By Grace Acosta

I’ve got nothing on Rick Steves, but here are some highlights from our family cruise on the Baltic:

Best City for Photographing Precious Artwork - St. Petersburg, Russia, hands down. Pay the museum, and you can snap and flash all you want. A cadre of babushkas makes certain that your camera bears the sticker which indicates fee payment. They may be old and female, but they mean business. Don’t mess with a babushka.

Worst Deal on an Amusement Park Ride - The Daemon Ride in Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, cost the equivalent of 10 American dollars per person for one go. Being prone to motion sickness was an advantage here; I saved the family a few kroner by sitting out.

Best Historical Site for Inspiring You to Remember that Money Isn’t Everything - The Solidarity Museum in Gdansk, Poland. The equivalent of the Declaration of Independence for the Solidarity Movement is written on pieces of wood which look like they might originally have been wooden crates. There are 20 or so declared rights, written in red paint, the first of which is the right to form a union, the second of which is the right to strike. The printing is block and the implements are crude. But the words are bold and courageous, and the simplicity of the document is overwhelming.

My heart simultaneously ached and swelled while pondering the experiences of those shipyard workers who faced off against the then formidable Soviet Union. Their story reminded me that the yearning to be free is so innate that humanity can, even under the worst of circumstances, find the will to create it without waiting for anyone’s permission.

Worst, Most Boring Historical Monument Ever, according to my kids - The Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, which houses a wooden ship, preserved in its entirety from the 1600s. I didn’t think it was so bad, but if you saw the expressions on my kids’ faces, you would have thought we were touring a museum exhibition highlighting the history of dental floss.

Best Sugar-Free Cookies — The Vasa Museum snack shop sells scrumptious cookies that are indistinguishable from the sugar-laden ones. You wouldn’t fly to Stockholm just to get one, but if you are there anyway, and feeling bored and cranky, they are an excellent pick-me-up.

Worst Telephone and Souvenir Shops - Tallinn, Estonia. Estonia only recently gained its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, and it shows. The payphone we tried to use was clunky and Soviet blocky with a receiver that weighed about 10 pounds. We never did get it to work. But, if you are in the market for weird T-shirts or machine guns, the Tallinn shopping mall is the place for you.

Best Reason to Leave Fabulous, Historic Europe and Return to Los Altos - Parker the Abandoned Pet, who got a brand new collar from Helsinki, Finland’s biggest department store as a souvenir, plus a leftover beefstick that we got on a train to Berlin, Germany in a snack pack. He liked both, but seemed gratified just to be home with us again.

He’s already figured out that the best things in life really are free.