DragonOfTheSeas

We did a drive-by of the Olympic stadium in Helsinki. Unfortunately I chose to sit on the left side and it was on the right. Actually a couple of other things have been on the right too. FYI-if you choose to do this tour, it’s called the “City of Helsinki” a sit on the right side of the bus. our guide said that this is a typical style and coloring for traditional houses in Helsinki. Then we drove along the waterside where the rich have villas. These are old traditional villas The current president‘s house is in the same area and is a traditional villa. But you can’t see it from the road This is part of the Helsinki university and hospital complex. And the round building is the Children’s Hospital.

Our longer stop was the rock church. The guide said it’s a 45 minutes stop, but it was almost an hour. It is a beautiful church. there is a dome at the top and then a series of glass panels all the way around the circular church. I’m sure they’re beautiful on a sunny day. It is supposed to have some of the most incredible acoustics. They have a huge organ. The church was carved out of solid rock. unfortunately our bus had to park really far away it was quite a slog in the liquid sunshine to get to the church.😊

Our first stop was the park to honor the Finnish composer Sibelius. it is made up of 600 stainless steel pipes. The interesting thing is he never composed anything for the organ. There’s always a crowd now so it is impossible to get a picture without people. there is a marina and café nearby this was our morning kayak or in the rain

John, I asked Irene what cabins she had and she told me she goes down to 1320. I can’t remember which road she said she started I’ll check that out tonight.

I’ll try to add a few More pictures from Tallinn now before we go out on our tour. I think I posted one picture of Townhall yesterday. But here’s a few more. Townhall was always the center of any city or town in the middle ages. it anchors the town Square. I need to go down the stairs to enter. you can see from this map how large it is.

Sorry to check out on you yesterday. I was really whipped when I got back from Tallinn. You remember I said that I can’t walk with so far. Yesterday I had over 14,000 steps. and it was very hot in the city. It was 85° we were all about to melt! 😁 it was nap, shower, dinner, and bed. There was no posting for me yesterday.

I haven’t seen any ballroom dancing noted so far on the ship. But in the Caribbean there’s usually a lot more activities than on the ship. We are in a different port every day everyone’s usually off the ship for 5 to eight hours and there’s just not as much activity. there is a silent dance party tonight where you wear headphones and select your style of music. But in the past that has always been different types of modern music. But it is dancing. there’s a ping-pong table right by the ice cream stand on deck 11. I’ve seen shuffleboard and cornhole.

This is Saint Olaf‘s Church. in the next block are the KGV cells. there’s not really a lot that I can give you for photographs I’m not sure but I was reading the stories of the people who are there is very interesting. The Russian embassy was near here there was a lot of graffiti along the way in front of the building I saw this sign next to a restaurant in the town Square Russian flag over the door at the embassy

There are two viewing areas in the upper area when you get a city map and you get off the shuttle make sure that you check them out. It seems that every street corner have one of these women juice vendors.

I’m at a restaurant in old town so I’m depended on their Wi-Fi. I just felt out there be too many pictures to post once I get back to the ship. This is the Saint Alexander Nesky cathedral in upper town. The dates to around 1900 in the spill by the Russians it’s directly across from the parliament building. It was a poke in the eye to the Estonians. They even took down the statue of Martin Luther when they built it. this is the parliament building. You have to arrange a tour in order to go in here. Here is the tower from nearby

Well that’s unusual. I just did two postings both of them which disappeared but you can see the pictures now above. it put in the text up to the town hall. But then it dropped the rest of the text. So the picture you see are the cobblestones in the street in most of upper town they’re rounded their random sizes and they just kill your feet so where are your most comfortable shoes. Then you can see two pictures of stairs those are the stairs I had to go up to get to upper town. you can read the labels for the other two buildings

After the shuttle dropped us off I entered the old city through the Viru Gate. look at what was just on the other side. One guy that was passing by referred to it is the American embassy. I headed to the Town Square in lower town.

Today we are in Tallinn, Estonia. I plan on doing a DIY walking tour. I’m taking the city provided shuttle that cost €10 and takes us from the ship to a location beside old town. It’ll save me a good long walk. And today is full of walking incline and cobblestone streets. None of that is my favorite. Ha ha

Last night was not a very exciting night for entertainment. The headliner were to circus acrobats. I’m not diminishing their talent it’s just not something I’m gonna go see on a cruise. here are the pictures of the top tier event that I wasn’t able to load last night. Katie the Cruise Director. And here is the Royal Caribbean orchestra doing jazz as we entered. We did stop by the Schooner bar earlier in the evening and listen to a classical pianist. we had a beautiful sunset

Sure I’ll be glad to.

Tonight we had the Top Tier Party. I already wrote a post for this event--so, if it shows up later you will know why there is a duplicate. Also, I am not going to try to load the pictures. That is where I think I had the issue. The internet is glitchy again. ugh! They did not announce the total number of guests, but I got that from guest services. [1368] There are 558 Crown and Anchor members: 247 gold 96 platinum 60 emerald 104 diamond 37 diamond + 14 pinnacle The top cruiser had 2,256 points and was on the 5th cruise in a row and was top cruiser on all of them. There seem to be many newbies. The Guest Services manager [Tim] has been with Royal only a few weeks. The Loyalty Ambassador was new to Voyager but had been with Royal for more than 4 years. Etc. However, the service has been very good. Our cabin attendant, Irene, may be the best we have ever had. It has been a good cruise and we are at the halfway mark.

HahaHa that is what happens when you use voice to text on an I-phone. You get Las Vegas rather than Latvia.

Goodbye to Riga, Latvia. Here We are leaving the mouth of the Daugava River. We were actually still in Las Vegas. We had to exit the Riga bay.

We came back to the ship for a late lunch and to chill for a while. We’re going to go to the top-tier party in the star lounge at 4:30. That’s a half an hour after we set sail. It’ll be interesting to see whether the captain makes an appearance. I would think he would need to be on the bridge. Not that we’re that far from the mouth of the river but I doubt the ship will get there in a half an hour. .

This building began life devoted to collective farming. It was built by the Russians. But after their freedom they turned this into the science building. On the top floor there’s an observation deck that has great views of the city. sorry it’s not a better picture. I wasn’t really far enough away to get the whole building.

Yesterday I didn’t get any pictures of the Riga Castle. Which is the home of the president. Here it is. On the front side facing the canal they have earthworks that were originally a defense for the castle and for the city. I think it’s interesting they’ve built some things including a parking garage into these.

We went back into Riga today to see a few more sites. I walked along the river Esplanade. in addition to the canal boats that you can ride there are river tour boats on the Daugava River. this one is located directly across from the spot the shuttle bus drops you off. The boat wasn’t there when I took this picture but you can see their timetable and a route map. Here are a few views from along the river. here is the legend of Riga.

There is all sorts of traffic on this river. It’s not as busy as the Mississippi River but there is ample traffic. So imagine my surprise When we saw these people Using jet skis out in the middle of the river. 🙄 You know how in the US the Coast Guard doesn’t let any ship really close to a cruise ship? In Stockholm and here pleasure boats come almost right up to the ship. This boat got so close that the children on the boat could wave to us and see us wave back. Ha ha yes, I enlarged the picture for you. But not by much they were very close.

Thank you. We have had the best weather so far. I have my fingers crossed for the rest of our trip.

I tried to take out the second copy of the daily planner. But whatever issue I had with the picture of the men in the zodiac I still have that same issue. In this case I know it’s operator error.