Northern Europe Travels

My family and I have just returned from a 3 week trip to Northern Europe. We started out in the beautiful fairytale like city of Copenhagen, Denmark. It rained the 1st 3 days we there but we still managed to walk around town in the rainy, windy & 49 degree weather, exploring castles & palaces throughout the city. From there we went to Tallin, Estonia where we toured the ruins of an ancient castle, ate lunch in the courtyard then walked around this quaint little town for some more site seeing. Next we stopped in St. Petersburg, Russia for 2 days. The history behind this country is amazing to me along with the palaces that line the streets of the city. We visted four palaces while we were there; Catherine's Palace where we walked thru the famous ball room & amber room, Peterhof's Summer then winter palace & then Yusupov Palace where thru a Russian sang opera learned about the plot to kill Rasputin.
A few other stops we made to see some of the amazingly unreal architechture there were The church of Spilled Blood, St. Issac Square, Peter & Paul Fortress & the Hermitage.
After leaving Russia the rain and very un-summer like cold weather stopped when arriving in Helsinki, Finland. This town was so charming with the cobblestone streets and gorgeous cathedrals, cafes & castles. We didn't spend too much time here but I think it may have been one of my favorite places so far. We went in the Rock Church (a church made from a boulder) & visited the Sibelius Monument. We strolled around the streets into the city market, had lunch at a finnish cafe and walked thru the shopping district and watched the livelyness of the city at work.
The next day we went to Stolkholm Sweden. There we toured the 18th Century Royal Palace & the old town of Stockholm. Yet another very beautiful & charming fairytale like city.
When leaving Sweden we headed back to Copenhagen where the weather was much better than the 1st visit. Once we were settled at the hotel in the heart of the city we set off on foot to Tivoli Gardens where the kids had a blast on all the old rides, Kayla had cotton candy for the 1st time and Aislynn drove a car for the 1st time (only being a year old). After the gardens the kids went back to the hotel and the grown ups went to check out the famous Absolute Ice Bar. It's excatly what it sounds like. We walked into the hotel, picked up our Eskimo coats and walked inside the bar which was a chilling -5 degrees C. The entire room was made of ice. The walls, ceiling, bar, tables, chairs and yes even the glasses we drank from we ice. It was definitely a different experience but it was pretty cool, no pun intended.
Copenhagen was where we started in these travels and now where it ended. Now were back home where night and day seem more normal and we're working on getting back with our time zone (it didn't EVER fully get dark outside and wouldnt get dark until past 11, in Russia past midnight, then it was only dark for 2 hours) I guess with the 9 hour time difference and being that close to the artic circle would explain all that. Now were home and settling back in to the nice relaxing life here on the coast of Florida. Quite a change in deed. Please enjoy some of the photos I took on this trip and be sure to visit www.kimberlyjbarnes.com for more of my work.