Our group left the ship early in order to go to the Presidential Palace in Estonia for a brief meeting with the President of Estonia, Toomas Ilves. President Ilves is a colleague of mine from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who returned to Estonia after independence, representing the country first as Ambassador to the US, Canada, and Mexico, then as Foreign Minister, and currently as President. He was kind enough to receive us and spend 30 minutes talking with the World Affairs Council group about Estonia’s adoption of the Euro and its complete reintegration into Europe after only 20 years of independence.

It was a somber day of mourning in Estonia, the anniversary of the first deportation of 10,000 Estonians to the gulag in 1941 and commemorative events were planned throughout the day. It is difficult to escape the history of these cities. After our meeting, we spent a couple of hours walking through the medieval town of Tallinn.

We arrived on another holiday. June 12th is Russian Independence Day, the day in 1991 when Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President of the Russian Federation and the day which he declared Russian independence from the USSR. We visited the Hermitage and toured the beautiful city, lovingly restored to its previous splendor in only the last 10-15 years. Some of the group went to Peter’s Summer palace and some went to Catherine’s palace in the afternoon, and I took the opportunity to walk around the city center and hang around on the palace square where an independence day celebration and concert were taking place.

In the evening, some people went to a ballet at the Hermitage Theater and some people went to a traditional Russian folkdance performance. I did the latter and it was a raucous and really wonderful performance of young Russian dancers in traditional village costumes. Lots of fun. I taught a couple of our intrepid travellers how to down a shot of Russian vodka and toast in Russian.

They say that if you don’t like the weather in St. Petersburg, wait 20 minutes and it will change. Well, one day was sunny and hot (75-80 degrees) and the next day was cold, windy and overcast (40-50 degrees). We visited the tombs of the Tsars at Peter and Paul fortress, and visited one the only continuously functioning Russian Orthodox churches in Russia.

We sailed first to Helsinki overnight, arriving in the morning on another glorious day. In fact, we were told that there had been snow on the ground until two weeks ago and this was among the nicest days in June in recent memory. We arrived on the eve of the annual Helsinki birthday celebration and all the Finns were out celebrating with a Samba parade. Quite something to see.

Le Boreal docked in the old city and we boarded on a hot sunny afternoon, and as we were leaving a naval vessel arrived to take our place alongside. The Swedish archipelaego is beautiful, and rarely seen on such a sunny afternoon. I tried to imagine the snow, low clouds and fog, but quickly let that image go in favor of the one I was experiencing.

The first night that the sun never really goes down is always a bit of a shock. While the sun did get below the horizon and there was officially a sunset and sunrise every day of the trip, the truth is that it never got dark, only dim or dimmer. Stockholm was warm and sunny (more so than I had anticipated) and all the Swedes were out enjoying the summer weather and the long evenings. It was spectacular walking around in the old town and looking at all the traditional sailing and fishing vessels along the docks. I visited the Vasa museum to see the great 17th Century Swedish warship that sailed in 1628 for 20 minutes and sunk in Stockholm harbor and was raised in 1961 almost completely intact. The restoration and detail is extraordinary and well worth the extra time. It is also interesting to visit the Nobel museum and the place where so many world leaders and accomplished scholars have been recognized for their contributions.