August 6th - Estonia

We left Helsinki and took the ferry over to Tallinn, Estonia. Estonia is about 50 miles away from Helsinki Finland so it took about 2 hours on the ferry.  Don't think of Estonia as being a third world country.  Estonia is a global trendsetter in technology and by 1998 every school in Estonia was already online.  Estonians vote and file their taxes electronically. The product Skype that many of you have used  was developed in Estonia. 

Here is a view of Old Town Tallinn. Now we are going to climb the 245 steps up to the top of the highest tower you see in the center of the picture. So follow along with us and we'll take you up there.

The first thing we're going to do is enter the town through the best walled medieval city in all the Nordic countries. The tower on the left of the arch as we enter the town is called Fat Margaret because it is not very tall but it's very big around.

Once we get inside the gate notice the 3 houses that are connected on the right hand side. They refer to these as the Three Sisters. Notice the beam perpendicular to the face of the buildings where the merchants would attach their hoist to lift goods up to the 2nd and 3rd floors.

Just follow Bonnie through this short door and on up the stairway.

This is the only straight part on the stairways as we go up to the top of the tower. It was a constant spiral with narrow steps as we ascended. By the way this is inside a Baptist Church.

Now that were up at the top we will walk around the edge of the roof and take some pictures the city. The towers with the pointed orange roofs mark the preserved city wall.

You can see the grey city wall in the picture below underneath the row of buildings in the center of the picture. The wall also separated this city of Tallinn into two separate cities.  The higher part of the city on top of the wall was for the upper class people and the ones that lived outside of that wall was for the lower class people.

That is Fat Margaret over there on the left with the blue and white umbrellas on top of the roof.

Your some open-air shops on the outside of the wall.

More city wall.

Now we are going to walk past some buildings that I think have interesting architecture.

The two-tone green building with the yellow medallions on the front of it used to be the local headquarters of the KGB

The Russian Orthodox Church in Estonia in the upper town

That is the town hall with the high tower on the building. The criminals we're chained out in the courtyard for public humiliation. Not while we were here, I was referring to back in the fourteen-hundreds.

This just made me laugh to see the description stating that this was authentic Texas food.

OBSERVATIONS and other useless information:

• on our ferry ride from Estonia back to Stockholm we were not surprised to hear a live performance  singing some ABBA music since ABBA is from Sweden. But we were surprised and it was an interesting accent and twist on the music that the person chose to sing some Johnny Cash, John Denver, Willie Nelson Olivia Newton John, Gordon Lightfoot and Elvis.

• after we boarded this ship and before it left port, we just happen happen to be reading that the ship that sailed from Tallinn to Stockholm, prior to this one, sunk in stormy weather back in 1994

• from what we have seen so far in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia I would like to let all of you know that if you were planning on going to Japan for a visit don't go right now because nobody's home,  they're all here.

• we visited the Vasa Museum today in Stockholm when we got back from Tallinn. The Vasa Museum is dedicated to the recovery of the Vasa sailing vessel that was built King Gustav. It sank in 1628 on its maiden voyage and was only about a thousand metres out when it sank. It laid in the bottom of the Stockholm Harbour for 333 years before it was salvaged. I couldn't take any pictures of it because of the way it was stored it was very dark inside the museum to help preserve the wood. 

August 6th - A couple more things about Helsinki, Finland

There were a couple more items we wanted to share with you with regards to Helsinki. In the first picture below, this was a church built by two brothers that had to blast the granite out of this in the center of town in Helsinki.  The day we came to visit it, there was a  music camp practicing in this church. I started talking to one of the parents about the camp and was told in order to be eligible for this music camp you had to be a Nordic citizen and they have this camp once a year and students from all the Nordic countries, including Greenland and Iceland, come to participate as well as teachers, parents or even grandparents.  I don't know if you can see it very well in the picture, but the walls are granite, the windows sit on top of the granite, then the ceiling, which is more difficult to see, is made up of 13 miles of copper coil. This was a very interesting church.

I mentioned bike paths dedicated strictly for cyclist. In this picture you can see the bicycle and pedestrian "highway" which I think was probably, once upon a time, where the train ran through the town and as the town grew they relocated the train tracks. But that's pure speculation on my part although it looks like that's very possible to me.

OBSERVATIONS:

• so here we are in our region of the world where nearly all the people seem to have blonde hair. I found it rather interesting that there were many people, mostly younger, that dye their blonde hair grey. I was in style and didn't even know it! 

August 3rd - Stockholm, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland

Stockholm is a large city, some of which is modern, and a lot of the part I like best, the old city. Stockholm is made up of over 700 Islands. So everywhere you go there are bridges and what appears to be streets of water. The first two pictures below show a picture of the Strand which is the popular area and very busy. Notice the unique rooftops of all of these buildings along the Strand. The second picture is of the Strand taken from a different bridge farther away.

In the picture just below you will see this bridge that crosses over some water to yet another island. When you walk through the arches in the building straight ahead, you are walking into the area of the Swedish Parliament. This will also take us into Old Town Stockholm. 

Here's a street in Old Town Stockholm. Notice the horizontal pieces sticking out near the tops of the buildings on the left side. These were beams where the merchants would hang a hoist to unload goods that were delivered by wagon on the street.

This doorway is in Old Town Stockholm and the medallion hanging above the door told the fire department that this place had fire insurance so the fire department would put out a fire if the building caught on fire. Conversely, no medallion, no help from the fire department.

This is a refurbished phone booth in old Stockholm. There will be a more modern phone booth in another picture below.

A Swedish soldier standing guard at the Royal Palace.

This is Stockholmes oldest square. We really enjoyed the different roof structure designs and colors of the buildings. It was at this location where we tried a favorite of the Swedes, a delightful treat called a kanelbullar,  which is a cinnamon bun.

There's nothing special about this building other than I just thought it was really a unique architectural design.

You have probably seen a hand-carved wooden horse like the one below that Bonnie is sitting on in gift shops. This is very Swedish and this particular horse was in a park for people to climb on and have their picture taken.

Here is that more modern phone booth I promised you, however it is no longer in use

This picture shows the transportation variety in one location.  On the far left are the lanes for cars and busses, then there are two paved bicycle lanes then the cobblestone marks the beginning of the pedestrian walkway.

Have you ever seen a boat like this? It is a picnic boat that anyone can rent to go out into the water and have a picnic lunch or dinner.

 I mentioned earlier that Sweden was made up of over 700 islands.  The next five pictures show some of the islands, many of which are inhabited. 

The ship that we took from Sweden to Finland was not just a ordinary ferry. The picture below is taken from inside the ship of the main Promenade on the ship. It felt more like a commercial cruise ship.

We are now in Helsinki, Finland and this building was along the main Esplanade in Helsinki.

Of course being in Europe there are many churches that are very well-kept but are not used for religious services. The one pictured below is Russian Orthodox Church.

The next two pictures are inside the Russian Orthodox Church. Notice the detail in the ornate designs inside this church.

The Lutheran Cathedral pictured below is right near the University of Helsinki.  It is very beautiful and ornate on the outside but the inside of it was very plain and simple.

Some observations that we have made while here.

• the number of people who smoke seems incredibly high

• it seems like we are at the epic center for men, women, and teens piercings,  tattoos,  and unusual hair colors

• the number of women who wear incredibly high heals to walk on cobblestone streets (we saw one bride who wore 6" high heals but couldn't walk in them)

• like it has been for many years,  black is the "in" color for clothing 

• every pregnant woman we have seen was wearing a black maternity top

• In Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, Mercedes Benz is the most popular car for taxis, hands down. When I inquired about the reason for this,  I was told ". . the reliability."

• the Scandinavian countries are very environmentally aware

August 1st - Kalmar, Sweden

We rolled into Kalmar, Sweden which is a coastal city south of Stockholm. There is a very pronounced castle there that is claimed to be the best medieval castle in all of Scandinavia. It has a moat around it that you will see in some of the pictures below.

In the picture just below you can see the remains of the wall that was around the city of Kalmar many years ago.

This magnificent building is the cathedral that was built in the center of town on the town plaza.

This is the market square of old town Kalmar. 

This hotel where we stayed was originally a mansion and just across the road from the castle grounds

I like this picture a lot. Notice the 5 round dots in the tower of the castle. These were the cannon balls that the enemy fired relentlessly during one of the battles. Even though the soldiers of the Kalmar castle returned fire, they eventually ran out of gunpowder and surrendered the castle to the enemy.

Standing on the castle side of the moat looking across the grounds.

The bridge over the moat leading to the drawbridge.

Another view of the moat extending around the gun tower of the castle grounds

A view of the castle and the wall from the opposite side of the moat.

A couple more pictures of old own Kalmar. The first one is a typical narrow cobblestone street.