Global
Add a review
Hotel review
Travel story
Attraction review
Question to tourists
Forum thread

Moscow - St. Petersburg - Helsinki - Stockholm and back

28 January 2011 • Travel time: with 29 December 2008 on 02 January 2009
Reputation: +592.5
Add a Friend
Send message

- some opportunity to choose the level of comfort for every taste and budget (car class on the train and cabins on the ferry, the availability of breakfasts / dinners, as well as on request - a single room in a hotel);

- good drivers - there is no feeling that firewood is being transported;

- a very decent hotel in Finland;

- a rich selection of delicious food on the buffet both in the hotel and on the ferry;

- a sumptuous and rather fun New Year's Eve dinner on the ferry and a champagne breakfast (this can be regarded as a double, if not triple, plus);

- both in Finland and in Sweden, the entire local population speaks English to one degree or another, and in some places (hotels, border shops, some museums) they even speak Russian.

- not a very comfortable bus (see below), although it is a modern type;

- queues in cafes, shops and toilets during sanitary bus stops;

- palpable pitching on the ferry - for those who suffer from kinetosis (sickness), dramin may not help;


- very meager menus in Finnish restaurants at high prices.

Greetings to all respected lovers of tourism.

I want to please you with a review of how my girlfriend and I (by the way, my future wife, but she will become such only on the second report after that) went on a tour of Scandinavia (Moscow - St. Petersburg - Helsinki - Stockholm, then in reverse order). Eh, the report turned out to be long, so I delimited it by date, indicating the corresponding cities, so that everyone can selectively read what they are interested in.

So, 29.12. 08, Moscow.

We arrived at the Leningradsky railway station an hour before the train departure, where we met with the guide, who handed us all the necessary documentation, and also gave the necessary instructions.

30.12. 08, St. Petersburg - Helsinki

We reached St. Petersburg without any problems at exactly 5:00 in the morning, where a bus was already waiting for us at the station square.

I had to wait for the guide, who was traveling by another train - arriving 20 minutes after ours. Then they taxied out onto the road for a long time, because, despite the rather early hour, the road near the station was clogged with traffic jams. However, there were no traffic jams on other roads, which personally pleased me.

I can say about the bus that it seems to be modern, i. e.

there are TVs and a coffee maker (only you have to order coffee or tea from the driver, he will pour it, otherwise on one of the previous trips one tourist, either crooked-handed, or under a fly the size of an elephant, broke the whole system for him there, so that the driver is now dumb to let tourists near the coffee maker) and even a toilet (however, you can use it only in case of emergency, otherwise, according to the driver, then you will have to smell it all; by the way, we were convinced of this on the way back), but this one is very comfortable I would not call a bus: the seats are quite tight, the knees rest against the seat in front (and the person sitting on it feels great), and even if the back is not reclined.


It is possible, however, to move the seat next to the aisle towards this very aisle, however, this makes it somewhat difficult to move around the cabin: you can only go sideways, and even then only in the absence of the so-called “mirror disease” resulting from excessive drinking of beer, and also a large amount of high-calorie foods.

On the way, the guide told us about St. Petersburg, as well as some of its suburbs. Then, when we left St. Petersburg and the “wild” nature began, there seemed to be nothing more to talk about, so the guide suggested that everyone get some sleep, which, however, the vast majority had been doing for a long time, because the people had a strong lack of sleep, some moreover exacerbated by a hangover of varying severity. About 3 hours later we reached the first border barrier, where there was already a line of tourist buses (ours was about 10th).

We waited for 30-40 minutes for the buses in front to pass, then it was our turn. The border guard entered the salon and checked that everyone had a Finnish visa in their passport. Another 20 minutes later we arrived at the Russian customs. There were even more buses in the queue, so the guide suggested that everyone go through the nearby shops, one of which also had a toilet inside, but the queue there was like a mausoleum (for those who remember). However, some of those who are not particularly picky about comfort and civilization simply retreated around the corner or behind the stones ...

Finally, it was the turn of our bus to enter the terminal area. Everyone, of course, was delighted, but the well-known pink bird was waiting for us. Yes, yes, it's called oblomingo. So we still had to wait a while.

Finally, everyone was let inside the customs terminal for passport control, where there are also toilets, the queue for which is an integral part of them, and not only in “jo”, but also in “me”.


No, well, how could it be otherwise when there are only two booths? No, not 2 for each - there are only 2: one "me" and one "jo". Inside the terminal, they waited about half an hour for the previous group to pass, then we also passed. By the way, on the opposite side of the terminal there is also the same two-cabin toilet. In the meantime, we were going through passport control, the border guards scrambled the bus. Well, it's more of a formality. When boarding the bus, a border guard stood next to the door and checked all passengers for a stamp on passing control in their passports.

After another 20 minutes, we drove up to another border post, where the border guard again entered the salon and checked that everyone had the same stamp.

After another 10 minutes, we crossed the border strip and ended up in Finland itself (there we turned the arrows back an hour), and after about the same time we arrived at the Finnish customs terminal and, after standing in the bus queue for some time, passed through passport control, for which didn't spend much time. At the exit from the terminal there was a dog with Finnish border guards. Apparently, the import of drugs there is not at all welcome.

After that, we stopped at a gas station, next to which there was a store with biting prices, as, indeed, throughout Finland. Everything is expensive there. For example, a half-liter can of beer - from 3.5 Jews. There was also a toilet in the store. I hope everyone already guessed about the queue? There was no less mausoleum line in the cafe of the Makdach type, located in the same place. The guide gave us half an hour to visit this store and all the other establishments, but only a few managed to meet the allotted time. I think it's clear why.

Finally, the whole group nevertheless gathered, and we again set off on the road. We drove for a long time, maybe 3 hours. The guide all this time told us about the Scandinavian countries, their history, mainly about Finland. At 18 o'clock local time (-1 hour compared to Moscow), we drove up to our hotel in Helsinki called Holiday Inn and checked in, and the check-in took quite a bit of time: literally 5 minutes after arrival, the guide handed out the keys to the rooms to everyone - electronic cards.


Yes, even on the bus the guide asked if anyone wanted to go to the water park. There were enough applicants (for this you need at least 25 people, otherwise it is simply unprofitable). This pleasure was worth, in my opinion, either 16 or 20 Jews from the nose. Mostly companies with children went there. We didn’t go because, firstly, we were quite tired after the bus, and secondly, we wanted to walk around the city on our own and go to some local cafe or bar.

I must say, we liked the hotel very much. I would say it is quite pulling on 4 *. By the way, there is no such thing as “stardom” in Scandinavian hotels: all sorts of show-offs and other flatulence are alien to them (this is such a star fever; gentlemen, doctors, go to the garden with your moralizing: I know the medical meaning of this word very well).

The room has an LCD TV with a remote control, which is also used as an alarm clock - at the time programmed by the hotel employees, it turns on and a message appears on the screen like “Get up, count, great things await you” (for history lovers: with this phrase he forced his servant wake yourself up Henri Saint-Simon - such a utopian socialist lived in the 18th century), a safe with a combination lock, a mini-bar, which for some reason was locked. The guide told us that sometimes the hotel workers, on the contrary, take something out of the bar and put it on the table, and the tourists think that this is for free, and they are being led.

So, he says, keep in mind that all this is for money. But in one of the cabinets on the shelf there were bags of tea, instant coffee, sugar, etc. - all this is already free. I was pleased with the bed linen - dazzling white and made of soft, pleasant to the touch fabric. True, the mattress itself was, well, very soft - this is already for lovers, and even then only those who use the bed only for sleeping. Also in the closet was an ironing board with a small iron.

The bathroom is equipped with Finnish plumbing, the decent quality of which is already known to everyone, instead of a bathroom there is a shower cabin, inside of which plastic bottles are attached to the wall: one with shampoo, the other with shower gel. Another bottle of liquid soap is attached next to the sink. There was also a hair dryer, albeit not the most modern.


The hotel also has a sauna, free of charge. You can also order a private sauna, however, it will already cost money, but you need to do this in advance - the day before.

After a little rest from the road, we went for a walk around Helsinki at night. "Night" - this is me conditionally, because it was already dark (it was 19 - 20 hours). I was glad that there were very few people on the street. It's like no one lives in the city. However, this is approximately how it should be with the population of Helsinki of 2 million people (and the population of the whole of Finland is about 5 million people). We went to a local supermarket across the road opposite the hotel, once again marveled at not the most affordable prices, so in the end we didn’t buy anything.

No, the toad didn’t choke us at all, we just didn’t need anything special there, rather we went there just to see people, to show ourselves, and to warm ourselves, of course. Even there, all the names on the price tags are only in Finnish, which is very unusual. I am glad at least that on some packages there were still inscriptions in languages ​ ​ u200bu200bthat I understood (for example, in French or Spanish).

Then we decided to go down to the metro to go to the center, where the station is also located.

There are no turnstiles in the subway, there are only some readers at the escalator, where you need to bring a ticket bought in advance. We did not know this system, so we decided to just ride a hare - according to an old Moscow habit. By the way, as other vacationers later told us, tourists can safely ride there as a hare: local inspectors do not fine tourists. And so the fine for ticketless travel, in my opinion, is 50 Jews.

A single ticket, it seems, costs 2 Jews and is valid for 1 hour 5 minutes from the moment of the first pass, and in any form of transport. Many people buy travel tickets for several trips, there are also some special tourist tickets ...But we somehow had to delve into these subtleties, to be honest, in the end, the Finnish economy will not get much poorer from this.


Moreover, we saw there how many people walked onto the escalator without bringing anything to the reading devices. Maybe they had passes? XZ, as they say.

In general, we regarded the round trip as a tourist discount. Maybe it's time to make it official? One heck no one pays. At least, this applies to Russian tourists who simply do not enter this system. There is also a payment system in Finland using SMS messages - a real gift for local hares who prepare such a message in advance and send it as soon as they see the controller.

Well, if there is no controller, then you can somehow send it later. By the way, to the issue of fines. The guide told us that fines for the same offense can vary depending on the income level of the offender.

For example, a local traffic cop stops a driver for some kind of violation and, writing a fine, asks what his income is, how many people are in his family, etc. At the same time, it is useless to deceive a traffic cop, pretending to be an unemployed homeless person: this information is very easily verified by them , and for deceit you will have to pay an additional fine. Okay, end of digression.

The metro there is quite unusual: the architecture is much simpler than in Moscow, advertising posters hang everywhere, there are vending machines with all sorts of Snickers, there is quite a lot of garbage on the rails. On the street, however, all sorts of bull-calves are also found, however, there are still fewer of them than in Moscow, which, however, is quite logical: there are enough urns on the Finnish streets. "Authorities" of Moscow - ay!

Despite the fact that there is only one line in the metro, bifurcating at one end, it is not so easy for a person who finds himself there for the first time to navigate.

The fact is that if in the Moscow or St. Petersburg metro the name of the station is clearly written on the wall, in Helsinki everything is completely different: there are some other names on the wall - in Swedish (sometimes I understand approximately) and, of course, in Finnish (completely incomprehensible to me).


Hanging there on the wall, however, is a map of the city with a metro map, but tram and bus routes are also indicated there, as well as lines under construction, so, as they say, you can’t figure it out without a glass. So at first it seemed to us that we were somewhere in the middle of the line and we had to go to the non-divided end. However, as soon as we got into the car, we were asked from there by local cops.

One of them asked me in English if I spoke Finnish, and, having received a negative answer, he also explained in English that we were on the other side, since this station is the final one.

Well, since we still managed to calculate the location of the station we needed, we only had to drive 2 stops. Going out into the street, we walked a little and took pictures, and then began to look for where to go to sit, but the prices in local cafes were not at all pleasing: a salad was about 15-20 Jews, and hot dishes - Jews for 20-25.

We finally decided to go to Hemingway's Bar. There, visitors sat at the tables and drank some beer, some wine, some something else. There were no snacks on the tables. Hmm...and they also say that only Russians drink without eating! : D I went to the bar and took 2 beers of 0.5 l (5.6 Jews each) and asked if there was any snack, for which I was offered only a small box of Pringles chips (3 Jews). Well, okay, as they say, without fish you will become cancer yourself.

We decided to have dinner at the hotel, and this pleasure cost us 72 Jews. For example, a glass of "Tokay" cost, it seems, 7.

5 jews for 60 ml, and beer about 4.5 jews for half a litre. The menu was rather meager (by the way, there is a menu in Russian), but everything seems to be delicious.

The next day, we had to go first on a tour of Helsinki, and by 17-00 go to the Silja Line ferry (hereinafter referred to as the Titanic).

31.12. 08, Helsinki

They woke us up at 8 am - by means of the TV mentioned above. Then in the same hotel cafe there was breakfast - a buffet, and quite decent. Baking, only, in my opinion, was not enough: some kind of pie of incomprehensible content and cookies.


Somewhere around 9:30 the whole group got on the bus, and we went on a tour of Helsinki. We visited a monument there, assembled from water pipes, and by a female sculptor. In appearance, this monument resembles an organ (in the sense of a musical instrument, and not what you thought: D). There is also a monument to the composer Sibelius, reminiscent of the head of Professor Dowell in a frame.

According to the guide, by the way, Sibelius is the most famous person in Finland: he certainly knew how to convey the real Finnish character in his music.

We walked and examined the monuments for 20-30 minutes, but during this time we managed to noticeably freeze, because there was a noticeable oak forest in the yard (about -5 Celsius). And some tourists, especially active ones, even managed to get their feet wet in a pond located across the road. It was they who jumped over the pebbles and took pictures. They wanted exotic photos, like walking on water like on dry land, like a famous dude from Nazareth. That dude, however, did it on a sober head, which these tourists for some reason forgot about, so their legs fell on the pebbles only once.

Next to the monument (as, indeed, throughout Helsinki) there was a green house called a toilet - an ennobled version of the familiar “blue cabins”.

In the booth house 2: on the left is free (for those who need it only for small needs), on the right you can do any need, as well as change the baby. Well, the right side is also sharpened for the disabled. Admission there, however, is already worth the money - 1 Jew. On top of each door there is a two-color "traffic light": while the booth is free, a green signal is lit above it, and when someone enters there, a red one lights up instead.

After that, we went by bus to the church "Tempelaukkio", located in the rock. Having visited it, we went to the Senate Square, where the government house, the Lutheran Cathedral and the green monument to Shurik II are located. By the way, this dude causes me the most respect of those few rulers of Russia in its entire history, for whom I generally have this feeling.

At the same time, the guide constantly talked about local attractions. True, the information was already poorly perceived, because.

, firstly, the accumulated lack of sleep affected, and secondly, all thoughts were about how to warm up (preferably also from the inside).


Finally, we headed to the port where our titanic was located, and, having arrived there, we got as many as 3 and a half hours of free time. By the way, the port is located about a kilometer and a half from the station, so it’s very easy to get there on foot, which we did. On the way, we also looked closely at the prices of local cafe-restaurants, which, as always, were not encouraging. Near an Italian restaurant there was a couple who spoke Italian.

Since I also speak Italian, I decided to share my impressions with them, saying that in Italy everything is not so expensive. To this, the Italian answered me that indeed, in Italy, prices in restaurants are usually much cheaper, and such are, well, perhaps in the most expensive ones.

I also said that these prices are just robbery, which made the Italians very amused, for whom such a turn of phrase was a curiosity, but very accurately reflecting the situation.

We bought a few souvenirs at the forecourt.

The guide also offered us to exchange Jews for 30 per person for Swedish kronor, since Jews are not accepted everywhere in Sweden. If in Sweden it is not possible to spend all the crowns, then they can then be easily spent on the Titanic, where they are also accepted everywhere. The one located at the station was proposed as one of the exchange offices, however, we abandoned this idea, because, firstly, there was a long queue, and secondly, they took a commission of 2 Jews for the exchange, regardless of the exchanged amounts.

Later, however, we found a more profitable currency exchange in the city, located in a less lively place. There, at about the same rate, we exchanged 50 Jews for 530 Swedish kronor, and without any commission.

At the same time, they also received 40 euro cents in change (there the rate was 1 Jew = 10.681 Swedish kronor (SEK)).

Then we nevertheless went to the same restaurant, near which we had previously met Italians, and they offered us a menu there - as meager as elsewhere (about 6 dishes + 2 more desserts; well, beer and wine). We ordered soup (there was only one kind) + salmon risotto (23.8 Jews) and pasta with mushrooms and bacon (14 Jews), as well as a glass of grapefruit juice (3.5 Jews), latte coffee (5 Jews; by the way, latte in Italian it is simply milk) and a large portion of beer.


True, they brought a small one (4.4 Jews), because beer is not served in large glasses there due to the elementary lack of such. I had to order another glass. Juice was brought along with beer, then bread was placed on the table.

Then it was time to go to the bus, and when the whole group gathered there, the guide handed out tickets for the Titanic to everyone (these are cards that are also the keys to the cabins) and warned them not to forget them in any case when leaving the Titanic to Stockholm, because in this case you can’t get back on board. Then he also distributed cards for breakfast on January 2 (January 1st, a champagne breakfast (! ), as well as a New Year's Eve dinner were included in the tour price).

Dinner on January 1 had to be paid separately when ordering the tour, which almost everyone did, with the exception of 4 people from the group. However, he offered them to assist in providing dinner for the same 35 Jews. Also, everyone received a Titanic map and a New Year's cruise program indicating the time and place of events.

After that, we drove directly to the terminal where the landing on the Titanic is carried out.

The bus was also loaded onto this ship, however, already through a special entrance (3rd and 4th decks). By the way, on the 2nd and 4th decks there are also economy class cabins, about which tourists speak, to put it mildly, without much enthusiasm.

We passed without much delay and went up to our 2-bed cabin, located on the 10th floor overlooking the promenade (this is the name of the inner "street" on the Titanic, located on the 7th floor), for which, when ordering the tour, we paid extra for 160 Jews per person (for the base price they would get a 4-bed cabin without windows on the 2nd or 4th deck, but if you need something better, you will have to pay extra according to the Turtrans Voyage rates; I can only say that with a sea view cabin would have cost even more).

After some time, the titanic began to set sail, and ...who said that modern titanics are equipped with an anti-swing system, with which a drink in a glass does not move even in a 6-point storm?


No, maybe it is, of course, true, but this system does not work very efficiently, because the pitching begins to be felt even at the moment of departure. Drinks from glasses, of course, did not spill out, but it was clearly visible from them that there was still a pitching.

It is especially felt when you lie on the bed - the vibration of the motor is still felt there. Or when you're trying to put on your pants standing up. : D So those suffering from kinetosis (sickness, if you like) have every chance to spend the entire cruise hugging the toilet, if they don’t stock up on dimethylhydrinate, better known in everyday life as dramin, draramin or ciel.

I myself don’t use means for motion sickness, but, they say, the remedy is quite effective, however, it makes me sleepy. I know of other remedies for motion sickness, but in order not to tire the readers, I will talk about them separately, in case someone is interested. By the way, there is also such a joke: when going ashore, the feeling continues, as if it is shaking.

For me, after landing from the Titanic, it continued for several more days.

Our cabin, as I said, was 2-bed. To save space, one of the beds leaned back from the wall (like the top shelf in a train car, only it was located below), and the second simply stood against the opposite wall. There was a table between the beds. However, we quickly corrected this shortcoming by swapping the bed with a table. There was also a wardrobe, a chair, a small table with a mirror and shelves. There was also a hair dryer by the mirror, even less modern than in the hotel.

There was also a telephone in the cabin, which always showed Finnish or Swedish time, depending on the location of the Titanic. It was switched centrally. The bathroom there is compact: a shower cabin with a strictly 1-seat cubicle (unless 2 small children can fit there), closed by a ceiling-to-floor curtain, a toilet bowl and a sink with shelves, a mirror and glasses.

There was also liquid soap in plastic containers affixed to the wall of the shower stall and in front of the sink. The same soap was proposed to be used both as a shower gel and as a shampoo.


Leaving our luggage in the cabin, we went to inspect the Titanic and took the elevator down to the promenade. The elevators there are modern - with glass walls, through which the promenade was perfectly visible. There were all sorts of shops, cafes and toilets. The latter are very cultured, clean and without any queues. In one of the stores, we saw glasses with a cool image of a pair of moose playing how ancient, and still popular game called “stick-holes”, and in different poses (not only in their natural, but also in a missionary, sorry that is not in the rider : D), but decided to buy them later.

Below, on the 6th floor, there are restaurants where breakfasts and dinners are served, as well as a “Tax free” store - the same as “Duty free”.

The prices there are as follows: a liter bottle of Sheridans liqueur cost 23.5 Jews, a liter of Courvosier V. S. O. P. cognac - 38.2 Jews, a liter of Martini - 9.5 Jews, a liter of Baileys liqueur - 15.85 Jews. True, the bags there are paid - 0.2 Jew each. They also took some cranberry liquor for 7.5 Jews (0.5 l) and mineral water in half-liter bottles of a Jew apiece.

The same bottle in the restaurant costs one and a half Jews. Then we again went to the store where glasses were sold (all the more we needed them for the purchased liquor), but we didn’t see the ones we needed - there were only glasses with a more modest image. We were about to buy some other glasses, or rather, they had already taken them and poured them for us, but suddenly the idea occurred to me to ask the seller if there were any glasses with moose, and he took them out of some locker. As a result, they took only these glasses, and they refused the previous two without any problems.

At 19:15 we started New Year's Eve dinner, which lasted 2 hours.

Everyone was offered a glass of champagne at the entrance. Our company turned out to be quite cheerful. We were 6 people at the table, there were also tables for 8 and 12 people, and in total there were 40 people in the group. The hall was divided into 2 parts, one of which was the "competing" group. In that group, we did not notice much fun - people just sat and slowly ate and loaded themselves with Bukhara, which there was “at least get drunk, piss even in your boots. ”


Everything was very lively with us, the guide demanded that a toast be made from each table (the pleasure of making toasts, however, is for an amateur, to whom I personally do not belong, but it seems that at each next table the number of such amateurs increased in proportion to the dose taken) . Everyone congratulated each other, some hugged, almost kissed, and the waiters only had time to renew the regularly emptied bottles of red and white wine.

Those who wished could also pour themselves beer, and non-alcoholic drinks were offered to teetotalers and ulcers. However, I didn't notice any of them. Maybe Lelek was right about the freebie? The choice of hot and cold snacks was also very rich and varied: different types of meat with all kinds of sauces, a large selection of fish, salads, seafood, including oysters, mussels, shrimps, common and tiger, and lobsters. Desserts and fruits could also be eaten there.

At the next table sat a group from Kater. According to local time, the new year there has come already at 21 o'clock in Finnish, and friendly congratulations began with even more intensified libations. True, after about 10 minutes, dinner began to come to an end, other groups were already waiting for their turn for a drink. However, it was not so easy to get us out of there, everyone “demanded the continuation of the banquet”, and the bar workers began to politely ask everyone to leave.

Everyone had to leave such a cozy place, emptying half-finished bottles along the way and complaining that the pitching had noticeably increased.

At 11 p. m. Finnish time, it was proposed to meet the “Moscow” New Year in the premises of the 2-story casino-bar “Atlantis Palace”, however, the seats had to be taken there in advance, since there were significantly fewer of them than those who wanted to. Our neighbors at the table even took a seat there, but we didn’t find them in this crowd, therefore, having come to the bar, where at that moment a spectacular show was already taking place, we simply bought a bottle of champagne for 44 Jews, drank for the New Year and went to finish drinking already at room.

At that time, there was also some kind of show with a performance of a musical ensemble on the promenade, which was very well audible from our cabin. At 0:00 it was also possible to meet New Year's Eve in Finnish time, and at 1:00 in Swedish time, but we preferred to do it in a modest way, without leaving the cabin, because


the next day we had to get up early, and in the morning we did not want to feel overwhelmed, like a trough from Pushkin's famous fairy tale. In general, somewhere in the second hour (Finnish time) they fell asleep, having previously moved the hands an hour ago.

1.01. 09, Stockholm

On the first morning of the new year, we had to leave the Titanic at 10:00, so we got up at 8, went to breakfast with the same rich selection of dishes and offered glasses of champagne (this is very wisely provided). If desired, it was possible to take more than one glass, but preferably not at the same time (I took a total of 3). During breakfast, the arrival to Stockholm was announced on the radio in turn in Finnish, Swedish, English and Russian with information about the local weather. After breakfast, we went up to the cabin, dressed warmly (although this did not help much), just in case, checked the availability of tickets for the Titanic and went to the exit.

By the way, those wishing to "treat" could stay on the Titanic, which some did. We wanted to see Stockholm. In vain, or what, they came there? They searched for a bus for a long time, because at about the same time another titanic (almost the same, but less comfortable, because there were twice as many passengers on the same square) “parked” from which buses flew like bees from hive. So we had to look for our bus for a long time.

They even tried to call the guide's mobile phone, which he had previously left for everyone, but to no avail. Then we nevertheless saw our group, which was already leaving the bus parking area. It turned out that our bus was standing far beyond its borders, because there simply wasn’t enough space there. However, then this bus called at this parking lot, so we would have found it anyway.

Initially, the departure was supposed to be at 10:00, the guide also warned that if someone did not come, then these tourists would be waited for 5-10 minutes, after which the bus would leave. However, due to all this mess, we only left at 10:30.


The architecture of Stockholm turned out to be very beautiful, compared to that in Helsinki. The only pity is that it was very cold, so, in our opinion, it is advisable to visit this city (as well as all the others in Northern Europe and Scandinavia) in the warm season. True, in this case, you will not have such a wonderful event as a New Year's Eve dinner on the Titanic. So decide for yourself what you need.

Stockholm is a city consisting of several islands, one of which is called the Royal (Kungsholmen), where we first arrived. There was a short tour with stories about the royal family, Carlson, Astrid Lindgren, etc.

True, a small wreck was waiting for us: the batteries in the camera were dead, and somehow we didn’t think of taking fresh ones with us from our luggage. They stayed on the Titanic. Even more annoying was that there were no working shops within sight.

Then we stopped on the shore of Lake Mä laren, where the monument was located, jokingly called by the Swedes the “ear of the KGB”, because it resembled an ear in shape, and if you look through its hole, you could see the building of the Russian embassy from there.

After that, we went to the side of museums, which, however, are almost all closed on January 1st. Only the Junibacken Museum of Fairy Tales turned out to be open, where everyone went, because there was nothing to do anyway: there was not a single pub within sight. An adult ticket to this museum cost 110 crowns (about 10.3 Jews). By the way, the employees who sold tickets at the entrance also spoke Russian. The museum, as expected, turned out to be for children.

I wonder how many necrophiles are in Sweden? Rhetorical question.

We were particularly impressed by the rat, which looked sooooo realistic, but at the same time the size of a seasoned boar, and its tail was thicker than a fire hose. This type of sightseer has become small, small, like Niels. It's good that none of us suffered from a phobia of rats (I forgot what it is scientifically called), otherwise the body's reaction can be unpredictable - it's good if it is limited to acoustic effects alone.


My girlfriend said that she would never let our future children into such a museum at the age of 5, otherwise, why would she remain a stutterer or suffer from enuresis on a nervous basis. Citizens with a strong hangover, such a museum is also strongly discouraged: respect the work of cleaners. The cabins themselves, moreover, sometimes jerk up and down quite sharply.

Okay, having completed such an “exciting” trip, we ended up in another part of the museum, where the cafe was located. I even had a faint hope ...but no, I was destined to break off, because it was intended primarily for small children, who, as a rule, do not drink beer. So I had to go back to the bus, looking around for the presence of pubs. Naive. But there wasn't even some crappy shop where this divine drink could be purchased. Frustrated, we boarded the bus and waited for the other members of the group to enjoy the sight of the mutant rat. Upon the return of the entire group to the bus, it turned out that everyone had checked it out.

Finally, we again went to the center - to the same Royal Island where we had been before, and there we were given about 2.5 hours of free time.

While I was walking for Bukhara, the next table became free - more comfortable, with a sofa, and we moved there. Our original table, however, was also quickly occupied. The tables there were not empty - if one was vacated, then new visitors immediately came there. We also decided to have lunch there.

By the way, there are no waiters there - you had to go up to the counter yourself and order (however, snacks were then brought to the table). You also had to go to the bar for the menu.

Translated automatically from Russian. View original
To add or remove photos in a story, go to album of this story
Similar stories
Comments (0) leave a comment
Show other comments …
avatar

© 2006–2024 TurPravda.com — Help • Advertising • Hotel owners • Export information • Privacy Policy • Terms of use

TurPravda - reviews of tourists about hotels | Rating of hotels and resorts according to tourist reviews

Hundreds of hotel reviews of all popular resorts are presented to your attention.You will learn the whole truth about hotels "first hand".The opinions of real tourists about hotels and resorts will help you make a decision about choosing a hotel.Read reviews of tourists - use the experience of other travelers!