Edin­burgh is my favourite city so far in the world. Just the atmos­phere is incred­i­ble. I (unfor­tu­nately) didn’t get to see many churches there. How­ever, I’m sure there are some good ones. The Cas­tle is a must see and as you walk down from the Cas­tle toward Holy­rood Rd there are some lovely shops and eater­ies. And of course you must try hag­gis while there (not that you’ll enjoy it).

Amen to that. Well, amen to incred­i­ble Edin­burgh, not to hag­gis (blech). We took in the cas­tle two years ago, but I may have to spend some time revis­it­ing. And I think Greg may have to revisit their Scotch shop.

Squeal!!!!!!! I am so jeal­ous. Enjoy, and I think we are all look­ing for­ward to trav­el­ing along with you through your blog.

Sigh!

Dublin: Must see Book of Kells at Trin­ity Col­lege Library — and a short walk away are “dancin’ gurls” at a pub right there on the river. Can’t remem­ber the name, but any­one in the area can tell you which one. Or you could go to the Hard Rock Cafe and get a t-shirt.

Edin­burgh: You’ve been here before, I see. Did you get to the Hard Rock Cafe for a t-shirt?

Copen­hagen: Nice city, see the chang­ing of the guard at the palace, the Lit­tle Mer­maid sits in the har­bor, Tivoli Gar­den is nice, but expen­sive, there is a Hard Rock Cafe for your t-shirts col­lec­tion.
Warn­ing: ice crean “dipped in choco­late” means cov­ered with cocoa pow­der.
Things to buy: Amber which the Danes say is made from the sun shin­ing on the water.
(Although I haven’t been there, I hear Esto­nia is also a place to get amber)

Helsinki: my favorite of Scan­di­navia! Big Lutheran church close to port. The largest Ortho­dox Church in West­ern Europe at the top of the hill. Russ­ian influ­ence (sur­prise, sur­prise!) If you get around, ask a cab dri­ver to show you where they wash rugs. Pretty amaz­ing. The salt water is good for them and they just leave them out overnight to dry with no wor­ries of theft. There is Sibelius Park with a pipe memo­r­ial to Sibelius.(It rep­re­sents the trees of Fin­lan­dia. (If you can’t think who he is off-hand, he is the com­poser of the music for “Be Still My Soul, the Lord is on thy side.”) There’s also a rock church — blasted out of solid gran­ite with a cop­per dome for a roof. Very mod­ern — Scan­di­na­vian! But the mar­ket square is a great place to sit and pon­der and write post cards. (No Hard Rock!) Too bad you can’t go inside Fin­land. It is my favorite Scan­di­na­vian coun­try. (Den­mark is NOT a Scan­di­na­vian coun­try — only Nor­way, Swe­den and Fin­land — the Danes can be pretty adamant about that.)

Stock­holm: The Venice of the north! The Wasa museum. Great panoramic views from Soder­malm. Another chang­ing of the guard. Inside the palace you can see in the Bernadotte apart­ments a pic­ture of Euge­nie Desire Clarey who became the Queen of Swe­den when her hus­band was cho­sen to be King when the Vasa line ended in 1823. You may have read an his­tor­i­cal novel of her life titled Desiree by Annemarie Selinko. If you haven’t, you should. There’s another Hard Rock Cafe here to add to your t-shirt collection.

We lived in Europe for 12 years and I con­fess got a lit­tle jaded about what to see and do. House guests would go wild over things we found rather com­mon place. It’s like now. We live out­side Wash­ing­ton, DC. We’ve gone tot he muse­ums on the mall more than we can count. The Zoo is old hat. We are even reach­ing a point where we weigh if the cherry blos­som views are worth fight­ing the tourists over.….

Have a great trip. It sounds like loads of fun. Too bad Oslo isn’t on the trip. Also a fun place.

Oh, don’t for­get to get your VAT tax back when you buy all your sweaters! And remem­ber that­nthe tax is (or at least was) figured/rated on amount spent. So you get more money back if you spend $200 in one place than if you spend $50 in each of 4 places, so try to group your purchases.

That’s all my hints. Hope they are helpful.

Anam:
Woo hoo! That’s EXACTLY what I was look­ing for. You really can’t beat the input of the peo­ple who have lived with all the attrac­tions long enough to start to get discriminating.

I was espe­cially glad to get your input on Copen­hagen and Stock­holm. Those were the two where I was hav­ing trou­ble com­ing up with any­thing. So far, Tal­inn is the most intrigu­ing to us … at least, of the East­ern Euro­pean spots. The British ones will be win­ners for sure.

St Peters­burg, (from a local-to-tourist per­spec­tive), Ortho­dox must-sees are:
Sav­ior on Spilled Blood Cathe­dral (mosaic and his­tory are amaz­ing; they usu­ally only do tours as in a museum, I am not sure if it func­tions as a Church now).
Kazan Cathe­dral
There’re really dozens more; I am not sure of your time frame there. Let me know (tanya_korshunova (at) yahoo (dot) com), and I can send you more info, if you’d like.

BY THE WAY, I will be in St. Peters­burg May 15-June 6, and I am absolutely seri­ous, if you want to hang out, let me know, I’d love to meet up and show you around town!!

Oh, and “reg­u­lar” cul­tural things to do will be:
visit the Her­mitage museum (2nd largest in the world!)
see bal­let in Mari­in­sky the­atre
go a lit­tle fur­ther to see Peter­gof (aka Peterhoff)

Oh, the list goes on for­ever! There’s a rea­son it is the Cul­tural Cap­i­tal of Rus­sia And the city’s birth­day is in late May, so you might hit the festivities!

Tatyana:
Woo hoo (again)! St. Peters­burg is one of the trick­i­est, because of the very tight secu­rity and visas and what­not. So we’re in with a small tour group, but they told us that they could accom­mo­date spe­cial requests.

I’ll e-mail you to go over stuff in more detail.

If you have more time to stay in Helsinki I’d recom­ment a visit to the ortho­dox church in Tapi­ola (in the town called Espoo). In May the church is open dur­ing ser­vices in Sat­ur­day evenings at 5.30 — 19 pm. and on Sun­day morn­ings at 9.30 — ca. noon. http://www.espoonortodoksit.palvelee.fi/8