Monthly Archives: August 2016
View From The Bridge
We were looking forward to a lazy day at sea, with a sleep in followed by an exploration of all the eating venues that we hadn’t tried yet. However, we signed up for the 3 hour Ship Tour, and discovered it started at 8.20am. So it was another early start. However we weren’t going to […]
Stockholm
Because of the size of our ship, we dock in Nynashamn, a small port and town about 45 minutes’ drive from Stockholm. We booked an organised tour mainly to get hassle free transport, with the benefit of visiting the Vasa Museum, and a guided walk through Gamla Stan. Stockholm was my favourite Scandinavian city 24 […]
Helsinki By Tram; or, A Walk in the Woods
I visited Helskinki 24 years ago on a coach tour of Scandinavia. It was near the end of the trip and after a short drive to see the main sights, we were dropped off at the central square for free time. I remember finding very little to do, and thinking Helsinki didn’t have a lot […]
Golden St Petersburg
Day 2 of our tour dawned sunny and clear, and we were ready to go by 8:30. After the obligatory souvenir shop stop (which wasn’t hard sell fortunately) we were off to The Hermitage. Formerly the Winter Palace, this is now the third largest museum in the world, after the British Museum and the Louvre […]
Sensory Overload
Another smooth overnight sail had us docked at the new Seaport in St Petersburg. It was a rush this morning as we had to get through passport control and meet our tour by 8am. We’d been told to allow up to 40 minutes for the bureaucratic process; it took five. We duly boarded our 16 […]
Tallinn
Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, was our first port destination, and we were up bright and early for breakfast, to be ready for disembarkation and exploration. There was a chance of bumping into Jim (didn’t happen), and catching up with Margi and Ted (saw their ferry but there were several wharves and a huge construction […]
Choices Choices Choices
After 24 hours we have gone from cruise newbies to cruise experts. What we have learned so far is that cruising is not unlike orienteering – choices and decisions need to be made at every turn. The only difference is that at orienteering, they don’t ply you with continuous food and drinks. Let’s back track […]
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