Stockholm and Tallinn

Stockholm Sweden. Beautiful like Norway was. Our tour guide was very good on this one, too. We went on a walking tour to what they call “Old Town”. Lots of shops and little places to eat. We stopped in at a ship museum and they had the Vasa on display (a ship). It looked like it was right out of Pirates of the Caribbean. It had set sail for all of 15 minutes and then capsized and sunk before it even left the harbor. Thinking ahead, the designer killed himself before it launched....he totally knew it was going to happen. Pretty sad…all that work to build such a beautiful ship and then it sinks after only 15 minutes. The deal was, they were leaving the port and the crew went to one side of the ship. It rocked to that side and seawater rushed into the openings low on the sides were the cannons were. The ship capsized and sank. Live and learn I guess. We also took a scenic tour of the city and visited their parliament building. A stunning city! As we were pulling into Stockholm, we sailed past many, many Swedish islands. They have something like 18,000 islands. I never knew that, but as we passed them, I could see it was true. Many are only big enough for one house. You’ll have to check out my pictures of the islands. But like I have said and will say many more times….my pictures do not begin to show just how beautiful it is.

Next we were off to Tallinn Estonia. You can feel the Russian influence here. Tallin is the capital city of Estonia and was founded in 1157 A.D. It is considered one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe. The city lies 37 miles across the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki. Estonia is the smallest of the Baltic States. The Estonian people are related to the Finns and have rich ethnic customs, which they have retained, even though they have been an independent country for less than 30 of the last 500 years. For most of the last three centuries they have been ruled by the Russians, from whom they regained their freedom in 1991, so you see much of the same architectural designs there as you do in Russia. We were taken to an medieval castle about 1.5 hours away from the city. Much of it stands just as it had when it was built. It was really amazing to see something so old. We also went to a museum and saw how they make vodka. This was followed up with vodka shots with a pickle for everyone. They eat a pickle after their shots….much like we do here with tequila and a lemon wedge. After our shots, we went to the basement of the museum and they had 5 volunteers take a vodka taste test. You can see this in my pictures. They had different ones and they all tasted them and then picked their favorite. The overall winner was Y2K. Then they opened for vodka sales and I think all of us bought some. Greg and I got a little souvenir pack and some shot glasses for our bar. They served us a traditional Estonian lunch and I thought this would be a little scary, but it was actually really good! We ended the day back in the old part of Tallinn and had time to do some shopping before we were taken back to the ship. The older part is really very pretty, as you will see in my pictures.

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