40th Anniversary

This year in June Mary Lou and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. It seems like such a short time on one hand; on the other like it has been our entire life. We decided to do something special to celebrate, so we booked a 16 day cruise from Stockholm to Rome aboard the Royal Princess, one of the small ships (710 passangers) . The appointments were beautiful and the experience more intimate, but we did miss the big stage productions of the larger ships.

We spent the first two days exploring Stockholm and were surprised at ow little traffic there was for a large world city. We came to find out we'd arrived for their summer solstice celebration, a family event much like our Thanksgiving where everyone went to the country and spent time together as a family. There was much fun singing, drinking and dancing around the maypole. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Sweden and loved exploring the old part of the city.

Our first stop was Estonia. It poured most of the day but we had ponchos and stayed fairly day. We enjoyed visiting a part of the country's past in a recreated village and were treated to some traditional music and dancing by a folk group.

From here we went to St. Petersburg, Russia. The city proper appeared to be in a state of disrepair, but there was evidence of new construction and renovations everywhere. Even the public transportation was old and dated. Counter to this was our arrival at the palace of Catherine the Great, (pictured above) with its elaborate gold ornamentation. It represented the greatest disparity between the haves and have-nots we have ever seen. Marylou's favorite was the green wedgewood room with its matching walls, tablecover and china. Many of the rooms were also fitted with a delftware fireplace that stood from floor to ceiling. Most of the floors were intricate parquet patterns. For this reason were had to wear booties over our shoes to help protect the wood. From the blue of Catherine we went to the yellow of Peter. Again at Peterhof everything was gilded and very ornate. Of special note here were the magnificent grounds and the 27 intricate fountains that dotted the landscape.