Music festival in Devon and Baltic Cruise 2014
Music festival in Devon and Baltic Cruise 2014
Stayed the night in Luton and then 20/6/14took a mini cab to Paddington station and a train to Teignmouth in Devon where there was a weekend of Folk music. This included a march by the local pipe band in kilts(actually they looked like tartan skirts not kilts} and Morris dancers. There were Shanty singers, Appalachian mountain music, American square dancing. The train there goes via Bath and at Bristol most of the passengers got off. We passed along the coast the town of Dawlish which had been flooded in Easter 2014. The Devon area is all a very red sandstone.
For most of the singers this is their hobby and they are only too happy to have an audience, and the organizers were all volunteers. A shanty singer told us that Britain was build as a nation of seafarers and they go round to schools to teach them this patriotic tradition. There were other entertainers that had written their own songs. The population of Teignmouth are middle-class WASP with many retirees and we found it easy to chat to them.
The BB we stayed at was run by the son of a SA couple and his partner was Estonian. They only took over the place in February but as a result of the floods had a busy winter season with engineers there dealing with the repairs.
Teignmouth has a high wall on the shore to protect it against high tide waves.
The concert hall here was build in 1942 by the 28th US Construction Battalion and it was the canteen of the camp with other round roof dormitories around in the park. The battalion insignia is at the entrance thanking the town for their hospitality.
After the war an asbestos roof was added on top of this. Next year this "temporary" building will be demolished and replaced.
22/6/14 Took train to London but on Sundays the trains travel slow as they are always doing repairs on the tracks and sometime send you a long way round. Met up with Brenda and Frank, David and Evan were there to celebrate a birthday lunch for David's 50th.
Flew to Copenhagen where we stayed a night at a hotel and boarded the Cruise the next day.
Wed 25/6/14 Arrived in Warnemunda at 7am and went on a tour that explanined the buildings of East Germany. The dreary building of the Communist era as well as the homes of wealthy Prussians from before the war. We saw Bad Dobrin Munster build in the days when it was under a Slavic population as a Cistercian Abbey in Mecklenburg later when Lutherism came with the Reformation, Catholism moved south. This is one of the oldest churches in Europe and had a smell of mold. Full of tombs of great Princes but we saw this in great detail and after that did not want to see more churches. Then we went on a narrow gauge railway that was specially built to bring wealthy people to the beach resort of Heilingodamm. We walked about the resort beach and hotels which have all been restored since the communist days. There is a watchtower to prevent people escaping from East Germany by boat via the Baltic coast. The is a well off farming area with fields of wheat, corn, rapeseed. There was an old Russian band playing Russian music a remnant left behind. People lie in a sheltered beach chairs to be able to absorb he sun in the chilly wind.
After that we walked around the shops of Warnemunda a suburb of Rostock with a fish market and buildings from the Hanseattic merchants. Back on the ship that evening there was German ethnic music and dancing by a group from Pomerania who left the ship by before 10pm when we set sail.
Friday 27th June Went into Helsinki on a Hop On bus. We got off at places like the Senate Square, this has steps that were used in the movie Reds where they could not film in Russia. In Finland all signs are in both Finnish and Swedish and where there are tourists also in English. We also saw the stadium where the 1952 Olympic Games took place and the monument to Finland's greatest composer Berlios. The Finish Museum has the history of Finland which was ruled by Sweden till the Crimean war when it was under Russia till WW1. The city is clean well painted and has an extensive tram system. We went to the Rock Church. This is a hill that was reserved for a church which was built by excavating a hole and using the rocks to build the walls with light coming in from the room. What was also interesting was that of the bus drivers there were 3 that I think were pensioners one from Vancouver, one from Old Kent Road London and another Englishman probably working over summer.
Sat 28th June Arrived in St. Petersburg which was called Leningrad under the Soviets. We went for a tour to see how the local live never saw much of that . As Israelis we did not need to book tours but most visitors have to take official tours and these are very synthetic. The first thing you see leaving the port are the massive Soviet era blocks that would be very depressing to have to live in. The trip took us to the Metro which is really something completed by by Gulag slave labour in 1955. This is really deep and you spend about 5 minutes on the escalator going down or up. There are stations with Stalinist era symbols and marble and mosaic walls. Some stations the train stops at steel doors that open like a lift to get on or off. We were taken to a market that seemed to me was specially for tourists because they didn’t seem to be selling much and Astrid bought a Euro worth of beautiful enormous cherries that were tasteless.
We were taken through the streets of a city that is supposed to be the most beautiful in Europe and taken to a magnificent church the with blue and white surface. The post communism has started repairing all the neglected churches.
We were taken to taste vodka but I left most of mine for the waiter to get drunk on. Of the 3 one tasted like aniseed and was quite good, one tasted like sweet water and the third like industrial alcohol. The guide had such a bad accent that we couldn’t make out what she was saying. Russia has not outgrown its past or made much progress. People wear regular fashion cloths but you could see that they were wearing cheap shoes not much in the way of sneakers.
Sunday 29/6/14 We went for a full day trip in a van with only 10 people and were taken to the Summer Palace which is outside of St.Petersburg in an area called Pushkin. When the Nazi's were about to get there the valuables were packed up and sent east for safekeeping.
The palace was used for billeting the German army and was set on fire when the Germans eventually retreated. Over the years this was restored and the valuables returned. The amber room was left to the Germans who took the amber and it was last seen in Germany in 1944 We learned about the Romanoff Dynasty from Peter the Great till the last Czar.
The first piece of railway in Russia was built from St. Pertersurg to Pushkin.
On the way here you pass the defense line that the Russians set up and the closest point that the Germans got to "Leningrad".
We were given a lunch of chicken ala king but if you didn't eat all the bread you would go hungry
In the city that day was the St. Peterburg marathon most of the roads were closed so we were dropped at Admiralty and took the metro from there, a direct line to the Hermitage. The metro at Admiralty has paintings of every admiral of the Russian fleet, it is a new line and was only completed 3 years ago so the English script is part of it not added later. This station is deeper than the older one and has a double escalator.
We came up at the square of the Winter Palace which holds the Hermitage collection on the square was the party for the end of the marathon with big crowds. This is the place where Nicholas and Alexander were arrested in the revolution which is shown in movies. Again the building is painted blue and white.
The Russian monarch bought up the biggest collection of art that was available and it includes 2 Leonardo di Vinci, 2 Rafaels and the biggest collection of Rembrandt. Other private collections were confiscate by the Soviet government after the revolution but to avoid this much are was sold and smuggled out to the west. That everning on the ship the entertainment was Russian singing and dancing and much later the ships entertainers put on song from the musical of Burt Baccarat.
Monday 30/6/14 Arrived in Tallinn the capital of Estonia. This is a country the size of the Netherlands but has a tenth of the population or 1 300 000. Their language is similar to Finnish, so they had a window to the outside world under the Soviets.
We were taken to the upper town where there was a fort and wealthy merchants who spoke German. You see a Mediaval Castle. There are Hanseactic houses but after that the economy never developed so the city was preserved. When Hitler and Stalin signed a pact the Germans sold out and most buildings became state property. In the lower city were working class houses.
Estonia after being independant for 23 years there are no longer Russian signs but they have been replaced by English. As opposed to Russia you feel freer here and the currency is the Euro.
There are many churches mostly Lutheran but the best kept is the Russian Orthodox church which is probably the centre of Russian nationals left behind. Estonia went from the Russian Ruble to and Estonian Kroon then to t he Euro in a matter of a few years.
All the cruise ships seemed to be in the port on the same day and they city centre was crowded. There were ferries from Helsinki and Stockholm loading here.
Tuesday 1/7/14 Arrived in Stockholm,Sweden. You travel a journey of 3 hours along the fjord, travelling in the see between land on both sides, with forests and boat jetties. As you get closer the city you see building on the hills. We went on an organized tour of the city which is made up of a few islands. The older areas are connected by tram but there is also a subway.
We went to the Vasa Museum, this is the Titanic of 1629 build during the 30 years war. The Dutch designer died and his deputy took over, and the ship must have been top heavy. It went a kilometer and a half out to sea and after in a grand display with the gunwales open, the wind blew it sideways and it filled up with water and sank. The whole boat was preserved and it is the greatest restoration of ocean archaeology.
we then went to the ice bar where we go drinks in everything made of ice.
We walked around the old city of Stockholm with building going back over 400 years. The kings palace and a parade of military band for the changing of the guard.
In the centre of the old town is the Stockholm Science Academy where they decide 5 of the Nobel Prizes and below that is the Nobel Prize Museum.
That evening we had the entertainer Jennifer Fare who sang opera and modern songs. The most professional of all the shows. The last day was a day at sea and the entertainment was dancers that were rather erotic not the type of thing that would have been put on for say the Alaska cruise. This was followed by a magician show of usual tricks but very well done and Astrid was called up to take part.
Thurs 3rd July Arrived in Berlin and took a bus directly to the city. where we got off at Unter der Linden and walked to the hotel passed the Holocaust memorial. We later walked to the Berlin Wall Memorial, this is a piece of preserved wall showing the no-mans-land and it has a long section on the history of from the 1930s till the fall of the Berlin wall. You also walk past Checkpoint Charlie with the original warning you you are entering the Soviet Zone.
On the side of the Ministry of Finance the are frescoes and an explanation of the 1953 uprising against the communist in East Berlin. The population of Berlin which is very East German with a very white population. On a construction site most of the workers looked Turkish.
4th July. We were Berlin during a heat wave of 31C and it was more uncomfortable than Israels summer. We walked to the Birkenstock shoe shop next to Friedrichstraße station and saw a statue of children similar to the one in Liverpool Street station London. Its called Trains to Life Trains to Death by Meisler who himself traveled with a 1939 Kindertransport from Berlin, this was paid for by survivors in the US,Canada and Israel.
I also walked from the hotel at Potsdamer Platz through the Tiergarten around the Brandenburg Gate to the Reichstag which today is called the Bundestag. This building has been restored and is certainly impressive.
There is a monument for the 96 members of the Reichstag that were murdered by the Nazis. From there I walked along the canal and you see impressive buildings of the Hombold Berlin University with different departments one of which is the library.
There is a massive building from before WWI of a mother and dead child. On the main street Unter der Linden is a Statue of Frederich II of Prussia, fortunes were spent returning these to their stands as they were removed during the war and restoring many of the buildings.
That evening Germany was playing France and their were big screen set up in the public squares with plenty of police on duty. We saw Germany beat France at the airport transit lounge before we flew to London with BA $26.00 tickets for each of 3 flights with points....amazing deal!
We spent a few days at family Lionel and Minne Fry, and visited their daughter Tessa. We saw Brenda and Frank again, and Astrid had a chance to do shopping and visit the science museum. I visited the Wallace Collection this was a privately owned mansion full of art that was left to the state when Mrs Wallace died without family in about 1880 There is a free guided talk about the art. We saw 2 Musicals.
We returned home on 9th July and had to circle for 40 minutes in the air before landing as the war had started the day before. Luckily we had a great holiday and were home to lend support.
Love to all
Ronnie and Astrid
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