The drive up to Copenhagen
We found a cool bridge.
View from the hotel.
I really feel like on this trip we were able to get out kids on board with posing with statues and the objects around us. Stay tuned for more evidence to support this claim.
The ferry over to Copenhagen.
The Little Mermaid statue.
posers.
Seriously some good statue pictures.
My two cats like the ones on the boat.
Shave those legs statue.
There is something so awesome about the Copenhagen waterfront.
Warnemünde Germany
Mike and I got off the boat and walked around.
Saw the Baltic sea.
All the cool lighthouses.
Then we went in this cool lighthouse.
The view.
View.
The top of the lighthouse.
Then we hung out on the boat.
And we were dummies and went swimming and hot tubing. In October. Outside. On a boat.
Devil sticks
Chinese yo-yo
Pirate night.
Rock climbing
Tallinn Estonia
Chloe and I found a Marzipan museum. Where they had all of this crap...all in MARZIPAN!
It was really as creepy as it looks. Really it was a shop trying to sell marzipan. But, nobody buys that crap because it tastes awful.
Cool church.
Interesting planter boxes
Russian Orthodox church.
Doggy bench.
View of the city.
Mike and my fancy dinner.
St. Petersburg. They bought or stole this stuff from Egypt.
And have these 3500 year old sphinx hanging out here on the river.
Not one but two, just to make it even.
St Issac's Cathedral.
The Hermitage Museum
Rex enjoying the art.
Chloe actually enjoying the fresco on the ceiling.
I know Russia is BFF's with Trump but seriously gold leafing is a thing here. EVERYWHERE. It is garish to the max.
Ike in awe of the fancy crap everywhere, and obviously his cool map.
Busty ladies around.
Fancy chandeliers.
ballrooms.
Honestly these floors with 16 different kids of wood. They were amazing.
We saw art you only see in books. Thanks Leonardo.
Ike chilling on the floor. That is our tour guide Mikkel.
Armor and the floor.
A throne anyone. If you sit on it you will be assassinated like almost half of the Russian rulers.
Ike chilling on another beautiful floor.
More floor time.
Another fresco and fancy room.
Creepy half human half animal part decor.
Creepy baby art.
Helmet anyone?
The floors. Seriously. I understand why Ike was appreciating them regularly.
The canals.
Rembrandt
Biggest goblet in the world. Made out of a huge stone.
Old mummy from Egypt.
More Egypt stuff they have in Russia.
Church of the spilt blood. Named because, shocker I know, one of their leaders was killed here. They built the church over the road he was killed on and have a shrine inside street intact.
Fancy ceilings inside.
More fanciness.
A tone of teh art is made from tiny shiny tiles.
Lunch.
We got Russian food. Stroganoff.
borscht
I forgot these little dumplings name.
Sometimes you need a sip.
St Catherine's summer palace.
The kids loved all the Greek mythology decor they had.
Catherine's summer palace.
This place was a recreation because the Nazis destroyed almost everything.
I thought that was well planned to make all the pictures cover ALL the walls in this room.
This place was crazy and had an amber room where everything was covered in amber that they recreated. It is nuts.
Outside.
Cool floor.
Ike enjoying another floor.
and another.
View of St. Petersburg from the boat.
Late night snack.
Canal tour.
The Hermitage from the outside. They have a whole bunch of buildings put together with these walkways and we got to go through on the boat.
St. Peter and Paul fortress.
Subway with fancy mosaic.
Heyyyy statue.
The Church of the Spilled blood in the back there.
St Issac's Cathedral.
Yup all those columns were imported from Finland and are one big piece of stone.
Inside fancy ceilings.
Almost all the pictures up there are MOSAICS! Can you believe how crazy that is.
Lapis and malachite stone columns. It is crazy.
Angry eyes.
Lunch. We got one of everything and it was good.
Peterhof Palace gardens were impressive.
Lots of fountains.
They have problems with pick pockets and Ike enjoyed the signs.
Rex enjoyed the pick pocket signs too.
Seriously a lot of good photo/ statue opportunities here.
Seriously doesn't get better than this setup.
Talk about gold leafing...
Lunch with Ike looks something like this.
And this.
And this.
Then ends with a butt five.
Ike went to the splash academy and had a bear day, bear ears included.
Sunset.
Helsinki is AWESOME.
Mustache anyone?
Temppeliaukion Church
It is build into a rock and has a wood roof.
Rex and his amber from Russia.
Kamppi Chapel Rex saw it and said it looks like a Doner kebab and wanted to go. This is Rex posing like he is eating Doner.
It it didn't disappoint. Inside was beautiful and I felt the spirit here more than any other church. It was so amazing. The inside has a chapel the same shape but smaller the walls are all wood and the benches the same. They have a podium that is wood with a little glass and a pot of green. It was amazing.
Public art. On the top there it says Rex.
More public art.
We found donuts.
We found the library.
sad books.
More public art.
Helsinki Cathedral.
Architectural museum.
Different design ideas, and models.
Drawing tools.
Design museum. And yes those are scissors. Fiskars are from Finland.
All the designs were so cool.
They had a portion talking about sustainability and they learned you can weave human hair to filter oil. Because it naturally absorbs oil...it is just creepy. They even say so... and it is, creepy.
a good map.
The walk back to the ship we found this beautiful building.
Then it was jumping time.
Chloe was nuts and doing front and back flips.
The kids loved it.
Rex was more cautious than the others.
Stockholm Sweden was awesome. Buying our ticket into the city was touching. Mike brought up how the lady that we purchased out tickets from reminded him of his grandma Leon. Who was lovely and so was this woman. It was really touching and made us both miss her.
Stockholm is old and huge.
Cathedral.
Modern art.
We poked out head into the modern art musem. We found some good art.
We ran by the Abba museum.
Old town Stockholm.
Marten Trotzigs Grand. Narrowest street in Stockholm.
It was a bit of a squeeze.
The kids put on a circus with splash academy. Rex showing his lasso moves next to his friend Ahman.
Chloe and her juggling moves.
Ike and his tiger moves.
Then back to Copenhagen. We found all six giants this time. Yes, you can go into this sleeping giants belly and hang out on a rainy day.
We loved hiking around finding all of them.
This guy was probably my favorite.
This giant under the bridge is so hard to get a picture of but he is so fun. Even if Ike looks terrified being eaten.
These two sleeping the same I think is the perfect end to our fun and relaxing vacation.
