Why do Tsars get to be saints?

Arrived by plane, caught a bus to the main station, and the underground to a stop near our hotel. Of course near and far are relative terms, when lugging luggage over cobblestones or temporary boardwalks around building works with temperature and sunshine up a notch here.

Nice little hotel with free wifi; hence the catchup in weblog. Breakfasts a little more basic; sausages more like hotdogs, supermarket bread etc. No luck with soy milk coffees let alone decaf. Made an immediate friend.



Naturally Russia is a little less English-compliant; the masses of tourists in St P are more likely from other parts of Russia. And there are masses, making it all a little more breathless, even though the tourist sites are more Disneyland than Luna Park, their scale imperial rather than royal.




Our local church, of which more later. We spent two days at the Hermitage, Winter Palace etc. The need for bolshevism is suddenly urgent, as subsequent updates will tell.


- Posted just before we catch our first real train.

Location:St Petersburg

Suddenly Sweden

Caught a fast train over the bridge to Sweden and on to Stockholm for a couple of days. The train was quiet, as well as fairly spacious, clean, comfortable.




Stockholm is just that bit bigger than Copenhagen, and the city appears more modernized, although still few tall buildings by Melbourne standards, with some interesting architecture and public art.




Also has more museums per square inch than anywhere else in the entire world, apparently. Visited the architecture museum, full of model buildings (no Lego) and tales of urban reclamation. Boat trip around harbour, castles, scenery, churches etc.





Nice to hear tourist operators bragging about Sweden's welfare state ... We might have high taxes but everyone gets looked after, maternity leave, child care etc etc.

Arlanda airport and off to Russia, where pools of photos already await.

-- Catching up using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:пер. Крылова,St Petersburg,Russian Federation

So many Danish, so little time

Yes, pastries in Denmark are better than Danish pastries in Melbourne. Not that we sought them out. Some were always just a little out of reach ...



National Gallery -- quite taken with installation of transparent hanging spheres, some with plant life inside or outside.








Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, a privately endowed museum set up by the beer baron to provide uplifting and improving access to art and antiquities. Includes original Rodins 'the thinker' and 'the kiss', and lots of other marbles.




However viewing the 'watermother' Sue realized that a class of preppies was nothing really ...




Posted from my iPad when Sue is not playing games

Location:пл. Островского,St Petersburg,Russian Federation

A few more things ...

Hmmm. Wifi is not quite as ever-present in Scandanavia as we had begun to expect. So getting photos up took rather longer than I expected.

More tourism in Copenhagen. Hopping on and off buses. Took advantage of current royal connections with Tasmania to visit Rosenborg palace/art collection/royal regalia. Think Tower of London meets Launceston. Lots of old gaudy, although in some way this indicated a certain lack of interest in royalty, as portraits were all crammed together in a way which probably made sense in 18th century but looks quite claustrophobic today. Possible factoid: Danes did away with need for a coronation, and just announce the new monarch from balcony of parliament building. So crown jewels can be enjoyed for their history-artistic merit alone ...




NB While portraits of royalty on the walls were slightly boring, once you got past tracing the family nose, you could always gaze upwards to the ceilings in search of ecstatic alternatives ...







Botanical gardens.




Very large glasshouses. Very unsafe vertigo-inducing metal steps to a narrow walkway in palm canopy. Very pleasant restorative ale (Carlsberg).




Today' prize, by the way, goes to anyone aged 31 or under who can translate the sign.




Abandoned our principles and shelled out kroner for the Tivoli Gardens, built in late C19 to provide activity for young men who would otherwise tend to join riots, so we were told. Seem to have discovered independently the SSPS fete formula of constant activity for children, often involving mass near death experiences, with unending food and drink options for adults.




By the way, tHis is as close as we got Legoland ...




Posted using BlogPress which works best with less photos...

Location:St Petersberg

Copenhagen photos

Here are a selection. More to come ... Too many photos and Blogpress has a little spasm ...
















Stroget. Long-established and famous pedestrian walkway and shopping area, with equally long-established pan piping street performer.









Garden courtyard of the hotel.




















The 'black diamond' national library



- Posted from Stockholm airport

Being tourists in the first town

Modest hotel --we scored the only room with a balcony, although I expect that it will be our task to lower the flag to half mast if occasion demands -- but wifi works. Although that ain't saying much since the trains have carriages marked Fri Internet. Weather warm -- almost got sunburnt on Monday because I forgot to take a hat (laugh, Anna, Liz, laugh) -- although the main thing is the long period of daylight. Seems to get light at about 3.30 in the morning, but that might be because the clock on the giant TV in our room hasn't caught up with summer time. Gosh, CNN is so good too ... Still, there may be soccer tonight on Eurosport.

Most of our time here has been looking round the central parts of the town and the odd museum. We've taken a canal tour -- see where TLM would be if she wasn't in fact in Beijing -- and hopped on and off buses to see the quite bizarre royal art collection, crown jewels, etc; the botanical gardens, with very large glasshouses; the famed famed famed Tivoli Gardens, a sort of a cross between Luna Park, a nineteenth century Disneyland, the Show and the Spensley St fête ... Including a slightly posh nouveau Japanese restaurant where we ate. It will be very large pilsner infused with caraway for me please!

More time on buses and foot today to the national gallery and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotekt, a privately endowed collection of sculptures and antiquities. Lots of fabulous marble to set Kiera Knightly's pulse a-racing, including Rodin's 'Thinker' and 'The Kiss'.

Selected photos follow.

Today's challenge is: on what days of the week can you use wifi on Copenhagen trains? Answer by email before we break exciting news from Sweden and you could win a chance to receive a personalized 100 word commentary on continuity in Danish architecture from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century.

In the event of a tie, please also advise exactly what the Queen said at the Un that so moved the delegates of Trinidad and Tobago.


- Posted after a large Pakistani meal.

Location:Copenhagen

Doha and beyond

Back in Melbourne, serious packing has ensued. Serious cleaning has led to discovery of large amounts of chocolate, dispersed fairly fairly among favored visitors. Serious cleaning -- in the way of things -- also led to more serious panic attacks, as long neglected tasks were discovered.

Books were delivered. Coffees were had. Markets were visited. Leaves were swept up, bagged and dispatched to raise the standard of living of Thornbury hens. The little red car that could was sent to the local car spa and returned waxed, and just that little bit more confident in itself.

Sue F (or P, depending on her situation) kindly dropped us at the airport, in time to get good seats ... Leg room!

Hit Doha. Hot Doha. Don't believe aircraft entertainment systems claims of destination temperatures. 0C does not equal 92F. Hundreds of shuttle buses ferrying passengers across the concrete from planes to duty-free bargains and -- in our case -- back again almost at once. The buses double up as air-conditioned holding pens to manage the surplus population: yet another reason for a thriving metropolis like Melbourne to invest in more trains and trams.

A much smaller plane on to Copenhagen, smaller even than the commuter jets to Canberra. Prepared for our first real destination by watching Hamlet on the device that dare not speak it's name (except that Blogpress wants to interject it every post). This in keeping with the tradition of that actor in 'A Midwinter's Tale' who prepares for the part by ... Well, I guess you have watch that movie first, but some of you will know the reference ... coincidentally said actor is in this Kenneth Branagh version, along with Richard Briers and Michael Malone along with every acclaimed British actor ... other than those doing travel documentaries or touring Melbourne ... either starring or doing the tiniest of cameos: Dame Judi Dench doing 30 seconds with no articulate lines in a part that never previously existed.

Riveting viewing, except that I only got one-third of the way through before we landed into the summer warmth of southern Sandanavia, and a proper airport with grass around the runways.

More soon, although less words and more photos is probably the go as I won't always be waking with the 3.30 dawn and feel compelled to type. However the other lesson from today is: always put the new SD card in the camera before you start taking photos of the latest town. Still, found somewhere that sells soy capps, so Sue is happy ...