Long bus ride tort to St. Petersburg. Hotel is downtown and first impression is a busy crowded city. Took a boat ride around the city seeing most of the palaces and the hermitage. After dinner of chicken Kiev, of course, we took a subway ride to various beautiful stations. The subway was very crowded, rode the fastest, longest escalator I have been on. Trains were longer and faster than dc metro. And the ran frequently and didn't break down!

Started the day with a walk into the part of the city where they are restoring the old architecture and incorporating modern architecture. The result is quite stunning and architecture awards have been given. We then took the tram to Kadriorg Park. This is a beautiful park with clever modern sculptures liking floating boulders. We then walked to palace residence that Peter the Great built for his empress Catherine I. We then toured Kumu, a modern art museum featu...

Estonia has the most robust economy of the Baltic countries. Estonians as a people are known as slow, deliberate, shy, standoffish, extremely honest, unemotional. However they are credited with the singing revolution. All Estonians sing at at young age. There is a singing competition that involves 30000 singers. As many as 200000 people attend the festival. During the soviet occupation the festival was used a peaceful way to protest. We went the place where the f...

Long travel day to Estonia. Only notable stop in Latvia was a medieval castle in Cesi. Castle withstood attacks for 200 years until Ivan the Terrible conquered it. Rather than be captured by Ivan the Terrible the people left in the castle committed mass suicide by jumping into a large fire.

Today was A Day in the Life in a village about 45 miles from Riga. The village is unique as it was a factory town built nearly 200 years old. The paper mill was the main business and paper for printing money was produced there. The paper mill provided everything for the workers, a small salary, housing, utilities, food. The houses were wooden structures where 3-5 families might live. The factory was in operation until about 2 years ago when they went bankrupt. Ma...