Baltic Sea May 2024

Today we disembarked from the cruise ship in the morning. This all went very smoothly and we were met by our guide and coach at the port. It was a short drive to our hotel, a very new and modern hotel located in a new development close to the port. There was a lot of construction going on around here and it will look very good when it is all finished. Although our guide thought our rooms would be ready, on arrival at the hotel, we were told that they would not be ready until 3pm. We decided to take the nearby metro into the older part of Copenhagen and explore the Round Tower. This structure was built in 1642 to house a telescope and be an Observatory. The tower had a long, spiral ramp to climb to the top of the observatory. The ramp was built rather than steps so that horses could be used to get to the top. Apparently Peter the Great climbed the Spiral Ramp several times on horseback. (We thought that this was a good idea, after walking up the ramp!) Anyway, at the top we had a great ...

  During our cruise, we decided that it might be interesting to do a “Behind the Scenes” tour of the ship and this was booked for today, our day at sea! We thought we might be able to sleep in a little but this tour started at 8.30am so we up at the normal time to ensure we were ready for the excursion. The tour started in the theatre area of the ship, where we went backstage, behind the curtains and met one of the performers who was also the production director and manager. We have seen a 6 of the 7 different shows put on by the company and will see the final one tonight. They have been exceptional in all aspects of costume design, singing, dancing etc. Backstage, we learnt about the group and where they come from and all the rehearsing that goes on before the show is complete. The backstage area was tiny and it was hard to imagine how the performers can all fit in the area between their items to change. They are apparently like a well-oiled machine and would need to be. We learnt...

We were organised fairly early this morning as we had made a few plans and wanted to try to do as much as possible in the time we had left to explore more  of Stockholm. One of our fellow travellers had told us about the excellent, bridges and canal cruise which she had enjoyed on Tuesday so this was to be our first activity of the day.  Our Hop-on bus stopped near the office for the boat tours and with us arriving just before the office opened at 10am, we had soon booked our tickets on an 11am, 2 hour cruise. While waiting for our cruise to commence we went for a walk along the Kungstradgarden, a beautiful park lined with statues, fountains, trees and garden beds. Here we found a café and indulged in an excellent coffee. Returning to the area where we were to catch our cruise boat, we lined up with many fellow travellers. By about 10.50am there were probably 200+ people lined up and no action boat wise. By 11.15am and after joking with fellow travellers, we realised that so...

n Before I start to tell you about our adventures today, I thought I would impart some interesting information we have learnt about the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea has a lower salt level than other seas and this is why it has on occasions frozen over. It is quite shallow and there are islands everywhere. I would hate to try to navigate through it. Unfortunately, it has a high pollution level, although all countries are working on improving this. It was suggested that due to the level of pollution, you should only eat fish caught in the Baltic, once a week and pregnant women should never eat fish from the Baltic. We have been blessed with the most amazing weather and the sea on most days has been like glass. Our adventures in Stockholm started with a ride around the city on the convenient Hop-on, Hop-off Bus which picked us up from the ship terminal. Stockholm is a beautiful, large city with a population of approximately 2 million. Stunning old buildings in wonderful condition line man...