Port at Visby, Sweden [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]WHEN WE booked this cruise (back in late 2021), the marquee stop was most certainly St. Petersburg, Russia. No matter your politics or your world history gestalt, it is understandable that St. Petersburg is a sought-after destination. In splendid contrast to an otherwise perceived, repressive, cold, mostly poor, while geographically vast country, St. Petersburg is Russia’s bright light, presented to the world as an enlightened and modern “utopia-worthy” city. Its namesake (both he and the city were named after St. Peter, the apostle), Romanov Czar Peter (“Peter the Great”) may have been the primary responsible Russian leader for bringing Russia into its own as a modern, “westernized,” world power. Serving as Russia’s capitol city for 200 years, it also became Russia’s cultural and naval center. Under the Czarship of Peter, the Russian Navy was built. Peter was a student of “western” civilization and studied their military, architecture, and even fashion trends. St. Petersburg was designed and built largely in the classical and neoclassical styles and became the showcase of the Baltic. After the 1917 Bolshevic Revolution, the capitol was moved to Moscow. In 1924, the Soviet Government renamed the city Leningrad (it was briefly Petrograd previously). In 1991 the citizens, by citywide referendum, returned the name back to St. Petersburg. In terms of its culture, architecture, layout and history, it appears to be a wonderland for visitors. But alas, not these visitors. 😦
Marina Visby, Sweden [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]
AS TENSIONS increased between Russia and the Ukraine, and consequently, the rest of the world, whether we would still go to St. Petersburg came into question. Nations and travel-related companies other than our cruise line announced that they would no longer travel to St. Petersburg. As war broke out, Celebrity joined the long line of (ultimately unanimous) travel purveyors to eliminate St. Petersburg from their stops. While it was partly due to the safety of passengers, and certainly due to deteriorating relations between Russian and virtually everyone else, I hope it was partly philosophical. There is no good reason in the world to spend money on Russia’s economy today! If they had somehow preserved the opportunity to visit St. Petersburg in spite of the war, we would certainly have cancelled our cruise. A sad state of affairs for the citizens of St. Petersburg and of Russia.
An Entrance to the Walled City of Visby Gotland, Sweden [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]BUT CELEBRITY now had to adjust. Their response to the problem was twofold. First, they changed the Stockholm port to an overnight (that didn’t work out – for entirely unrelated reasons – more on that in the Stockholm post). They then added a previously unscheduled stop: Visby. Visby is a smallish city on the Swedish island of Gotland, in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Its location made it at one time a strategic trading spot, one of the most important Baltic Sea ports of the Hanseatic League. Today, it holds strategic military importance, as well as a robust tourist business. With a population of nearly 24,000, the city of Visby accounts for nearly half of the entire Gotland population. Outside of Visby, what remains is all rural.
Visby Gotland, Sweden [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]
THE CENTER of Visby is an old, medieval, walled town. It is one of the most well-preserved medieval cities in Europe. These days, Visby caters primarily to tourism and in recently years a fair proportion of those tourists come from cruise ships. Particularly because Visby was a late addition to the ports, once again we had no tours scheduled. We did learn however, from Mike and Elaine, about a walking tour that convened in the center of the old city. We made the rather long walk from the ship to the Tourist Information Center (TI) where we found our guide. The tour was a couple hours long and was quite interesting. Mostly though, I saw Visby as a last-minute add-on, with some rather nice photo ops in the mix for me.
Visby Gotland, Sweden [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]ASIDE FROM history, the city was well kept, and had many picturesque old buildings, cobblestone streets, and other fixtures you might have expected to be part of daily life in an old medieval city. And, as expected in any old European city, there were churches. The central Christian church – interestingly, immediately adjacent to the Jewish quarter – was large and rather spectacular.
Church/Cathedral Visby, Sweden [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]A
FTER THE tour, we walked around a bit more, and headed back to the ship. Not the most memorable, port we have been to, Visby was still nice. And the weather was sunny (if a bit hot). All in all, we were cruising, traveling, and seeing new places. That seems to check the boxes. Next stop, the much more anticipated Tallinn Estonia.
Visby Gotland, Sweden [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]
[I am back. 🙂 Just over two weeks across the world to South Africa, a new place for us, with new adventures. But there is still so much to catch up on from 2022, including the rest of the Baltic and another trip to the Mediterranean. In the meantime, I am processing the images from the South Africa trip. Stay tuned] . . . .
The Iconic Lutheran Cathedral Senate Square; Helsinki, Finland [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]HELSINKI IS a weirdly modern city (though my photographs won’t show it), with some very classic underpinnings. Originally part of Sweden, the country is essentially bi-lingual (Finnish and Swedish) and even has dual-language street signage (though the Swedish are still a minority of the Finnish population). In 1809, Russia occupied Finland, and under Russian rule, The Grand Duchy of Finland was created. While Helsinki became modernized and industrialized, most of the rest of Finland remained poor and undeveloped. In the 1900’s many of its rural occupants actually emigrated to the U.S. (primarily Minnesota, but there were also sizeable settlements in Michigan’s western upper peninsula). In 1917, Finland won its independence from Russia, and prospered (more or less) as their own nation for the next 20-plus years. The secret “Nazi – Soviet Union Pact” of 1939 “assigned” Finland (along with other Baltic nations – notably Estonia) to the Soviet Union. They invaded Finland in 1939, but were repelled, largely by white clad, Finnish ski troops. Known as “The Winter War,” it insured that Finland remained independent over the next 5 years, but by 1944, the Soviets wore them down and the two agreed to a ceasefire, which left Finland, though they remained a sovereign nation, heavily under Soviet influence. As “reparations,” Finland agreed to cede parts of eastern Finland and Lapland to the Soviets. This rather precarious detente left Finland in the position of “friendly” neutrality toward the Soviet Union, while at the same time, trying to participate in the strong economy of the west.
Helsinki is the only European Capitol with no Medieval past
HISTORICALLY, FINLAND and Sweden have maintained very close cultural ties. You can see a lot of the same kinds of developments (architecture, electronics and tech, for example). The languages are similar. Their religious and governmental institutions are similar. Indeed, there is robust travel between the two cities of Stockholm and Helsinki, largely by boat. Not less than three cruise line companies maintain an overnight “cruise/ferry” shuttle between the two ports. The ferries resemble small cruise ships, replete with staterooms, dining, bars and “nightlife.” It is a popular vacation gambit to take one of these overnight cruises. We saw the ships in the center city port near market square, and several times later in the week during our passage in and out of Stockholm.
Stockholm – Helsinki Shuttle/Cruise [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]THE “COLLAPSE” of the Soviet Union had mixed results. The Soviets were responsible for a substantial portion of Finland’s trade, and that had a depressive effect for a few years. But during the Cold War era, Finland had become known for its modern design, and had grown its timber and paper industries, which resulted in broader, worldwide trade. Eventually, Finland bounced back. One of the notable industries that grew in Finland was its electronics industry (most notably, the one-time telecommunications and cell-phone giant). But maybe the important of developments for the photographer happened during the Russian occupancy. Rick Steves, in one of his books, notes that Helsinki is the only European Capitol with no Medieval past. This is because it remained only a small, rural village during Medieval times. There isn’t any “old city,” like you find in so many other European cities. It wasn’t until 1809 that the Russians decided to move the capital of Finland from Turku to Helsinki (according to some historians, so it would be closer to St. Petersburg). In 1955 Russian Czar Alexander II (who also held the title of Grand Duke of Finland) had a strong affection for Helsinki, and the Russians commissioned German architect, Carl Ludvig to design and construct new public buildings around the area of Senate Square and Market Square. Largely patterned after St. Petersburg, the buildings have a strong Russian “look” to them, with Neoclassical influence . In fact, the area is so reminiscent of Russia, that (during the Cold War and restrictions associated with it) significant parts of the movies Dr. Zhivago and Gorky Park were filmed in Helsinki. Not one to shy away from self-aggrandizement, the statute dedicated to the Czar (who admittedly did a lot for Helsinki) is in the center of Senate Square.
Statue of Czar Alexander II Helsinki, Finland [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]THIS AREA of Helsinki, particularly Senate Square, was in my sights. This particular cruise, coming off of the pandemic, not being our first choice, and being still somewhat up in the air, meant is was one of the least “planned” of any of our cruises. Consequently, we did not have a guide or excursion booked for Helsinki. I had read (primarily from Rick Steve’s book), that Helsinki was one of those cities you could do a self-guided tour in.
Helsinki Tram Line Helsinki, Finland [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]HELSINKI HAS a nice tram system that is reputed to hit most of the main spots. We did not use it but opted for one of the ubiquitous “Hop on – Hop off” buses. As a cruise stop, one of the strong negatives of Helsinki (at least in our view) was that the major cruise ships dock quite far away from the city. The way in is either by the shuttle bus offered by the cruise line (for an out-of-pocket charge), or in this case, the Hop On – Hop Off buses, which made the cruise port (just steps from the ship) one of their stops. It seemed to make sense to us to just pay the one fee, rather than pay for the shuttle (which it turns out, dropped off and picked up right at Senate Square – good information for another trip) and the Hop On – Hop Off, once we arrived in the center city.
Russian Orthodox Cathedral Helsinki, Finland [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]I FORESHADOWED in an earlier post, that you would “meet” our new friends, Mike and Elaine. The night before we boarded the ship in Amsterdam, after a fairly long day on our feet, we decided to eat dinner in the Movenpick Hotel restaurant, rather than head back out into the city. We were seated next to a couple, who it turned out, were also boarding our ship the next day. They were from near Buffalo, New York and had done a few cruises before. We had a cordial conversation and agreed we would seek each other out on the ship. Being “at sea” for the first day, we did run into them and got to know them better. Mike has a lively sense of humor, and both are fun to be around. We ultimately spent a fair amount of time with them both on board, and we shared a couple on shore excursions. This day, neither of us had a “plan” so we agreed to meet on shore and take the Hop on – Hop off together. We enjoyed each other’s company enough that we decided to “join” them on the Celebrity Constellation this coming February in the Caribbean. We also met some other fun friends on board. We always seem to make new friends on cruises.
Governmental Palace; Market Square Helsinki, Finland [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]THE HOP on – Hop off buses are a bit of an enigma to me. I am not sure what the business model is, but maybe some kind of franchise? We have had quite mixed results. In Dublin, Barcelona, London, and Paris, we thought they were quite good. They stopped or got very close to most of the sought-after (by us) places, gave us a great “lay of the land,” and ruled out sites we had not made up our minds about. Other places, they were not so good. The worst we ever did was in Malta. While I am sure that are a lot of great things to do in Malta, I would definitely not recommend the Hop on – Hop off as one of them. 😦 Helsinki wasn’t great, either. The problem with Helsinki was that while it passed by most of the prime sights of the city, it never really got close enough for a good look. You would have had to get off at virtually every stop to scout it and see if it was even worthwhile. We rode it to the city center and then found our way to the Senate Square (our – my, at least 🙂 ) first destination. Turns out we could have ridden one more stop and gotten there directly. After that, we walked around the Senate Square, and back down to the waterfront and the Market Square. We had a beer in the famous Cafe along the promenade, and then made our way back to the Hop on – Hop off stop, basically where we started. There, we waited 45 minutes for the next bus (they are supposed to stop every 15 minutes, but we have heard over the years that some are better than others).
Swedish Embassy Helsinki, Sweden [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]WE DID not do any shopping or see some of the more remote things in the city – other than from the bus. But that was o.k. with us. We had a nice day, I had a couple really good photo ops, and we were content to return to the ship for “happy hour.” 🙂
Governmental Building; Senate Square Helsinki, Finland [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]
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