T+79: THE BALTICS

greetings, gentle reader, from somewhere on the road in lithuania enroute to riga. i'm almost finished my tour of the baltics and have enjoyed it tremendously.

my 'funky' bike tour of tallinn was very interesting. the tours (there is also a walking tour) are run by students who are very passionate about their country and the exciting time they are going through now. our guide, a young french-estonian called rene, was excellent. he took us thru a little of the old town and pointed out some of the expected tourist sights, but also added a few (i think) lesser-known tidbits. one of the more interesting sights, i thought, was a small part of the old wall with a door and a barred window which was a jail and more lately as a KGB detention (i.e. torture) cell. we also stopped at a church which is opened irregularly by a preist who will invite you in if he's in a good mood (watch out if he's not!) and sometimes do paper-making demonstrations. it is also home to tallinn's smallest window and has a small mail slot for:

the church of the blessed virgin with three hands. she is the protector of the innocent who have been wrongly convicted, deceived and sinned against. you can describe your problem and put a letter in the box. the priest will pray for settlement for your question.


we left the old town and wandered through some of the poorer areas of tallinn to a former-jail which is now an art gallery. it looked very interesting and i would have liked to go back. we also rode through a small park which rene said at one time had been a graveyard but the soviets did not want people to remember the dead so they bulldozed all the headstones away and it was forgotten until after estonia broke away and someone was going to build on the land and dug up some bones. when they were discovered, development stopped and the land was made into a park. rene said there are many such parks in tallinn.

next stop was a maritime museum which is home to the only estonian submarine, lembit. rene apparently also volunteers there and although it wasn't officially on the tour, said we could pay (15 eek - nothing) and he would take us thru, which of course we did. apparently the lembit had a sister submarine called kalev but that was unfortunately sunk.

after lembit, we went through a few more soviet-era neighbourhoods where rene told us a little about the hard life under soviet rule and arrived at our final tour destination, the crazy flea market near the train station. you can buy almost anything here and rene gave us a quest: he gave us each 5eek (nothing) to go forth and see what we could find. i hit a second-hand store with high hopes but nothing. fortunately, there was a booth not too far away where a man was selling soviet-era memorabilia. i asked him if there was anything he would sell me for 5 eek and he pulled out some pins. i got a fantastic babushka pin, but i couldn't stay away from the soviet stuff which was more. i got a couple of lenin pins which are terrific for 15eek each. while i was there, another guy from the tour (a canadian by way of armenia) horned in on my find. oh well. life is short. he got a great communist party member book, where you write in all your dues, etc. this guy had all kinds of great stuff like passports and uniforms - and for virtually nothing.

i also popped in later to pull a couple of pints at depeche mode. please note that i am flying the morrissey colours :) but as the tour didn't start until wednesday, i headed to the town of kuressare on the island of saareema for some sun, sand and spa first.






T+72 - SUN JUL 23: KURESSAARE
as i had to wait until wednesday to start, i went to the tourist info & asked them to recommend a good place to go for sun and sand and relaxation so they suggested kuressare on the island of saareemi. sounded good to me and they suggested a guest house right near the beach for only 300eek per night (about $27) so i took it. the cheapness here would help defray costs of the tour ...

in the morning, i went to the architecture museum in the old rottermani salt storage. it's not a very big museum and really only for those who have an interest in architecture, which i do so i enjoyed it. afterwards, i checked out of the hotel and headed for the bus station. the buses i had seen looked quite reasonable. of course, my bus was less than appetizing but the 4-hour tour thru the estonian countryside was nonetheless very pleasant and included a nice ferry ride.

the next day, i headed for the beach but also took a jacket with me as the clouds seemed to be massing in the distance. sure enough, by about 11am, the winds were picking up so i headed in to tour the castle. it is a fairly small affair, but it's been quite well restored and had a very interesting exhibit covering the war years and subsequent soviet occupation on saareema. these years were very hard on saareema and both the population and land suffered cruelly at the hands of both the nazis and the soviets.

the weather still had not cleared up by the time i finished so i headed over to spa row and booked a facial which was the only thing i could squeeze in because they were fully booked. unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate at all so i spent most of the day hanging around the very pleasant cafes of kuressaare.

tuesday morning dawned spectacularly so i spent the morning lazing at the beach and (finally) having a swim in the baltic. the baltic sea is unusually un-salty having initially been a large inland freshwater lake and only becoming a sea as the glaciers melted connecting it with the rest of the oceans. later, i headed over to the spa for a very relaxing (and cheap!) facial. the same facial would easily have cost me probably $85 in vancouver but here, $35!

wednesday i headed back to tallinn and joined up with my tour. i was going to check out some anarchist poetry and alt-rock at a student-type culturehouse but i was just too tired so crawled into bed and watched tv.

T+76 - THU JUL 27: SIGULDA, by way of TARTU & CESIS
the tour set off early and we drove to tartu, the second-largest town in estonia and home to the university. tartu is a charming town and like tallinn, has undergone a great restoration. our guide, ona, took us on a great tour and was very knowledgable about all sorts of people, places and events. after a quick lunch, i popped into a gallery and picked up a nice lithograph for mich and then we were off to cesis and sigulda, quite a long trip. along the way, ona periodially pointed out interesting sites and told stories of life in estonia and the baltics. we stopped briefly in cesis to see the church, etc and then on to sigulda.

the trip was quite long and as i had not had too much of a lunch (coffee & a pastry), i was quite hungry. i had originally thought to go to kaku maja which lonely planet categorized as 'artsy and modern' but then changed my mind and headed ot pilsmuiza serving traditional latvian fare and overlooking the castle ruins. i arrived just behind 3 of the germans with whom we were sharing the tourbus and as there was only one table available on the patio, invited myself to share it with them. there were only 8 tables and 2 waitresses who were rushing rushing rushing around and yet it still took forever to get some service. after about 30 minutes we ordered food, got beer and i ordered what sounded delicious: chicken with bacon in beer sauce. the reality was disappointing, although i do rather suspect that something was amiss in the kitchen and the 2 waitresses were having to do everything ... oh well, the company - sandra, andreas and wolfgang - was delightful and now i have tour guides if i decide to visit hamburg :)

the following morning got off to a rocky start: no water. at all. oh, that happens on the third floor when other people on the lower floors are using the water at the same time. riiiiight. anyway, finally got a trickle, brushed my teeth and headed down to breakfast. in the morning, we toured the ruins of nearby sigulda castle, had a brief jaunt to gutmani's cave in guaja valley park which is covered in carved graffiti going back hundreds of years, and over to turaida castle which also has a beautiiful sculpture garden.

arrived vilnius around 7-ish and headed off for dinner with alan & judith, the couple from birmingham. we went to a restaurant called tores recommended by the lonely planet guide and were not disappointed in the least. tores is in a bohemian quarter of vilnius and situated on a hillside overlooking a lush park with a panoramic view of the city. the food was quite nouvelle and very delicious so i went to bed with a happy tummy at last :)


saturday we did a city walking tour of vilnius. our guide for the trip, ona, was excellent. she is very knowledgable about the baltic states and especially lithuania and vilnius, her home town. in fact, there are information plaques in front of the major sites of vilnius which she wrote, although she said she had quite a hard time limiting herself to only 1000 plaques! after the tour was over, she also offered to take anyone who wanted to visit another church which is a particular favourite of hers. unfortunately, we had already seen so many that morning i just couldn't do another one so begged off and headed up to gediminas tower with alan and judith.

saturday is the day for weddings in vilnius and the city was crawling with
wedding parties everywhere. amazingly enough, no one minds if you tour a church while they are getting wed. in fact, it's almost like vegas because the wedding parties would go in to the church, the priest would say a few words, and then they would hurry out and the next party would come in. i kept looking for the 'take-a-number' machine. throughout the rest of the day, there were brides and grooms running around the city having photos taken. very festive!

T+69: TALLINN

at last! comments!! and no rich, it is not black and it is not a turtleneck. well, not a turtleneck in the true sense of the word, but i guess to one such as yourself, the neckline is so high that it might as well be. i've already shipped it home to mummy so you won't be treated to any photos of it.

as for friends who are pregnant shanny, it is the singular 'friend' now. sammy had the beautiful alison lotte on june 3. rachel is still happily pregnant although at least now she's an honest woman having been wed this past sunday. i had a brief (but expensive!) chat with a very happy michele monday morning (sunday night in vancouver) who reported that it was very beautiful. i am now waiting for photos and a full report ...

arrived tallinn today via ferry from helsinki without problems. i'm not sure where all the money is coming from but it seems that a pile has been spent on the old town. it's beautiful, but it's almost too beautiful - a little disney-esque perhaps. my spa hotel is immaculate, just completed this year and although it's more than i had wanted & expected to pay in the baltics, it's still a fraction of what i would be paying anywhere else for this type of hotel during high season - yet STILL i am plagued by internet issues and it isn't working at the hotel. oh well, estonia is surprisingly hip to the wifi revolution and it is practically impossible not to find a connection in the old town. in fact, i am happily propped at the bar of the hell hunt pub sampling the local brew whilst i compose this masterpiece :)

T+68: HELSINKI

i've been having a few issues with internet access since arriving in helsinki on friday but at last, i think i have it sussed out. i am, of course, taking the opportunity to download music rather than update the blog immediately so will make a somewhat hasty blog posting for the 2 people out there who are still reading.

i took the overnight ferry from stockholm thursday 7.13 and arrived early friday morning. i was somewhat thwarted in my attempts to find a cash machine that would accept a foreign card and wound up having to troll around the cobbled streets of helsinki trying to get some euros so i could get the bleedin' tram. at last, i got on and made it to my hostel - yes, hostel - and had a brief kip before heading to the beach to catch a few rays.

saturday morning, i went off to breakfast and met a charming scottish brother & sister, gareth and sal. gareth now lives in australia and is here for a climate conference and sale came from glasgow to meet him. the three of us spent saturday wandering through helsinki and doing a little shopping. when i was in norway, i searched high and low for the perfect norwegian sweater only to find it at long last in helsinki. it was hideously expensive of course, but if i'm not worth it then who, pray tell, is?? sunday, we went to a design expo just outside of helsinki in a town called esboo or espo or something. it's a little unclear frankly. the expo, however, was really great. it was a modern development kind of similar to newport village in port moody where sammy lives, except it seemed that there were several developers involved and although the individual complexes were all the same, they had different designers doing the interiors. they also had all kinds of different products and stuff like at the home show. it was a really interesting concept. i have to say that my absolute favourite was the super 70's shag palace complete with broken glass moat surrounding. that'll go over well with the safety warden!

since then, i've been prowling thru the town checking out the ample design offerings. today, i also went to suommenlinna (or however you spell it) which is the fortress built on the islands in the harbour. the fortress was built when finland was controlled by sweden with money from then-ally france, only to be annexed by russia a couple of hundred years later after 6 days of siege culminating in a surprising surrender by the finns when the russians had all but given up. go figure. anyway, the islands are now on the unesco world heritage list and rightly so.

off to estonia tomorrow where i'm booked into a 4-star spa hotel :)

T+60: STOCKHOLM

is fantastic. i had originally intended to leave today but am enjoying it so much i've decided to stay until thursday before going on to helsinki. plus, i got an unbelievably sweet deal on a 4-star hotel: single room for 695SEK (about CA$100) including awesome buffet breakfast and with a stockholm a la carte card thrown into the bargain which gives me free transportation - including most of the sightseeing boats - for the duration as well as admission to 95% of the main museums and attractions.

saturday morning i headed into gamla stan (old town) to walk around and also visit the nobel museum. saturday night, i headed out to a pub in the trendy sodermalm district (which is where i am today sitting on a bench surfing on one of the 8 available free wifi connections ...) to see germany thrash portugal and then headed to a club called debaser to see king kahn & the shrines. he's originally from montreal but now based in berlin (kinda like peaches. hmmm...) anyway, it was like a voodoo james brown. really good. and, i've got a lead on a good club in berlin called white trash :)

didn't feel like doing much of anything sunday so hung around the hotel relaxing and then watched the world cup final there. monday was a day for shopping. maybe it's just me but i've been getting some sweet deals here in stockholm. i was worried it would be really expensive but it's really been relatively cheap. later on i wandered over to the national museum and skansen, the open air museum that shows hundreds of years of (mostly) swedish living. the morning had started out rainy - at one point torrential - but ended up sunny and hot. i stayed at skansen to catch some open-air jazz in the evening as well.

T+58: STOCKHOLM

i've spent some time today updating the photo site so check for new photos :)

T+57: STOCKHOLM

backup a little ...

since the last long post, i've seen & done much. i spent another week in sandnes and, among other things, helped my cousing nina move into her new house and saw roger waters (?!?) in stavanger at (where else would you see a concert in norway?) viking stadium the night before i left. we took the boat to the show to avoid the usual departure problems which was very fun.

on tuesday 6.27 i took the ferry from stavanger to bergen after going to the very cool petroleum museum with kari. the day was grey and windy so i could see that the ferry ride was going to be fun, even though it was sheltered most of the way. sure enough, we got some pretty big waves near haugesund and i was surprised to see someone out on a not very big sailboat. hopefully, they were heading back to port!

i got into bergen and still had time to prowl around a pretty deserted town before bed. i think bergen gets maybe a little more rain than even vancouver so i was pretty lucky with the weather. the next morning, i got up to take the funicular up to mount floyen and have a look around. in the harbour, i could see quite a few cruise ships and sure enough, about 25 minutes after i got there, all the tour groups started arriving. when i got down to the bottom again, there were no less than 8 buses and i would have thought you would be hard pressed to have one there, let alone 8! plus, about a dozen groups walking up. yikes!!

well, i learned a valuable lesson that day. never book a tour when you know cruise ships are in town. oh well, i took a recommended tour that was very good and would have been excellent if not for the 8000 other groups also trying to view the same places at the same time. lesson learned. after the tour, i got checked out of the (very good & reasonable) thon hotel, just off the waterfront, and met up with aage's cousin (and now my honorary cousin) arnhild. she took me on a local's tour for a very nice view and then a lunch far away from the madding crowds before dropping me at the ferry to go up the very beautiful sognefjord to the small town of balestrand.

6.29: BALESTRAND
balestrand really is beautiful. i had debated paying 640NOK (about CA$120) per night for a room with a view & balcony in such a small town but, as you can see from the photo, i think it was money well spent. i was going to head down to the pub at the historic kvikne's hotel but as soon as i saw my room, and in particular the BATHroom, i decided to stay in. yes, that's right: BATHroom. it's pretty unusual to have a decent tub in a hotel, especially scandinavia where showers only are the norm so i was astounded to see a nice, deep relaxer tub and thought i must pounce at once. my hip & shoulder had been nagging me (how old am i again?) and i hadn't had a chance to stretch them out properly so i took a nice hot bath with a lovely l'occitane bath cube (thanks c :) and had a good stretch. bliss :)

7.1
left balestrand on 6.30 and took the famous flaamsbana railway which only takes about an hour and goes 20km, yet climbs from sealevel to over 800m above sea and goes through 20 tunnels and some pretty spectacular norwegian scenery, then connected on to oslo and spent another night with tante lita. the following day was my cousin hans' 50th birthday so i went out for a brief visit before catching the overnight ferry to copenhagen. did i say ferry? cruiseship! duty-free shopping, casino & nightclubs. the scandinavians know how to travel :)

7.2 - ROSKILDE!!
arrived the last day of the big roskilde music festival and had to wait a few hours to check in to my hotel, but arrived in the early afternoon. i really didn't have a clue how to get to the festival so i asked 3 likely suspects hanging out in front of the train station. turns out they were danes and just about to take a taxi there so would i like to join them? joy! one of them had been at the festival for i think the whole time and the other 2 were just there today, like me. we got out of the taxi and unfortunately we got about 50 feet when lars realized he had left his pack in the taxi so they had to go with him to get it. maren was waiting for me at the festival so i had to go in and unfortunately, i wasn't able to meet up with them again to buy them beers. anyway, a big shout out to brian, lars & gide (sp?) for your awesome danish hospitality :)

even on the last day, there were tons of people lined up to get in. i managed to get in and meet up with maren at the arctic monkeys gig. what did people ever do at festivals before sms? after that, it was the strokes (good), franz ferdinand (better), and the kaiser chiefs (best!!).


as well, i caught some of ryuichi sakamoto, the raconteurs, and although i had a good spot for them, goldfrapp was cancelled last minute due to 'illness'. hmmmm ....


7.3 - COPENHAGEN
next day in copenhagen, i met up with this chap craig from chicago that i had met on the internet. what?!?! he responded to a post that i had put on rick steves' message board and had also quit his job to spend a year or so traveling starting with scandinavia. we took a great walking tour thru the town, then a canal tour, and then headed to christiania for a wander and a much-needed beverage. christiania is a 'free town' within copenhagen. in the early 1970's, hippies took over a disused and slated for demolition military base and established their own self-government. i reckon that the local politicians thought it wouldn't last long but 30+ years later, it's still a going concern and has already withstood at least one attempt to abolish it. it's like a piece of saltspring island in the middle of copenhagen.

met up with him again later at tivoli which, i suppose you have to see when you're in copenhagen but unless you are going to go on some rides, which we didn't, i don't think it's worth it. there. i've said it out loud. doh!! anyway, we wandered out to a quiet pub for a pint to discuss strategy for the evening. music was the order and there wasn't any at the pub and being a monday night, the denizens there thought there wouldn't be much going on so the best bet would be the storget (the main drag). we hit an english pub and, not surprisingly i suppose, it was some of the worst music i've heard ever. plus, also not surprisingly, the toilets were quite unpleasant. headed down the storget and were (mal)treated to more of the same so i think it will come as no shock to anyone that herr jagermeister made an appearance before too long. i sounded the retreat around 3am or so.

ai yi yi. i woke - if you can call it that - around 11am the next day and the combination of the 2 days of much walking, hot sun and one or two pints the evening before (did i see herr jager?) and i had to get back to bed for a wee nap until 4-ish when i headed out for breakfast ... er, dinner. i checked my email and it seems that craig had enjoyed a similar day. after dinner, i headed back to my hotel to watch the world cup and couldn't even stay awake for the final result.

7.6 - KALMAR, SWEDEN
i figured i would head to kalmar in the afternoon, so i had time in the morning for a trip to the louisiana museum of modern art in haemlebaek, just outside of copenhagen. they had an excellent exhibit about the swedish furniture designer poul kjaerholm, among other things. the building itself is also very interesting as well as the sculpture gardens that surround it. what they don't tell you in the guidebooks is that there is a swimming platform at the beach just below and when i arrived at 9:30, it was already quite hot and the locals were enjoying a dip. lesson #2 learned: always carry a swim suit in the heat.

headed back to copenhagen to catch the train to kalmar and everything was going swimmingly until i hit sweden and then the wheels fell off the train. or more correctly, the tracks fell off the train. it was so hot that the tracks had spread so the train could not continue and we had to get off and were sardined into a - yes, that is singular - bus. luckily when we got to the next stop, the tracks were all better and they herded us onto another train. arrived about an hour later than planned and checked into my hostel. yes, hostel. i figured that the charming 19th-century house with lazy garden overlooking the harbor for only 250SEK per night would be fine. it was a little creepy. would have felt better if i had a travel buddy.

anyway, rented a bike the next day and toured the very interesting medieval castle that is pretty much the only attraction there before boarding the 2:45 train to stockholm. once again, the track (or something, anyway) fell off the train so it left late and i missed the connection in alvesta and arrived a couple of hours later than i had anticipated. however, i am very impressed with my new 4-star hotel for only 695SEK (about CA$100) per night :)

7.8 - STOCKHOLM
spent the day touring around the very charming gamla stan (old town) and getting the lay of the land and also updating the blog for those of you who care .... ;) more on that later. in the meantime, comments anyone???

xoxoxox
bk :P

T+56: STOCKHOLM

at last! since coming to sweden yesterday, i've had the most hellish travel experiences to date but at last, have arrived safe and sound to my scan mod hotel in stockholm. copenhagen was excellent and will post soon. for now, night night :)