Helsinki

We were in Helsinki from Monday to Wednesday, staying at the Radisson Blu Seaside - seriously the best bed I've ever slept in. We took the M/S Star from Tallinn - Helsinki is two hours across the Baltic Sea.

My first impression of Helsinki was all the building going on - cranes everywhere, a bit like Perth!

The other thing that struck me was the people - to me, they looked, well...familiar! Perhaps there's some Finnish intermingling with Estonian in my father's ancestry.

Helsinki isn't really that old a city - most of the buildings we saw were anywhere from Georgian to Art Deco to post-modern. It's a very elegant city - the buildings look very bright and clean in the northern light.

On our first day in Helsinki, the weather was clear, sunny and chilly. The day we left was grey and cold. Like Tallinn, there's still ice on the ground, and lakes are still partly frozen. The trees are showing signs of coming into leaf, but are still bare.

This was the most northern city on our trip - next we're heading south again.

Vana Tallinn

We arrived in Helsinki today, after spending two days in Tallinn.

We set off for Tallinn from Stockholm on Friday evening on the Baltic Queen. It was like sailing on a small cruise ship - bars, restaurants, duty free shopping.

We arrived in Tallinn on Saturday morning - the weather was quite chilly while we were there - they've had a very cold winter and it only stopped snowing two weeks ago. There's still ice on the ground everywhere.

My first impression on our walk from the harbour to the hotel was that it looked rather Soviet-y. This all changed once we got to the old town -Tallinn is a truly enchanting city. It's medieval, with influences from all the invaders (Danish, Swedish, German, Russian) over the centuries. The newer parts are very modern - Estonians are very proud of how technologically advanced their country is nowadays.

My father (known to us as Pop) grew up in Tallinn - his family owned the Kino Amor cinema, which was destroyed by bombs in the Second World War. This park (looking pretty desolate after the winter) is where the cinema once stood.

There was a plaque commemorating the cinema for a long time, but that's gone now. We had a lovely lunch at the cafe (called Cafe Amore) over the road.

On Sunday morning, we set out to find the Domschule, where Pop went to school. There were lots of photo opportunities along the way.

We came across the Domschule by accident - it's now a ballet acadamy, hence the ballet poses. (We all took ballet classes when we were young.) I can imagine my father walking the steep streets each day and climbing the steps to go to class.

We also visited the Lindamagi - Linda was the wife of Kalev, the heroic first leader of the Estonians. There's a statue of Linda on Toompea, which is supposedly Kalev's burial mound. Here I am, with my namesake.

Old Tallinn has many wonderful buildings, some ancient. There are so many amazing old doorways.

It's always been a proud city, resistant to external controls. I sense that it's still quite activist - there are some great signs and graffiti around.

We were also lucky enough to be able to meet some relatives of my brother-in-law Juri. We had a lovely lunch with them on Sunday - they are truly delightful, charming people.

I would very much love to go back and see more of Tallinn. Today I read a little more about it in a Lonely Planet guide - there are lots of great attractions for tourists which we didn't see. I'm very happy that I've seen my father's city - I can see now why he was so proud of his country.

Stockholm

We traveled from Copenhagen to Stockholm by train - I had really been looking forward to this trip - we went across the wonderful Oresund Bridge which links Denmark to Sweden across the Oresund Straight. I couldn't get any good photos - the train was traveling too fast. It's a great feeling to zoom across the ocean and there are some pretty impressive windfarms in the distance.

Stockholm is a spectacularly beautiful city - graceful architecture and beautiful waterways . We only had one day, which is nowhere near enough to even scratch the surface of such a beautiful place. We spent most of this gloriously sunny day in Gamla Stan, the old part of the city.

Like the Danes, the Swedes love using colour on their houses and buildings - especially yellow. The colours look wonderful in this northern light - I think they would look washed out in Australia's harsher light. And as it's spring here, there are bulbs and flowers everywhere - on tables in restaurants, in parks, outside shops.

Definitely a city I want to go back to.

Danish Modern

On Sunday evening we took an overnight train from Amsterdam to Copenhagen. We stayed at the Hotel Alexandra, a green hotel which is beautifully furnished throughout with original Danish modern furniture.

We were in Copenhagen for two full days - we did some shopping, went to the Glypotek museum, and also paid a visit to the Dansk Design Centre. We also did the hop-on, hop-off bus tour of the city, but only hopped off to see the statue of the little mermaid. It was a little too cold and wet to hop off and stroll around!

The things I noticed most about Copenhagen -

the beautiful spires everywhere...

bikes (again)...

the pretty colours of the old buildings...

and the people! The Danes are reportedly the happiest people in the world - they seemed to me to be very friendly and charming, and yes - happy!

I amsterdam

I'm sitting in the lobby of our beautiful hotel in Copenhagen. Due to internet access issues, I haven't been able to post anything about Amsterdam yet.

Amsterdam is such a lively, vibrant city. There are people of 77 different natianalities living there - more than any other city, according to our canal tour guide. It seems to be a very tolerant, open city and the people are very friendly - they all speak English, and don't seem to mind at all that we don't know their language.

The weather was very spring-like when we were there - everyone was soaking up the sunshine after a very long cold winter. There was more than a little whiff of pot in the air!

The thing that impressed me most about Amsterdam was the number of cyclists - they are everywhere!

And I do mean everywhere!

We went on a canal tour...

and saw the Rembrandts and Vermeers (and more) at the Rijksmuseum. We visited the marvelous National Library and looked around some great little shops. And naturally, we saw lots and lots of tulips!

Seven go adventuring in Northern Europe

Apologies to Enid Blyton - I was always more of a Famous Five person, and their titles are far more exciting than the Secret Seven's.

This Thursday, we are off on our little family history tour of Germany and Estonia, plus various other cities which have no significance as far as family history goes (but they are places we'd like to visit and they're sort of on the way!) In Estonia, we plan to visit my father's school and the plaque commemorating the cinema his family owned in Tallinn - the cinema was destroyed by bombs during the Second World War. There will also be a trip to Moringen in Germany, where my mother lived for ten years after the war.

There are seven of us traveling - Maddie, Kati & I, my sister Susan & her husband Fred, and my sister Annette & her daughter Arabella. I'm thrilled to be able to share this trip with my daughters and my sisters (that's me, Susan & Annette, circa 1966 in the photo) - we've been told many stories about our parents' lives in Europe before they came to Australia. It will be wonderful to see some of the places they've told us about.

First stop - Amsterdam!