A few photos of Helsinki.
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Just a few photos from St Petersburg
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A few photos of Tallinn, Estonia.
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A few photos from our stop in Warnemunde, Germany.
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Here’s a few photos from Copenhagen.
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We stepped ashore in Estonia, about which I confess I knew nothing except that it’s generally spoken in the same sentence with Lithuania and Latvia. The capital, Tallinn, thoughtfully features an Old City with your standard Hanseatic stone buildings and cobbled streets. It’s lovely. With our Rick Steves guide book we strolled through the streets, up the steep lane into the upper town, and back down to the main town square.

Everywhere we were greeted by smiling, charming Estonian girls wanting to sell us post cards and trinkets. They were ever so pretty, and ever so pleasant.

Hoist the mizzenmast! Unfurl the yardarms! Throw a half-hitch round that feldspar! Reef the fantail! Lower the bilge!

Ah, this is sailing as it was meant to be: on a colossal luxury liner through seas as flat as glass.

Today the compass points north-northeast as we sail from Germany to Estonia. Mal de mer? Bah! Landlubbers! Now that I have me sea legs I can step lively around the ship, finally learning the locations of all the restaurants Danby has been guiding me to.

For the first time I saw the sun set over the ocean. I watched for the elusive green flash, and think I saw it. A patch of sky turned green at any rate.

Our cabin number is 10011, which is perfectly appropriate for a computer guy. (That’s 19 in binary.)

Tonight we danced a bit as the band played Glenn Miller tunes.

Tomorrow it’s up bright and early and we begin a five-day stretch of the remaining cities on our tour.

Day 4. Warnemunde, a German seaport town.

Right. Off we go. I’d researched this area, so when we walked to the train station I knew how to operate the ticket machine. It was of a particularly inept design, and uncommonly slow. It was all in German. The people ahead of me in line were stymied by it; and they were Germans! They took such a long time at the machine that we missed our first connection. I actually had to show a German-speaking lady how to work the machine.

Eventually we got all-day tickets on the local transit system: trains, buses, and trams. We took a bus to Bad Doberon, a small town with a giant minster. More interesting to me was the small gauge steam railway that runs right through the middle of town. When the train comes through, all traffic is blocked on either end while it huffs and puffs down the street.

From the moment we boarded the bus, we were away from the tourists and among the locals. On the 13 kilometer drive to Bad Doberon, we passed four wind farms. In the large green square in the town center was a restaurant where we enjoyed rabarber apfel pie.

We took the train to Rostock, the largest city in the area. It was a disappointment. It’s not a tourist town, and we walked far too much in search of the city center. I had a compass and binoculars, which helped us orienteer. In fact we’d have been better off to ignore the signs and rely strictly on the compass; the signs were for vehicular traffic, which takes a long route avoiding the pedestrian areas.

We took the train back to Warnemunde, and would have taken a meal there but we found no restaurant with an English menu. I once got a plate of liver from trying to order off a German menu, and I wasn’t about to try that again. So we returned to the ship and had the first satisfying meal since we had fish and chips in a London pub. Food is not a featured attraction on this cruise.

I estimate the median age on this boat at 65. In the lounge, the band will at long intervals play a nice old song. Instantly the dance floor fills with senior couples. Then the band resumes playing 70s and 80s trash and the dance floor is deserted. You’d think the band would notice that. Real dance music is quite rare. That is, except for what appears to be far and away the most popular song in this region of the world: Beer Barrel Polka. We’ve heard it from every band on board, and in every port. When we walked from the ship to the town in Warnemunde, a bar was playing a recording of Beer Barrel Polka. Danby and I are the only ones on ship who danced to it.

Distance we walked today: has to be at least twelve miles. Tomorrow we’re at sea. I’ll need the rest. The sea has promised to be calm.

Day 2 of the cruise.

The ship had been incredibly stable until early this morning. Motion was for the most part undetectable. As we sailed further out to sea, that began to change, and sometime in the night the seas turned angry.
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It was 94 degrees when we left Lexington. That’s reason enough to head out of town.

Having tickets for a Baltic cruise is an even better reason. Read more »