The 14th and final day of our Baltic Sea vacation was Tuesday, August 28. We had breakfast at the Axel Guldsmeden hotel, packed up, and took a taxi back to the Copenhagen airport. I was still not feeling super-awesome, but better than I had the prior day… but even so, I didn’t want to have to drag all… Read More »
We returned to Copenhagen, Denmark at the end of our nine-day Baltic Sea cruise on Monday, August 26. Debarkation from the ship was quick and painless. We’d paid for transfer from the port back to the central rail station in downtown Copenhagen and that was painless as well. The train station was two blocks from the Axel Guldsmeden… Read More »
Sunday, August 26 — Day 12 of our Baltic vacation and Day 8 of our nine-day Baltic cruise — saw us back at sea, heading generally southwest toward Denmark and Copenhagen. And I think by this point of the cruise, we were about worn out. I know I was. Toward the end of the day on Saturday I’d… Read More »
Saturday, August 25 was our last port stop on our 9-day Baltic Sea cruise, not counting our final stop at the end back in Copenhagen. We docked in Nynäshamn, a port some 40 miles outside Stockholm, for the simple reason that Stockholm doesn’t have the capacity to dock every cruise ship that wants to pay a port call.… Read More »
Friday, August 24 brought us to Helsinki, Finland. We had no issues whatsoever getting off the ship, unlike the Grand Guignol folly back in St Petersburg. Our Finland “exclusive tour” was another bus tour to see the sights… both in Helsinki, proper, and in the quaint little town of Porvoo a half hour away to the east. Oh,… Read More »
Thursday, August 23 saw us still in St Petersburg — Day 9 of our vacation and day 5 of our cruise. We spent the day back onshore, dragging around St Petersburg and environs looking at gilt. The Russians of the Russian Empire period never saw anything they didn’t want to cover in gold leaf. We spent the morning at a… Read More »
On Wednesday, August 22, the Furrs sailed into the grips of what had once been known as the Evil Empire: Russia. St Petersburg, Russia, to be exact. And I remember the first words I uttered as opened the stateroom curtains and looked blankly toward the shore: “That’s one tall building.” The Russian need to overcompensate for perceived inferiority… Read More »
Tuesday, August 21, was the seventh day of our vacation, and the fourth day of our nine-day Baltic Sea cruise. We would spend the next four days in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Finland, stopping off in Estonia’s capital Tallin, then spending two days in St. Petersburg, Russia, and then finishing with a day in Finland’s… Read More »
Monday, August 20 was the sixth day of our vacation, and the third day of our nine-day Baltic Sea cruise. It was one of our two “sea days” — days without a port call — and we spent it transiting the eastern Baltic Sea, having left Rostock, Germany around midnight the night before and not arriving in Tallinn,… Read More »
Sunday, August 19 was the first full day of our nine-day Baltic cruise, and when I say “fulI” mean full. It was one hell of a long day. We docked in Warnemunde (the port of the city of Rostock), on the coast, and took a train three hours south to Berlin. We were driven all over the city in… Read More »