Travel Log – Star Date 3
It’s currently Sunday, May 7th and we are
scooting across the Baltic Sea on the
way to Estonia, Russia and Finland. I’m
falling behind on the log, and we have
six straight days of touring coming up.
We made our much anticipated first
stop in Copenhagen (we’ll be back two
more times). Getting into the city was
easy, after we were tortured with about
a dozen explanations of the options,
most of them contradictory (which was the
norm for the trip). We were dropped of at
the city center where we wandered onto
the maze of streets that zigzagged through
the older section of town, known as the
Storget. Mainly shops of all kinds and price
levels along streets that prohibited cars and
trucks (unless they had business there). The
streets were cobblestoned and most of the
buildings were old and picturesque. Here
and there were historic buildings worth a
photo or two. We found a Synagogue
(closed) and the library (open and with Wi-
Fi). We passed a charming restaurant that
called out to me and I made a note of it to
return for lunch. We did get back there, but
after many turns, it was like maneuvering
through a corn field maze to find it again.
Worth the effort. A bit too chilly to enjoy
the inviting outside seating, but dropping
down the few steps to the inside revealed
even a more delightful setting. I can’t
remember what I had to eat. Judy had an
assortment of treated herrings that was scrumptious, and the dark beers hit the spot.
We recommenced our
walking tour and headed
down to the Nyhavn area,
which is highly touted as a
place to walk, or hang out
with a beer or food at the
half-kilometer long street
that faced an active inset of
the harbor. Very
picturesque and very
crowded. We then took a
different vector to head
back to the general area
where we had started our walk,
and amazingly, found our
intended destination. There was
a unique-looking coffee kiosk
sitting in the plaza and the head-
covered young lady of Indian
descent, who spoke English
without an accent, ground up a
handful of chocolate chips to
make two fresh cups of hot
chocolate, which we consumed
at a table on the plaza (mine
accompanied by a chocolate
croissant).
With re-usable transit tickets, we braved the Copenhagen transit system, taking a subway-type train to
the city’s immense central train station, weaving our way through, and emerging, as intended, across
the street from the famed Tivoli Gardens (a Disney-like park). We’ll save that for our return stop. We
again correctly found our way onto the subway and to a bus stop that was to get us back to the ship.
However, the bus driver (against my doubting his response) told us that his bus was the one to take,
leading a large group of returning passengers to end up at the wrong terminal and wait for another
connecting bus. Not being in a hurry, this was not an issue. Just part of the adventures of wandering out
on one’s own in strange places and foreign-speaking bus drivers.
It seemed a bit strange getting back on the ship, since about half of the passengers had disembarked
and a new assortment of cruisers joined for the next segment. Among them more than the usual
number of younger people and a lot more people from Europe (as one might expect). We are still
continuing to have very interesting and pleasant people at our evening meals. Mostly American or
Canadian, so far. As we scrutinize the menu, there are the usual introductions of names and city of
residence, often with notations of previous areas of habitation. We soon dive right into discussions very
freely, with some early avoidance of political persuasion. It usually doesn’t take too long to get into
depth on several subjects, as if the parties had not been strangers just minutes ago. Working our way
through four courses, deliberately served with delays between each, stretches the meal and discussions
to about two hours. Just part of the typical evening enjoyment.
* * * * *
On Saturday, at 10 AM, we docked at Kiel, Germany. Why? I don’t know. Kiel has a nice port, but it’s not
known for anything of interest tourists. About 90 minutes away is Hamburg. This is a major city, but also,
not for tourists. A couple from Orange County, which I met on-line in planning the cruise, wanted to
share a car rental with us. He made arrangements with Avis and our plan was to drive to Lubeck, a
UNESCO historical city. We did
make it to Lubeck, but not
easily. It took us over 90
minutes to pick up the car and
well over two hours to reach
Lubeck. For some reason, all
the signs pointed to different
areas around Lubeck, but not
to the Centrum, where the old
city was located. After an
unintended diversion to a
neighboring town, we got
directions and stopped at a
small café for lunch. We finally
found the hidden town, which
somehow the rest of the world
had found with ease and the
place was flooded with tourists.
There were several interesting
buildings. But mingled in with
the buildings were all sorts of
modern edifices, primarily
stores for expensive and fancy
merchandise. That surely blew
the atmosphere. We walked
about for a couple of hours,
checking out the old buildings
and observing a horn-blowing
raucous Turkish wedding party, including dancing in the streets. More raucous stuff was going on all
over the area about Kiel, with hundreds of police cars around. Apparently there was a big soccer match
and hoards of drunken fans were letting loose. We eventually made it back to the ship, with only one
wrong turn.
We are in luck. They changed out the piano/violin duo at Adagio and we have a new, delightful couple
(who recognized us from our five-day cruise up to Vancouver last spring). This twosome is really great,
thank goodness. Our new evening schedule is to catch the duo at 6 PM, go to dinner at 6:45 PM, and
return for the duo at 9 PM. That gives us two music sessions and time for a leisurely dinner with
discussion.
Sunday was an “at sea” day, our last for a while. We will be in ports for the next six days. Still trying to
catch up with the log.
At the 2nd music session last night, I got to talking with a woman from the autoharp group (a few are still
on board). She claimed to have won an international competition, twice, and wants to show me how to
play. I’m going to get together with her when we get some time.
* * * * * *
On Monday morning, we pulled
into Tallinn, capital of Estonia.
Tallinn has not one, but two old
towns, and they competed with
each other for several centuries.
We beat another ship into port by
about an hour and for a while, it
wasn’t very crowded. Then, it
seemed, that a few hundred
guided tour groups landed on the
beach and attacked to city. Nevertheless,
both old town sections had an exceptional
array of buildings and our cameras were
busy. We were able to walk to and from
the old towns from the ship and we
headed back after about three hours of
touring. We had our first sunny day in over
a week. With this came some really crisp
air, down to 3 degrees C. That’s a brisk 38
degrees F. Luckily; we had both anticipated
this and brought our winter jackets. There
is a chance of snow at St. Petersburg
tomorrow.
Here’s a few photos of
the highlights. The
outstanding church, in
the upper town is the
Alexander Nevsky
Cathedral. Named for the
Estonian folk hero who
saved the country from
being overrun by an
enemy force over the
frozen turf. The story was
made into a movie and
the music is very
powerful. The first few
photos (pervious page) were
taken from the ship. The last
photo was taken of a guy
with the hand-made broom,
sweeping up in from of his restaurant. The broom shot
is for our family broom expert, Deb.
We are about halfway through the combined cruise,
and head for our furthest east port, St. Petersburg.
We’ll cover our two-day stop in section 4.