Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Budapest, and Prague
August, 2000
In August, 2000, Peter Guerrant and I did a tour that visited Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Budapest, and Prague. We flew between cities, giving maximum time in each location and very little time for seeing the other parts of the countries involved. We arranged the tour through General Tours. In each locale we had a half-day guided tour and then could explore on our own and could add any additional tours we wished with our guides. They were good about letting us know what was available from them, but in putting no pressure or even much of a sales pitch. There were other niceties included that varied by the destination. The tour company put us in a group of eight. Besides us two, there were two older couples from Long Island and a Japanese couple from San Francisco, who still were citizens of Japan, even though they had lived in the US for 25 years and raised their children here. It was a very congenial group. My memory of all the names is fuzzy enough that I won't remember them all or the spelling the Japanese nicknames. The diversity of backgrounds and interests made the whole experience even better.
I was shooting color slide film, so I didn't take as many pictures as I do now on trips. Film and processing cost a lot more than electrons. These are scans of old slides, and so are corrected as best I can for the fading and other artifacts of age. I will write some commentary to go with the pictures, but this is not a travelogue. We went places and did things that I won't write about here since I didn't take pictures. I think most church interiors didn't allow photography. I didn't attempt to photograph the fireworks display in Budapest, but I will tell a bit about them on that page.
Here is a picture of Pete and me with Sibelius at his memorial in Helsinki.
Helsinki Saint Petersburg Budapest Prague