Gdansk, Poland is a bit of a cheat. It’s impressive with its immaculate gothic, Dutch and Baroque Renaissance architecture, huge church spires and archways, all immaculately preserved, it feels like a time capsule from the 16th century – the only thing is, much of it is barely 60 years old. So devestated was the city, formerly called Danzig, in the second World War (90% of it was destroyed), that when it came to rebuilding, the decided to turn back time and rebuild in a style recalling the city’s most glorious period of the Middle Ages.

Gdansk is part of a tri-city complex that includes the resort town of Sopot and the port city of Gdynia, which is where we came ashore. Gdynia is not much of a tourist town, but is notable for being the apple of Adolph’s eye that initially led to the start of World War II – he craved the city’s ports and claimed it actually belonged to Prussia, by way of excuse for attacking it. Modern day Gdynia is pretty depressing, to be honest. It still looks very Eastern European, with drab, stained concrete structures and little post-Communist beautification. Buildings are crumbling, graffitied and kinda sad overall. We bussed through town en route to Gdansk, and the grey, overcast skies did little to help the scenery.

The old city of Gdansk is actually pretty compact. Our walking tour started around the east end as we crossed under the Green Gate into the Long Market. They’ve done a helluva job with the reconstruction of the city, especially if you’ve seen pictures of the utter desolation that was Danzig at the end of the war. The buildings lining the streets are tall and narrow and brightly coloured, adorned with coats of arms, sculptures and decorations. Various sights included the Neptune Fountain outside the towering Town Hall and the enormous St Mary’s Church, apparently the largest brick church in the world, which is impressively huge inside. We also caught glimpses of other landmarks including the Armoury and gigantic medieval crane on the riverfront. It would have been nice to see more, but our tour guide had a bit of an agenda of her own.

Easily the worst guide we’ve had all trip, her English was barely passable and her idea of what constituted a worthwhile “sight” was debatable (“And here is a Holiday Inn… And there is a travel agent where you can buy plane tickets…”) but she also herded us into a jewelery store, ostensibly so that we could see how amber was polished and turned into trinkets but mainly to encourage us to shop there. It was quite evident that she was friends with the proprieters and probably got a kickback on any sales from tour groups. I was not impressed. And I really don’t care for amber, especially after seeing it hocked ad nauseum for the past four days.

Overall, I wasn’t really taken with Gdansk. Not really any fault of the city itself, I think just between getting over being seasick last night, a sub-par guide and generally gloomy weather, it wasn’t really a recipe for a memorable experience. Oh well, can’t win em all. And speaking of seasick, it was pretty rough going night last night. Dramamine is my friend, even if it tastes so very gross. Chewable orange flavour my ass. Tomorrow is spent entirely at sea, I certainly hope the waters are smoother than last night or it’ll be a looong trip. The day after will be spent in Oslo, the second-last stop of this trip. As much fun and enlightening as it’s been, I’m about ready to go home.

And if anyone can come up with a better Polish-themed title for this post is a cleverer person than I.

I remember reading an article in The Toronto Star some years ago that talked about how the Soviets ran a sort of eugenics program in Estonia during the Cold War wherein they encouraged the most attractive people they could find to breed in efforts to create a nation of super-hot people. Or at least that’s what my memory retained from the article – I’ve not been able to find any evidence to back this up, I may have just made it all up… but that was my favourite (and only) piece of Estonian trivia.

Sunday morning at 9AM isn’t really the best time of day to try and see if Tallinners are actually all that hot. It’s difficult to assemble a sample group when the streets are pretty much deserted except for tourists. Since we only had the morning in town, we declined to buy a tour and just headed into town independently, on foot. The old part of Estonia’s capital is a walled city dating back to the 14th and 15th century. Considering the amount of time Estonia spent being occupied by foreign powers, it’s remarkably well-preserved and suitably medieval-looking. The streets are narrow and roughly cobblestoned, the structures proudly simple in their gothic styling. Buildings seem to serve one of four purposes – church, embassy/government, resturant or souvenier shop.

Various noteworthy sights included St Olaf’s Church, which at one time was the tallest building in the world, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral which stands out like a sore thumb with its ornate Russian orthodox minarets and decorations, the salmon-pink government buildings at Toompea Castle and Pikk Hermann, the adjoining watch tower. There were also a few lookouts on the upper city that allowed remarkable views over thet lower city. And it was neat to just wander up and down these old, old streets and imagine peasants and knights and wizards and witches and whatnot walking those same streets hundreds of years ago.

I found Tallinn a nice change of pace from the more modern cities that we had visited thus far. It looks as though Gdansk tomorrow will also offer a Middle Ages-ish experience, though likely more ostentatious than Tallinn’s modest charms. The seas are a bit rough right now, though I haven’t had any problem with transit over the past week, I think I might be a little queasy right now. Seasickness! Yeah, I’m getting the full at-sea experience.

Oh yeah, after a morning in Tallinn I can’t offer any evidence for or against the alleged supposed superior hotness of Estonians, but whoever assembled and deployed the army of perky teenage girls selling souvenier guide books everywhere we went in the city deserves some credit. Those girls had earpieces, walkie talkies– they were organized. And persistent.

It had been said a number of times over the last few days that the Hermitage would be the highlight of our time in St Petersburg and the trip in general. Considering that I’d been pretty impressed with the city thus far, that was a pretty high bar to try and clear. The Hermitage is the second largest art gallery in the world, second only to the Louvre, and is housed in the former royal Winter Palace on the Neva in downtown St Petersburg, facing onto St Petersburg Square. Now I’m a long way removed from OAC art with Mrs Goetz, droning on about the golden ratio and “The Raft Of The Medusa”, but I think I still like art. And stuff. Oh, and I’d seen Russian Ark and even though I didn’t really understand it, I was quite blown away by the museum it took place in.

After entering through the majestic Grand Staircase, we headed straight up to the third floor where the French impressionist and post-impressionist galleries were. It was something else being surrounded by works by Monet, Cezanne, Rodin, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Matisse… yeah. The centrepiece of the 19th and 20th century collections were two galleries of Picassos. Pretty goddamn impressive. The galleries themselves were quite spartan, not decorated like the lavish galleries on the lower floors.

Traffic inside the Hermitage wasn’t too bad while we were upstairs, but heading down to the main floors created a logjam of tour groups, with one group jockeying for position with the other as we moved from room to room. It made keeping up with our tour guide really difficult and the fact that she didn’t speak very loudly meant that I didn’t always have the benefit of commentary as I looked around. But guidance wasn’t really necessary to be overwhelmed by the art everywhere – the walls, the ceilings, the paintings, the sculptures, geez louise. They were particularly proud of their Titian gallery and works by da Vinci and Michaelangelo, and rightfully so. By the time I reached the Rembrandts, my brain was full and I think I stopped absorbing anything and was just wandering around, slack-jawed at the majesty of it all. I did grab a tour book, tough, so that will help fill things in. Did I mention that we skipped many many galleries, didn’t look at loads of works… the standard line was that if you looked at every piece on display for just ten seconds, it would still take you something like a billion years (okay, eleven) to get through everything on display. Their collection is over three million pieces. Yeah.

What I particularly liked was the security there – each gallery was manned by one stern-faced, purse-wielding little old lady. I’m convinced they were ex-KGB and could kill you without even blinking. I half-expected them to leap up and snap the necks of all the people ignoring the “no flash photography rule”, but I guess even they know a losing battle when they see one (I only used the flash once, for Michaelangelo’s “Crouching Boy”, but as it turned out, my non-flash photos still turned out quite well). We sort of had to power through the Hermitage because of scheduling – if we stayed on schedule, we’d get back to the ship just 15 minutes before having to leave on our next tour. I didn’t lay good odds that we’d make it, but somehow we did.

Tour two was to see the fountains and gardens of the Peterhoff Palace. Located a short ways outside of St Petersburg in the town of Peterhoff, we started the tour from a dock just outside the Hermitage. Yeah, we rushed from the museum back to the ship only to get brought back to the museum… but we got to get on a hydrofoil! It wasn’t as cool as the one that GI Joe had, but still. Neat. We took off down the Neva river and out into the Gulf of Finland. The trip took about half an hour and deposited us on a pier directly off the gardens of the Peterhoff Palace. Originally built by Peter the Great and expanded upon by his daughter Elizabeth and Catherine the Great, the lower gardens are famous for a huge array of elaborate fountains which are also notable for not using pumps – they do their thing entirely by gravity. That’s just cool.

Unfortunately, the Grand Cascade, the main fountain outside the palace, was turned off while we were there – there was some sort of stage and PA set up in the middle of it all that probably wouldn’t have reacted too well with huge chutes of water. Apparently the president of Malaysia was around so maybe he was, like, doing something official-like. Anyway, it was a pity but it did allow a better look at the gold statues in the fountains. As we were leaving, we passed through the largest and most interesting souvenier market I’d seen in St Petersburg yet. I had some rubles to divest before we left Russia so I grabbed some postcards featuring the working Grand Cascade. I didn’t really understand the souvenier market – every stall pretty much sells the exact same merchandise, claiming to have authentic Russian memorabilia and whatnot but I can’t help but wonder how traditionally Russian a set of nested dolls painted with an ersatz Harry Potter is. But they seemed to be doing a brisk business, so what do I know?

So that was Russia. We’re en route to Tallinn, Estonia, and I’m more than a little sad to be leaving. I fully intend to return to St Petersburg someday and see the sights that I only got to glimpse through a tour bus window. I don’t know how well I’ve conveyed my impressions of the city… wait for the photos. They’ve turned out quite well. I’ve never been to a city so steeped in and defined by its history. Everything was so amazing to see and to learn about, I simply have to go back someday and take more of it in. For now, I have four more countries to explore and will surely be ready to head home at the end of next week. But someday.

Honestly it’s hard to do St Petersburg justice in words. Today was the first of two days in Russia’s second-largest city, and the whole of it was spent on an overview bus tour. In preparation, I’d been boning up on my heretofore non-existant Russian history through books and a couple of on-board seminars and even after that and nine hours of intensive tour guiding, I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of this place.

Things started out on a drab note – a really early departure time meant it was still dark out when we boarded the bus and it was cold and raining. Our first stop was actually the town of Pushkin outside of St Petersburg, so we headed through the Moscow district of the city. The first thing I noticed was the Soviet-ness of it all. Barbed wire still lined the fences and walls around many buildings, architecture was very Stalin-esque and monolithic, to say nothing of run-down and generally depressing. There were occasional flashes of style or modernism, but for the most part it looked a lot like you would have expected Russia to look like, at least during the Communist years. Things improved – both scenically and meteoroligically – by the time we left the city and reached Pushkin (also known as Tsarskoye Selo) and the sun was starting to peek out.

The main stop there was The Catherine Palace, named for the wife of Peter The Great and built by her daughter, the empress Elizabeth. Even though I’d seen many pictures of the exterior and interior of the palace, I still wasn’t prepared for the sheer scale and grandeur of the building. It was ostentatious to the extreme, especially the insides and the Great Hall in particular, with its gigantic ceiling mural, mirrored walls and gold leaf applied over pretty much everything. What struck me was that there were no hallways – one room connected directly to the next meaning that to get from point A to point G, you’d have to go through points B through F. Apparently the royal family wasn’t all that concerned with privacy.

When we went outside to the Catherine gardens, the rain and cloud cover had broken and it was radiantly sunshine-y out. Fantastic. The gardens were immaculate and beautiful, save for the occasional structure that was undergoing or due for restoration. That’s the thing about St Petersburg in general. It was nearly demolished in World War II from the legendary 900 Days Seige of Leningrad, and only recently with the ascendency of native son Vladamir Putin to the presidency have the funds been made available to restore the countless damaged or derelict historical buildings in and around the city. A lot was done in time for the city’s 300th birthday two years ago, but work continues – everywhere you look, you’ll see scaffoldings surrounding structures in desperate need of care.

Another thing about the garden is that it was simply crawling with souvenier vendors. Selling guidebooks, postcards and nested dolls must be one of the largest occupations of St Petersburg residents. Most fearsome were the armies of grannies selling handiworks at the gateway to the park. I found it best just not to make eye contact. Our time is Pushkin was rounded out by what was billed as a traditional Russian meal with traditional Russian entertainment. It was all enjoyable enough though it hardly smacked of veracity, what with the souvenier stand at the front of the restaurant and the singers hocking their CDs of traditional Russian folksongs. But enough of the people in the group happily left with furry hats, nested dolls and vodka that I guess it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.
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Finlandia! Today’s excursion was a somewhat short (three hour) bus tour that hit a lot of the key tourist-y spots with great efficiency. We first toured around the harbour area and then headed up into the downtown area to see Senate Square and the adjacent cathedrals, university and open-air marketplace. Then up past the new Opera House, Olympic Stadium, up and around the Meilahdenpuisto region (where the President lives) and down to Sibellius Park, dedicated in honour of Finland’s favourite composer whom I’d never, ever heard of before setting out on this trip (not that I’d claim to be an expert on 19th century Finnish composers). I really liked the monument there, which is a fascinating sculpture composed of hollow steel tubes meant to represent music (as well as a bust/sculpture of the composer to appease the less imaginative). Unfortunately, it had started raining just then, so my photos have a little bit of water blotching to them. It wasn’t raining hard enough to actually get me wet, just enough to muck up the camera.

The next stop was Temppelaikukio, or the “Church in the Rock”, which was quite accurately a church built into a huge chunk of granite. Located mostly underground, the round Lutheran church was built around three decades ago and is quite stunning inside, with it’s large copper dome ceiling and stone walls. The acoustics are also supposed to be superb, making it a popular venue for concerts. The tour bus then swung through the more modern, commercial part of downtown en route back to the ship where I grabbed a quick lunch and then caught a shuttle back into the city. I then engaged in some general wandering and photography. A stop in a record store gave proof to the rumour that metal is still very big in Scandanavia, with Iron Maiden sharing feature rack space with Sigur Ros. Unfortunately, the intermittent rain was getting more mittent and heavier so after a couple hours it was time to duck back on a bus and retreat to the cozy confines of the Star Princess.

So what about the architecture? Everything has a very clean, classical look which is pretty remarkable considering that most of the city’s buildings are less than 200 years old (the country in its current incarnation hasn’t even been around for a century yet). It helps that much of the city’s public buildings were laid out to a master aesthetic plan by the architect Carl Engels and the rest of the city seemed to follow along, stylistically. I didn’t get to see too many of the modern buildings (Temppelaikukio notwithstanding) except from the bus, so most of my up-close-and-personal experience is from the older-styled building around Senate Square and the downtown commercial area. As I wandered, I couldn’t help thinking how drab and uninspired Toronto is in comparison to here (and everywhere in the world, it seems). It’s like that almost every building there is remarkable in some fashion, and there’s so many of them that rather than being made heritage buildings and tourist destinations the way they would at home, they’re turned into retail shops, drug stores, etc. And even with the bar set that high, buildings like the train station or Museum of Modern Art are as simply made even more spectacular. I can understand why Helsinki’s buildings have such an excellent reputation.

Like Stockholm, I found Helsinki wonderfully understated and charming. Even the Presidential palace was impressively subtle. Despite the somewhat dodgy weather, I found the whole place to have a real nice feel, like a perfect blend of modern and classic influences. I also liked that I was able to spend more time in the less tourist-y part of town than I did in Stockholm and I daresay the women here are better looking than in Sweden…

Tomorrow we hit Russia, which necessitates turning the clocks ahead yet another hour. Just when I get adjusted to one time zone, we go to another. Overcoming jet lag is like a moving target. What’s most nuts is that by the time my day is almost over, most people back home are just getting started. It’s like I’m in the future.