut across the two rivers of the city - the Neva and the Fontanka. They are pretty and also serve as a way to control flooding.

Before arriving we talked with a number of people who had been to St. Petersburg and read the recommendations in Rick Steves' guidebook and we decided to do something we have never done. We arranged for a private guide for two days of our stay. We had a car and driver, a guide who was very knowledgeable and accompanied us all day and entrance to all sites without having to stand in line. The first day Timofey Kruglikov took us about 45 minutes outside the center of the city to the small town of Pushkin to see Catherine's Palace and Peterof in Tsarskoye Selo which means Czars' Village. On the way, Timofey gave us a Russian 101 course with emphasis on the Romanovs starting with Peter I (the Great) and ending with Nicholas II (the one we mostly know about because his whole family was assassinated in the Revolution in 1918).  The centerpiece of Tsarkoye Selo is the large, salmon and white Catherine's Palace - the Catherine who was married to Peter the Great and became Empress. Over the years it was added on to by Elizabeth (her daughter) and Catherine II (the Great). It was badly damaged in WWII but because it was turned into a museum after the Bolshevik Revolution, there was documentation that allowed restoration.

The whole area has palaces and golden figured fountains, acres of formal gardens and ponds, fancy pavilions and grottoes. Unfortunately, the day we toured it was POURING rain. It didn't bother us when we were inside touring through the apartments, halls and Amber Room. It did matter as we explored the formal gardens full of gold statues surrounding large fountains, trying to jump over huge deep puddles and taking shelter in various gazebos and pavilions.

 Delft heater surrounded by art

 Gardens and fountains

More of the fountains and pavilions

After Catherine's Palace we shared a lunch at a local restaurant with our guide and then drove to Peterof. This time it was all about the grounds. It sits along the Gulf of Finland because Peter was all about sailing and his Navy. In one of the pavilions we came in and sat alone listening to a quartet sing. It was an unexpected private concert. 

On the Gulf was Peter's "simple house" where he liked to come to get away from palace life. After touring in the intermittent downpours all day long, we boarded the hydrofoil for a return to St. Petersburg.

The next day our guide Elena and the driver Sergei picked us up at the hotel for a day-long tour of the heart of St. Petersburg including the Kazan Cathedral (shaped like St. Peter's in Rome only bigger) and popular for a "miracle icon" of Our Lady of Kazan. Unlike some of the other churches we visited, this one is still an actual Russan Orthodox church and filled with worshipers. During the Soviet era it was used as a Museum to Atheism. Then we rode over to the Church on Spilled Blood. This is truly an amazing structure which is not a church but a memorial built on the spot where Alexander II was assassinated,

The next stop was St. Isaac's Cathedral, another huge, grand structure with a gold dome that looks like the Capital Building in Washington DC. It is massive inside and considered the leading Russian Orthodox church in the world.

Finally we crossed one of the rivers to see the Peter and Paul Fortress with the chapel that is the burial site of the Romanovs. It is on an island in the Neva River. Its centerpiece is the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral with the white marble monuments over the graves of the czars and czarinas from Peter the Great to a special chapel with the remains of Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and their 4 daughters and one son. 

After a brief lunch in the cafe of the Hermitage (the new wing), we began our overview tour of one of the largest museums in the world. The art highlights the collection of European art collected by Catherine the Great. This is really a two for one tour. The first is the art including masterworks by Leonardo, Rembrandt, Matisse, Titian, Michelangelo, Renoir, Picasso, and on and on. The second reason to visit is to walk through and admire the historical rooms themselves as the museum is housed in a palace built by Peter the Great's daughter Elizabeth. The older art is housed in the palace. The newer art is housed across the plaza in a newly renovated General Staff building. The original palace is jammed full of people and tours, many from Asia. The newer building with the newer art is far less crowded and, therefore, more pleasant. Our guide threaded us through the throngs and gave us an Art History I overview of the collection in the palace and then we did the newer building on our own as she left us at the end of the day. 

 Leonardo's Benois Madonna

Peacock Clock

Raphael's Loggia

Matisse's The Dance

The last day in St. Petersburg we were on our own and finally, the weather was beautiful! We had seen enough of the city with the guides that we had a familiarity with the layout and an idea of what we wanted to see. First, was the Faberge Museum in the beautifully restored Shuvalov Palace where we donned foot coverings to protect the floors and saw much more than a collection of iconic Faberge eggs. It wasn't very crowded and was of manageable size in a lovely setting. The main attraction was the room featuring 14 Faberge eggs. They are a marvel of jewels, gold, and teeny, tiny mechanisms that reveal feature inside feature.

 At the top you see the miniature coronation carriage that was held by the beautiful egg to the right.

Other rooms displayed icons, goblets, snuff boxes, watches, porcelain and enamel.

 Icons

After a good lunch in a restaurant that specializes in dumplings called Pelmeniya, we decided to tour the Russian Museum in the Mikhailovsky Palace. Unlike the Hermitage, this museum is only for Russian art and felt like more of a window into how Russians saw their country. It was in chronological order and ended with 20th Century art up through the 1980's. The art in the last rooms no longer had to laud Russia. These last paintings are critical of the later Soviet years. We liked this museum better than the Hermitage.

Queue by Alexei Sundukov

We exited the museum through the back and walked through the Summer Gardens all the way to the Neva River. These gardens, filled with people strolling, sitting and listening to bands, is the oldest garden in the city laid out by Peter the Great himself. He commissioned Dutch and French garden engineers and Venetian artists to bring European culture to St. Petersburg. It was open to the public if you were "decently dressed." We finished our day with a river tour where we ordered food and viewed the riverfront of St. Petersburg out to where the cruise ships dock and back. 

It wasn't possible to see everything St. Peterburg has to offer in just 4 days but we got a taste. 

Terviseks! (That's "Cheers" in Estonian)

As so we have reached the end of our bike tour in the capital of Estonia, Tallinn. If we thought before coming to the Baltic States that they were a bit interchangeable, they aren't. Tallinn in particular and Estonia in general has a distinct personality. Since the end of Soviet rule, Old Town has been restored and Tallinn has lured in tourists with cafes, shops and restaurants in between historic buildings and churches. It is a popular stop for cruise ships. We were lucky that there were not many in port when we were there. As part of our tour, the company arranged for a tour guide for us in the old city. Unfortunately, it rained, hard, during our walking tour which may have had a dampening effect on our enthusiasm. We got a bit of history and the layout of the old city but we really enjoyed it more when we wandered around on our own with our guidebook in hand.

Fat Margaret cannon tower attached to the Great Coast Gate

We spent part of our first day on own own exploring the Old Town of Tallinn. There is both an Upper and Lower Town. The upper town was the government seat and the lower town was for the merchants from places like Denmark, Sweden and Germany who hired the Estonians to do the jobs they didn't want to do. This part of the city was basically abandoned during Soviet times when many, Russians came into Estonia to work in the now-defunct Russian factories. After independence, Estonia worked intensely on developing its own economy - much of which is technology-based. Apparently, Skype was invented here. The money from Skype revved the engines of the economy and it took off. This provided the state with enough capital to begin the massive restoration of its old city. 

We had already seen many of the streets and buildings in this part of the city on last night's tour so we headed inside to tour the City Museum (Linnamuuseum). The main site of the museum is housed in an old merchant's house and shows how the city developed from its first days. It ends with an exhibit on the top floor that talks about life under Soviet rule. There was a really interesting video of the actual declaration of independence and the ousting of the Russians. All those Russians who came to work in the factories continue to have strong ethnic ties to Russia and they make up about 25% of the population. There is some concern that Russia under Putin will attempt to do the same thing he did in the Ukraine - come in to "protect" the Russian-speaking population in Estonia. 

View from the Upper Old Town

After the museum, we had made reservations to eat at a recommended restaurant called Rataskaevu 16. It was an early dinner or late lunch and was two hours of delicious-ness. If you find yourself in Tallinn, make sure you make a reservation for this place. You won't be sorry.

We needed to walk off the leisurely lunch so we headed out of the Old City and made our way to the acres and acres of Kadriorg Park. It is huge and green, crisscrossed with walking paths, dotted with trees and formal ponds and gardens. It houses the Presidential Palace where the president of Estonia lives. The Kunstimuuseum or art museum is in the park also. It's a massive seven story modern building of limestone, glass and copper. We didn't have time to check it out except from the outside. This park also has the Tallinn Song Festival Amphitheater where what Estonians call the Singing Revolution took place. Estonia is small but in 1988 one third of the population of Estonia - 300,000 people- gathered at the amphitheater to sing patriotic Estonian songs. This had been forbidden under Soviet rule. But Soviet control was weakening so the Estonians started to push back. Singing has long been a national form of expression and this is the form they chose to protest. There are still people alive who remember coming to the amphitheater dressed in folk costumes and joining together with the masses to sing. In 1990, pro-independence candidates won elections in Estonia. In 1991, the USSR fell apart and Estonia was its own country. 

Presidential Palace in Kadriorg Park

One of many sculptures in one of the ponds scattered throughout Kadriorg Park

The next morning before leaving for St. Petersburg, Russia, we walked through another completely different neighborhood in Tallinn called Kalamaja. Here many of the streets were lined with old wooden houses  We walked past the Seaplane Harbor and the walled area surrounding the abandoned Soviet-era prison Patarei. It has not been restored and but can be explored if you book a tour. We were not interested in seeing yet another prison that was a place of torture and execution. We did walk to and explore Telliskivi Creative City. Here entrepreneurs have taken over ten abandoned factory buildings and begun to fill them with shops and cafes, art and fashion, beer and food trucks, graffiti and bike shops. It felt like we were back in the Bay Area as we ate at one of the cafes.

We headed off to the airport for our last stop on this trip - St. Petersburg, Russia.

Promenades, blueberry soup and Hiiumaa

At the Estonian border, the buses stopped, the bikes were unloaded and we began our ride for the day. You could see what the border had been: guard stations, gates and fences. Now, it was just something to cross to get to the next state within the European Union. Euros still accepted as they were in Latvia and Lithuania. The scenery was forests and the sea. The weather was great for biking but not really great if you wanted to take a swim in the Baltic - a bit too chilly.

After a break on the beach for a picnic lunch, we hopped back on the bus for the transfer to Haapsalu with a stop along the way in Parnu. This town is a summer resort and was once walled. This picture is the only gate left. It is supposed to be Estonia's "summer capital" but it seemed a bit of an hyperbole. Maybe if we had more time we could have explored more and sampled the mud baths.

Tallinn Gate in Parnu built when the Swedes were in charge.

Now Haapsalu is where I wish we had had more time. The hotel was right on the promenade facing the water. We opened the sliding door to the deck for a lovely view.

On the walk back from dinner

This town felt very Scandinavian rather than Russian or Eastern European. The houses were painted bright colors, some blue, some yellow, some bright green. The center of the town is the castle which was the Bishop's House back in the 1200's. Then the Danes conquered Haapsalu. Then the Swedes, Then the Russians. When we walked by the castle, there was a concert inside. Standing outside the door, we heard a wonderful orchestra with a chorus and solo vocalists. We wandered to the main street in town and chose one of the restaurants. Our server was a young woman who spoke unaccented English. It turns out she has an American father and an Estonian mother and goes back and forth to the U.S. for part of each year. 

 The chapel where the concert was going on.

One of the walls surrounding what is left of  the castle

The city was known for its mudbaths and has what is supposed to be the longest covered train platform in Europe - the better to keep the nobility dry. Now, no trains come to Haapsalu. The grand station is simply a relic. 

There were sculptures everywhere in the water along the promenade and a special memorial bench honoring Tchaikovsky who came to the spas. The bench has little speakers that play his music. 

We wished we had not stopped in Parnu so that that we would have had more time in Haapsalu. The room was lovely and it would have been nice to have more time in the afternoon before dinner and more time to linger in the morning. 

Early in the morning we took the bus to Rohukula to catch a ferry to the island of Hiiumaa.

Ferry to Hiiumaa

 Everywhere we went throughout the Baltics, if there wasn't a little cafe serving coffee, there was a little car outfitted with an espresso machine. In a pinch, there would be a vending machine that actually served pretty decent espresso according to the coffee drinkers on the trip. The ferry to Hiiumaa had drink vending machine. This one is a new option: blueberry soup. 

Hiiumaa is a sparsely settled and developed island. It has several notable lighthouses and some old Soviet bunkers scattered throughout the forests. Kopu lighthouse which was built in 1531may be the oldest operating lighthouse in the world. 

Kopu Lighthouse

Ristna Lighthouse

We rode to the first lighthouse and then on to lunch. After lunch, the skies opened and it poured. No one wanted to ride in the deluge so the bikes were loaded and we rode to the Ristna Lighthouse. The rain stopped and a few of us decided to ride to our hotel. If there was an award for the hotel that most channels Soviet bloc architecture, this one would win. It was utilitarian but ugly and there was NOTHING around it, no houses, no shops, no restaurants, nothing. We had our last official dinner together with the whole group. 

Romas toasting with Estonian liquor

The next morning was our last bike ride on the tour. First we biked out to Surf Paradiis. Apparently, this is a challenging surf spot. We didn't see anyone braving the wind and waves but there were plenty of advertising flags for Corona. 

After our lunch stop, we biked across a tiny island called Kassari that is attached to Hiiumaa.  The island ends in a spit of land that extends out into the sea. Legend says that it is the remains of a bridge that Leiger, mythical strongman, started to build to the island of Saaremaa to make it easier for his brother to come over and join him in heroic deeds. People who visit add a rock to the pile to further the bridge.

 The last ride of the trip ended at a wool factory on the island where lovely handknit goods were for sale and someone demonstrated how wool became yarn on the large, ancient machines they have probably used for over a century.

Most of us sat in the sun and waited for the bikes to be loaded before the transfer to Tallin for the last night on the tour. 

Riga and the last of Latvia

Riga is the most cosmopolitan city we have encountered on our Baltic Tour. It has restaurants, shops, parks and 750 amazing Art Nouveau style buildings, also called Jugendstil. They were built in the early 20th century. The exterior of these buildings is very decorative often filled with mythical beasts, screaming masks, goblins, goddesses and twisting flowers and plants.

 Unfortunately, it's hard to see the level of detail in these pictures. Trust me, they are very elaborate.

The Blackheads House is one of the better known buildings in Riga. It was severely damaged in 1941 and then flattened by the Soviets in 1948. But as you see below, it stands in Riga. Somehow, someone found the original blueprints and it was rebuilt, completed in 2001. Originally built in 1344, it was basically a fraternity for unmarried German merchants. Latvia's president lives in it now.

Blackheads House

There are, of course, many, many churches and historic structures throughout Riga. We chose to wander the cobblestone streets and view the old buildings and churches from the outside. We then headed out of Old Riga toward the Freedom Monument and beyond. This monument is a symbol for Latvia and somehow wasn't torn down during the Soviet times, however, the Soviets weren't happy if you came and laid flowers at the monument. You could be persecuted. A couple of Latvian soldiers stand guard and have a small changing of the guard every hour. 

One of our guides said the view from the Radisson Hotel was really good and free if you didn't go at night. We headed up and decided to treat ourselves to a wonderful cheese and charcuterie platter accompanied by cider and beer. The church in the foreground is an amazing Orthodox Byzantine Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ. 

View from the Radisson Hotel

This part of the city outside of Old Riga has the meandering City Canal. It was once the old moat protecting the city from invaders and is surrounded by the beautiful Esplanade. 

Unlike the other Baltic cities we have and will visit, Riga has a huge Central Market full of meats, fish, produce, nuts, candies, knock-off T-shirts and dairy. It has been around since 1570. In 1930, they decided to bring in five old zeppelin hangars to enlarge the market. We are talking huge. There are something like 1200 vendors here. We wandered and bought nuts, bread and berries. Berries are sold everywhere this time of year often by older women on card tables in busy areas throughout the city. At the market, I tried a the national drink called Kvass. It was sold by a vendor from a small cart with a large tank on it. It's fizzy, slightly sweet beverage that apparently is responsible for the decline in sales of Coca Cola. I found out later that it is made from fermented rye bread. I found it to be delicious - no kidding. When Coca Cola found they could not replace Kvass in the market, they bought out the producers and started making it themselves. Ah, capitalism. 

One of the packed aisles in one of the buildings of the Central Market

Yes, those are buckets of dried fish.

 One of the reasons I am completing this blog so long after the trip is that it was nearly impossible to find computers either in the hotels or in internet cafes that could transfer photos from my phone to a cloud storage program like Google Photos. I gave up on that and just wanted to back up the photos on the phone. The computer in the hotel in Riga was so old it did not have a USB port for a flashdrive. When we went to the internet cafe where they did have many computers that looked about 10 years old and did have extra ports, it took 45 minutes to transfer only some of the photos. We gave up - at least in Riga.

There were museums and other attractions but we chose to spend our time walking the streets of Riga. A couple of women on the tour went to a spa where they had massages and something to do with birch branches. They seemed pretty happy and relaxed so I guess it wasn't bad. 

One more day in Latvia had us back on the bikes riding through the Gauja River valley to the Turaida Castle. 

 Gauja National Park

 Turaida Castle from the tower

Gutmana Cave

On the way to the castle, we passed this cave. It was a lover's rendezvous. Maija Roze (May Rose) was a beauty courted by many. But her heart belonged to a humble gardener. They met at this cave. One day, a rival suitor, faked a letter from the gardener and lured Rose to the cave. When she realized he wasn't going to let her go, she told him that the scarf she was wearing had magical powers. She told him to swing his sword at her neck and she would be protected. He swung. Her head came off and she died. So did he after he was captured and convicted. She is buried at Turaida Castle where she had lived. 

Our last stop in Latvia before heading off to Estonia was at this funky, two room bicycle museum which was within walking distance of the Baltic Sea outside of Sigulda. It is run by an old man and his younger son in a garage in the back of his house. I am still not sure why we stopped there but there were a few bikes that were interesting. The whole tour took about 10 minutes. 

We piled onto the bus for a transfer back to Riga, our third night in the same hotel. In the morning, we were joined by eight more bikers who would travel the rest of our trip with us. This was not a good thing. The group was already 11 English speakers and 12 Germans. This made 31 people! No one in our original group was very pleased as this added time to every stop: more time to load the bikes, more time to eat at a restaurant, more time to pack the luggage in the morning, etc. It certainly increased our waiting-around-time. The guides were not responsible for this, so we made the best of the situation. This is the fifth bike tour we have taken and we had never been in a group this large. 

Tomorrow we head to Estonia.