VISA FREE Trip to St Petersberg

So our trip to St Petersburg was very enjoyable but also provided our most stressful moments.  So a little background. There are 26 countries in what's called the Schengen Agreement.  That generally means there is a list of countries (including New Zealand and Australia) whose citizens are allowed 90 days per 180 within those 26 countries.  However New Zealand nationals due to prior agreements still in place with 16 of the 26 countries are allowed 90 days per 180 in each country without reference to the time spent in other countries.  As a result it is actually pretty hard to stay long enough to need a VISA.  So any Kiwi's looking into this, check the latest information on http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/new_zealand/eu_travel/visa/index_en.htm and make sure you know rights and don't pay for a VISA to exceed 90 days in Schengen unless you really actually need it. Anyway so now you know more about the situation than most European Border officials.

So Nicky and I are merrily bowling through ferry check in at Helsinki.  We get to passport control where the very stern Finnish man stamped Nicky's passport but then when going through mine, points at my Cherbourg entry stamp and says "which country".  So we say "France, we have been driving through many countries" to which he says something like "but all in Schengen more than 90 days".  It is about 98 days since we landed in France. Que panic! So I'm trying to explain the visa waiver which I last looked at nearly 5 months ago and I can't remember if Finland is on it (it is).  I'm not sure how much he understood or believed me but I think he figured he didn't want the hassle and let us through.  Having not had our passports checked since France I had got complacent and hadn't even considered that we had passed 90 days.  So we get on the ferry but they have no WIFI so I can't check the rules (I now have a PDF to solve that issue in the future).  So we are both bricking it that something is going to go wrong because we have 3 more passport checks before getting back into Helsinki.  We managed to sleep but we were super anxious about the Russians. In the end we get through the Russian side okay, no questions asked and once we get to the hotel I manage to reread the rules and confirm that we are on the right side of the law (huge weight off our shoulders).  So coming back we were armed with the response to any problems, so the main annoyance was the wait.  Passport control in both directions in Russia was terrible 1.5 hour queue arriving, for departure we arrived 3 hours early and still had a 40 minute queue.  Finland was fine departing but 1.75 hour wait on return. We had trouble when we got back to Finland.  First we got in the wrong queue so had to choose another, which turned out to be the slowest and as we got near the front the man in the booth just up and left and didn't return for about 20 minutes so we had to go to the back of another queue (there were people getting off the boat 1 hour after us and getting through customs before us).  So we finally get to a booth (by this time it has really thinned out mainly just the people that got caught in our queue).  Why not make one queue with those adjustable barriers, then split it near the booths as most rational countries do??? So hungry and frustrated I finally get seen and the girl asked me when I intended to return to New Zealand and when in said May she was taken aback, so she tried "when will you leave Europe" when I said "December when I go to Morocco" she became down right concerned. So I try and explain about the rules (as above) she asks a colleague who is none the wiser and then she has to call 'the office' as she says it sounds familiar but she doesn't know.  After a little bit it is decided the we'll have to be taken out the back to be tortured until we confess hehe JK.  The office guy says he knows New Zealand has a "contract" with Finland or something but he needs to look it up.  Anyway he said that he was happy the agreement exists with Finland and would stamp our passport and let us in but he hadn't been able to find a list of countries this exemption applied to (i.e the 16 I mentioned earlier).  Anyway who cares we were in and that was the main thing.

So that's our customs stories now our visit to St Petersberg.  So after finally getting out of the terminal in Russia we immediately found our 'city tour' shuttle bus which was supposed to have 2 stops before getting to the central city but went straight to the last stop St Issacs Cathedral (oh well that was our stop anyway).  You have to pay something like 50 euros for this to qualify for the VISA FREE stay but it is just a glorified airport transfer you could probably have got for 10 euro each way.

St Issac Cathedral

As we had our bag with us we had planned to do the Hermitage on day 1 assuming we could get in.  We had read about horrendous queues but as it was it didn't take too long to get a ticket and check in our bag.  The Hermitage is probably the most amazing attraction I have ever seen (not sure what the guy from Grimsby, England saw who rated it 3/5 on Tripadvisor, we made jokes about him) and good value for the ticket price.  The building itself could command the entry alone as there are so many rooms beautifully decorated.  If that wasn't enough you have one of the worlds best museums and art galleries inside.  Would have been good value at twice the price. Fortunately we had done our homework and got some recommendations of what to see off the internet.  Nicky had all the room numbers written down, so our first step was to match them to the map as there are 3 floors and 5 buildings involved (they tend to move stuff a bit so we didn't find everything but it was invaluable).  We spent 5 hours and you still rush past vast amounts of great things to get to the real gems and then you still don't have long enough with these.  We didn't even see the extra diamond and gold rooms (extra charge).

Winter Palace - part of the Hermitage (there are 5 buildings)

Our hotel which although located a little further out was new or newly renovated in 2011 as reviews suggested and exceeded expectations but best of all we got a free room upgrade.  After checking in and further VISA rule checking we had a fun encounter with the locals.  We went to the local corner shop/small supermarket for water (not supposed to drink their water apparently) and food.  Of course we couldn't understand much of the packaging and we were trying to make sure we didn't get sparkling (GAS) water as neither of us like it at all.  We thought we had it right but since their was an attendant we tried to ask and without any words other than GAS we managed to confirm that we had the NO GAS one.  She was so eager to help it was lovely.  It turned out she was from Uzbekistan and as is not uncommon she had half a mouthful of gold teeth (not sure dental hygiene was a top priority in the USSR).  Anyway she ended up collaring another customer, a young (mid 20's) local woman that did speak a little English (she said she had learnt in school).  This woman was also very excited to help and have a chance to try speaking English.  We only had a microwave available at the hotel so we were getting her to help us find food suitable for that.  She ended up behind us at the till as well and helped us sort out the payment which ended up being much more confusing than it needed to be because I couldn't see the number. It was quite nice actually because suddenly people were cheerful, smiling and laughing which we didn't really experience in any other situation.

The entrance to our hotel (in the courtyard behind the grill)

So on Day 2 we planned to go a bit further afield because we didn't have our bag, our first significant site was the Peter palace summer gardens which have been recently renovated and reopened May 2012.  They are free and we think possibly the top free attraction we have ever seen.  Since we were there on a weekend in late summer we were forever coming across bridal parties having photos.  This was nice but somewhat comical is the way Russian women pose for photos, it looks like they are all trying to put together a modelling portfolio, they sort of prostrate themselves all over anything and everything trying to make steamy sultry eyes at the camera (usually manned by the significant other but sometimes their children).  Also this brings me back to the Hermitage which had all these magnificent items on display. They generally have made them very accessible (limited barriers and glass etc) however that meant I observed rather more touching of objects while posing for photos than I would like.  I'm not sure how others feel but I find it the height of selfishness to touch items in any sort of museum/gallery setting.  These valuable and sometimes priceless artefacts are being preserved and displayed for the benefit of all and hopefully potentially for 100s of years to come but people are prepared to harm this by putting their grubby hands all over things or let their children loose pawing at everything within reach.  The Hermitage has a great collection of Greek and Roman sculpture and Nicky noticed someone just casually leaning on the base of one.  I'm surprised we don't hear more stories like the one from Italy about the American that broke the finger off a 600 year old statue.
So idealogical rant over from the summer gardens we moved to the Mikhailovsky Gardens (St Petersburg has a very pleasant network of green spaces near the central city).  Crepes in a park for lunch, YUM.  On to the Church on Spilled Blood which is the building in St Petersburg with the ice cream cone like domes that come to mind with Russia. It's no mistake that this is number 2 on Tripadvisor, both the exterior and the interior are something else.  I don't really know anything about the Orthodox Christian church but they sure make a good mural or mosaic.  From the church we went and got a taste of the Nevsky Prospect, the main street, and the canal which is crossed by Anichkov bridge before finishing with Peter the Great Monument and a long walk back to the hotel via Strelka where you get good views of the Hermitage and the Peter and Paul Fortress on the river.

Church on Spilled Blood

Fountain in the Summer Gardens - they were spectacular but the lighting made photos difficult

The plan for our final day was to see some things close to the hotel in the morning, come back to the hotel, have lunch and check out at 12.  That meant nearly 4 hours to lug our bag around in the afternoon until we caught the shuttle to the ferry.  We took some back streets towards where the Crusier Aurora is docked so we could get a bit more of a feel for the real St Petersberg.  The Crusier Aurora is famous as the ship that fired the first shot of the Russian Revolution.  We walked through the Peter and Paul Fortress and down to where the football stadium is before looping back.  We ticked off a couple more sights in the afternoon, Nikolay I monument and Yusupovsky Palace before buying some food to smuggle aboard (your not allowed food on the ferry - LAME).

Probably saw half a dozen abandoned cars around the place

Some buildings in Peter and Paul Fortress

That is the story of a trip we are both relieved is over and very satisfied with at the same time.
Nicky - Our trip to St Petersburg was very memorable and a fascinating experience.  Whilst we had problems with customs, it didn't take away from the impressive and beautiful buildings that we saw.  It is fantastic to see the building and restoration work that has been going on for the last 10 years.  My favourite part of the Hermitage was seeing paintings by Monet.  The Church on spilled blood is incredible, and it is unfathomable that this was used as a potato storehouse during the soviet era.  I'm really pleased we had this experience, as it was a great opportunity to experience a little piece of Russia.

Finland - Turku to Helsinki

So at the end of the last blog we had just arrived in Turku, Finland.  We parked on the waterfront and went for a walk along the river and through town.  The area was buzzing on a busy Friday night.  One feature was the number of restaurants on boats, one of which was Aussie themed.

The next morning we woke to persistent rain, which put a significant dampener on our exploration of the city.  We first went to the info centre and asked a few questions of the attendant there.  Again they were pretty sketchy on things in the area around Turku (example 'yeah that is supposed to be good, I've never been though' - that was about a UNESCO World heritage site less then 2 hours away).  They really should get there people out to visit things so they can comment.  We had our umbrellas and jackets so we set off around the town and tried to make the best of things.  We saw lovely buildings, including the art museum and indoor market hall.  We bought corn at a stall in the market square and went to the Lutheran Cathedral before the weather forced us to pack it in.  We had planned to shop at Lidl and carry it all back to the van and did so despite the weather.  Some complaints (Dale) were made while hauling our loads through the rain and we were thoroughly bedraggled when we got back to the van for lunch.  So rather than walk we drove down to Turku Castle, which was in the opposite direction than we had been in during the morning.  Nicky went out and took some photos, but I couldn't face the rain again. We drove south to a town called Hanko, 2 hours away and the weather steadily improved and was okay in Hanko.

Museum like display in the Turku Indoor Market

 Cathedral

The next morning we drove to one of the beaches in hopes of doing some bird watching (well Dale anyway).  We found out later that the observation tower we wanted to see was not open to the public, but we found instead some old Soviet fortifications from World War 2, which was very interesting instead.  We parked in Hanko town and again went to the info centre.  The woman there was very helpful and told us about a special event happening in Finland today, that occurs 4 times a year.  It is pop up restaurant day, and anyone could take part and sell food at a stall/from your home whatever (I (Dale) imagine NZ food safety would have a fit).  There were 4 in Hanko and she wrote them down for us and marked them on the map.  In our guidebook, a page featured a self guided walk which lead us past many beautiful buildings and wooden houses.  We reached the Hotel Regatta and to our surprise saw 12 Ferraris parked up outside.  We had walked past 4 before we realised and had to double back.  Dale had a great time taking photos, and other people were doing the same.  Half way through our walk, we stopped at a Thai pop up restaurant.  According to the woman at the info centre, 3 of the pop up restaurants were Thai and 1 was waffles.  The Thai was delicious, we had been craving Thai or Chinese as we had not had it for a while, and the Chicken curry, rice and spring roll went down a treat.  We finished our walk by seeing the water tower, the Lutheran church and the former casino building on the seafront.  We found Hanko to be a lovely place, and great that something was happening there on a Sunday nearing the end of tourist season.  Tourist season was definitely winding down, after serving us the poor info girl was being given grief by another tourist about the fact that the tour boats that go out to the islands had finished for the season, as if somehow she had control over this.

On the way to the campsite, we wanted to stop at 2 more bird observation towers marked on our map.  Again the logo on a tourist map curse struck again as we got to the first one and walked through a field but could find no sign of it. We found the 2nd one, however not exactly where it was marked on the map!  Luckily at least there were some birds! The campsite was good and it had a kitchen, very similar to what New Zealand campsites offer. It was reasonably priced at 20 euros and we got to choose our pitch and completed all our jobs (waste disposals, showers and dinner).  However the campsite attendant was promptly nicknamed Mr Grumpy as he was pretty miserable about the whole thing.

It was raining the next morning, we had seen the forecast the night before and I was surprised when it cleared and came out sunny about 11am.  We explored Ekenas (the town the campsite was in).  There is no Tripadvisor listing for 'Things to do', so we spent our time walking to the marina and through the old town and past the church.  We then drove to Friskars village, which is now an arts and crafts hub with a museum as well.  It started in 1649 for ironworking, and in 1967 they produced the iconic orange handled Friskar scissors.  We had a long walk, and then hit the road again to Helsinki.

We arrived about 4.30pm on Monday after our day in Ekenas and Fiskars.  We parked at a beach location we had heard about from another online blog.  This location is 3km walk from the city centre.  Dale had found out that there was an outdoor movie screening of 'Moulin Rouge' in a park next to the Helsinki music centre.  It was a late start- 9.45pm, but we'd had a quiet day so managed, and got back to the van about midnight.

The next morning, we walked to Senate square and the Cathedral, looking at the Parliament building on the way.  The parliament does offer free English tours at 1pm each day, but we decided to skip that as our timing wasn't right.  I (Nicky) was very impressed when arriving at Senate square as it is magnificent.  The Cathedral stands atop with steps leading down to the square and statue.  Around the edge of the square is full of tour buses, and during our stay we have seen our share of tour groups!
We visited the info centre, then we had our lunch in the adjacent Esplanade park.  The park is small, and you are still in the hustle and bustle of the city. The market square was across the road so that was our next stop.  At first I (Nicky) wasn't too impressed, as the fruit and vegetable prices were the highest I've seen so far.  However once I started looking at the other stalls I really started to enjoy myself.  There is the usual tourist stalls with reindeer soft toys, magnets and wooden boxes, butter knives and salad servers.  Other stalls were selling reindeer products: skins, horns, and we even saw whole fox skins at one stand.  There are also food vendors selling traditional Finnish food from Lappland.

 

 

That afternoon we went on the municipal ferry to Suomenlinna, a fortress and UNESCO site. It is 15 minutes on the ferry from the market square.  It would have cost us 4.40 euros each, and we decided to buy a day pass for 8 euros each.  The pass lasts 24 hours, and we could then use the trams and buses that night and the following morning.  I wasn't sure at first, and it was all Dale's idea, but I did confess to him later that it was definitely the right choice!  The fortress was nice, and we spent 3 hours walking around the islands, and we also went into the Customs museum there.  It is a good activity if the weather is sunny, I think it would be miserable in the rain.

Our second day in Helsinki started at the Rock church.  When we arrived I was a little underwhelmed as it doesn't look much from the outside.  However, once inside it is amazing as it is built into the rock and there is a big copper dome in the ceiling.  We had arrived at 10am because they offer music performances every weekday at that time.  There was a man playing the piano and we stayed for about 50 minutes.  After that time, I was getting tired of the tourists (tour groups being lead in and out for about 10mins each) taking endless photos and talking, when they should have been admiring the building and the music.  We caught the tram to the market square for another look (I liked it enough for a second look) and took photos of Uspenski Cathedral.  We returned to the main Cathedral, as the day before it was shut for private prayer.  We got there for 12pm as Dale had found out there was an organ recital on.  The tourists were better behaved and remained seated this time, probably due to the staff presence, also the doors were closed/locked so noone could come and go.

Rock Church

 Organ Recital

In the afternoon we lunched in a city park called the Winter Gardens, before visiting the Workers housing museum.  This is a little out of the city centre, but well worth the trip.  It is a living museum of the housing built in 1909 for workers of the city.  There are several apartments/rooms (as these are one room dwellings) fitted out to show different time periods.  You can only view the rooms by tour, which it seems are at no set time, but based on when people arrive.  Hence we had our own private tour and loved it.  It was my favourite attraction here so far and it is also free.  Our final stop was the Sibelius monument, passing the Olympic stadium on the way.

Winter Garden

 Worker Housing Museum

 Olympic Stadium

 Sibelius Monument (10 points if you actually heard of him, composer apparently)

We woke to rain this morning, but we are planning a quiet day as we board the ferry to Russia tonight!  We are headed to St Petersburg.  The van will stay in Helsinki, as we are going on the St Peters line ferry and then 2 nights in a hotel in St Petersburg.  The reason we have done it this way, is because through St Peter Line you qualify for a 72 hour stay in Russia, visa free.  We also don't have insurance to take the van to Russia and would also need to organise our own visas, if we didn't opt for this option.  This trip is an extra cost, but one we thought worthwhile, as we don't know when or if we would go to Russia otherwise.
Bye for now.

Finland Part 1 - Aland

We had to travel north from Stockholm for about an hour to catch our ferry to Aland.  We made short stops at Vaxholm and Norrtalje.  We arrived in plenty of time for our ferry and the ride was smooth. Due to our inability to read Swedish and lack of awareness of a time zone change it was 1 hour shorter than we thought.  In fact just as I was thinking one hour to go, I noticed we appeared to be moving very slowly and turning. So I went to investigate and noticed we were docking and most people had returned to their cars (we had been unable to hear announcements due to the engine noise).  So we hurriedly headed back to the van and all was well.

We have a ferry to Turku booked so are staying 2.5 days in the Aland Archipelago.  It has 6,700 islands (60 inhabited), 28,000 people and is a self-governing Swedish speaking region of Finland.  When Russia controlled Finland between 1809 and 1918, it was the westernmost point of Russia.
This has resulted in several sites related to Russian occupation.  Such as our first stop after arriving was the Post and Customs building on Eckero.  It is on the coast on the edge of a small village and seems entirely too substantial for the remote island setting.  The local Art Association had an Anniversary exhibition which was nice and a couple of people were doing singing practice/lessons or such giving an ambience to the area.  There was a museum regarding the post and customs you could pay for but this was already shut for the season (which for some things is as soon as the end of July) and held limited appeal.

Post and Customs Building

Aland has something like 16 churchs so we checked out St Lars on Eckero was could be described as small but perfectly formed, with wall paintings and we made it a lunch stop.

Driving nearly all the way across the main islands in about 20 minutes we next visited a church in Saltvik but it wasn't open and then found our actual intended destination Borgboda Ancient Site (Note to people who make tourist brochures CO-ORDINATES PEOPLE.   Everyone has a satnav now).  I mean seriously the guidebook lists things to see with no address only the nearest town and symbols on a small map of the entire archipelago, if it weren't for the reasonable street signs we might never find anything.
Anyway rant over Borgboda was interesting, there was a little bit of English on the signs which was handy and I made some new friends (see photos).  The site is an Iron Age hill fort where the local farmers came to defend themselves from enemies.

Aland also has a free open air museum called Jan Karlsgarden with about 20 buildings designed to give a picture of Aland farming life in the mid to late 1800s. Last stop of the day was Bomarsund where the Russians tried to build a fort but it was destroyed by the British and French in 1854, while some buildings were only foundations.  If you like ruins/foundations and/or the Crimean War this is for you but the setting is nice for a walk around too.
The next morning it was actually back to Kastelholm Castle which is adjacent to the open air museum, costs 6 euros and probably doesn't represent the best value we've encountered.  It has been well conserved (completed 2001) for it's protection and is the only medieval castle on Aland.  They have a few information boards and a small re-creation of the interior and were also displaying works by a local artist throughout (the art was of a rather grim/disturbing style - there were warnings at the entrance).  However about an hour was plenty.
Not a lot achieved in the afternoon a bit of driving around (by Nicky :-)) and looking at stuff of little consequence.  Our one small highlight was going right to the bottom of Lemland Island to a nature reserve and finding a bird watching tower which although there were no birds gave us a great view over the sea.
The following day we drove into Mariehamn, which is the main town on the island.  11,000 of Alands 28,000 residents live here.  A 4 masted Scottish sailing ship called Pommern (now and museum and well conserved) is docked near the ferry terminal.  We walked along Torggatan (pedestrian street) and bought Aland stamps at the post office (something of a collectors item).  Dale chose stamps featuring birds an wildlife. We made our way back to the van via the water front on the eastern side and past the Aland church.  We were due to check in for the ferry to Turku at 12.45pm.  The check in for the ferry was slow, and once on board, the ferry set off straight away.  It had come from Stockholm and picked up passengers and cars in Mariehamn and then we were headed to Turku in Finland.  The ferry was 5 1/2 hours long, and we spent time on the boat decks (it was a sunny afternoon), using the wifi and having our picnic food we had prepared earlier.  We arrived in Turku at 7.15pm, and the next blog will continue from there.

Midsummer Pole - every town in Aland has one

 View from the bird tower

 Pommern

 Not our ferry but ours was the same but red and pink