luvtravel88

Thanks for the kind words tompeter!

Wednesday, May 31 Stockholm

We got up this morning about 8:30, got dressed and had breakfast.

We didn’t arrive in Stockholm until 10 and the ship was quickly cleared. We met our group of 6 at the Martini Bar at 10 and we all left the ship together.

As we got off the ship this morning and they scanned our cards, there was this loud honking sound. It was alerting them that we would be getting off the ship today. They just wanted to know what time we would be leaving and when we told them that evening, they nodded and off we went.

We got off the ship and met our guide Thomas , with Stockholm Guiding Tours, right outside of the port gate. We had a van for 6 and off we went. Thomas took us on a short driving tour and pointed out some of the landmarks on the way.

Thomas took us along the waterfront, overlooking City Hall, where we stopped at a small park with a monument.

We saw the President’s residence and Parliament building on our way to City Hall.

Stockholm is several islands bridged together, and Thomas drove us round 2 or 3 of them. We would stop to take a look at some scenery and would find that we were on the other side of a body of water from where we had just been.

The visit to City Hall was very nice and we got to see where the Nobel Prizes are awarded as well as where city business is conducted. The grounds were very pretty as well and there were people everywhere although we didn’t feel crowded.

Blue Hall, where the Nobel Prize dinner is held

Council Chambers

Golden Hall

We met back up and were taken to Toompea Hill. It was very crowded here and we had to work our way slowly to the front so we could take some pictures. The view was really very pretty.

We grouped back together and were taken back to the ship. We boarded about 2:45 and went to have a light lunch at the buffet.

We came back to the room and began to pack up. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the room and on the balcony.

We got cleaned up and met our group for drinks at 5:00. We went to dinner at 6:15 and then back to the room to finish packing and just rest. We are exhausted!

Tallinn was a very pretty city with a vibrant medieval old town area that tourists are interested to see. If we hadn’t just come from Russia, we probably would have been enchanted with the port. As it was, there were 5 cruise ships in port that day, so the town was absolutely over run with tourists. There were crowds everywhere, making it difficult to see what sights are there. The town itself if pretty small, and there aren’t really any fantastic historical sights like those we’d just been visiting which kind of made this port anti climatic.

We were glad to have been able to stop here and if I ever stop here again, I think I would just wander the streets and really wish that’s what we’d done.

Thanks Bob and Teanne!

Tuesday, May 30 Tallinn, Estonia

Today was sunny and a high of 65.

We got up at 7:15 this morning and were at breakfast by 8:00am. We were outside at the port gate by 9:00 and met our Alla tour guide.

We took the Enchanting Tallinn tour with Julia as our guide. It was a driving and walking tour. We were dropped off by the home where the president lives and we walked around the gardens and the park area surrounding it.

We were driven to an ampitheatre with historic significance.

We walked from Old Town to New Town, visiting a couple of very pretty churches.

The cobblestones that we walked on were from the 13th century.

We stopped at a Marzipan store where they hand painted the marzipan. It was beautiful and we bought several pieces to take home.

We were given about 45 minutes to wonder around Old Town and we walked a bit and then decided to go to a restaurant called Peppersack where we could get wifi. We sat at a table outside and watched the crowds go by. DH had a beer and thought it was delicious.

We left the Hermitage and went to the Church of Spilled Blood, which was a fantastically beautiful church all of mosaics.

One of the few images of Jesus as a child.

We spent about 30 minutes there and then headed out to St. Catherine’s Palace. We were given a really nice box lunch that we ate on the way there. It had a savory and a sweet stollie pie, a bag of nuts with raisins, a bottle of water and a candy bar.

When we arrived at Catherine’s Palace we stood in a large group of people waiting to get inside. Irina went to get our ticket and came back and told us that we had to wait for another group that wasn’t there yet. We rebelled. We didn’t have much time left in our day, and we told Irina we were not going to wait for the other group and we were using the ticket to go inside. She went and got the red headed lady that had done such a poor job the day before, and was the one who bought a ticket for 52 people and told her she was going to follow us to the gate, the 16 of us were going to go through using the ticket, and then Irina was going to pass her the ticket and let her wait for the other group. That was fine with all of us and we went inside.

As we entered the building, we had to put shoe covers on our shoes as they didn’t want the floors scuffed, but they are worried that the dust from the covers may damage the exhibits. Right now the shoe covers win out.

Someone in our group had a very creative way of using his shoe covers and they ended up on his head. Since I don't have his permission to embarrass him here, you'll have to use your imagination!

The Palace was exceptionally beautiful. Everything was very ornate inside and out. We were taken through several of the rooms in the Palace and into the Amber Room. We were allowed to take photographs everywhere inside the Palace except for the Amber Room.

Seeing this doll really moved me, as it belonged to one of the Romanov children.

We headed back to the ship and were back on board about 4:45. We went back to our cabin and cleaned up and went for a drink about 5:30. We met another couple at the Martini Bar and chatted until about 6:00.

We went to dinner about 6:15 and sat in our same seats. We sat next to the same couple again and had another really nice dinner.

We got back to the room about 8:30 and we were in for the night. We were really exhausted after 3 wonderful, but very busy days.

And... for those of you that were following the original thread, I finally caught back up!!

Thank you Easyboy! Glad you're enjoying it!!

Monday, May 29 St. Petersburg

Today was beautiful and sunny.

We got up at 7:00, ate a quick breakfast and were at the Martini Bar at 8:00am. We walked off the gangway together and went pretty quickly through Immigration and we were waiting for our bus at 8:15.

Irina told us we wouldn’t leave until 8:45, so we stood and waited for 30 minutes. They came right on time at 8:45 and off we went for our canal ride at 9:30.

The boat ride took us up and down the river and into some smaller canals. Irina and another guide pointed out buildings of interest on each side of the river. The ride last an hour and we were back on land by 10:30.

Peter and Paul Fortress from the water

We reboarded our van and headed to Peter and Paul Fortress. We first went into the church where all of the Tsars and Empresses are buried. It was a very pretty church and was quite crowded. There were many places on the floor that were taken up by crypts, making it difficult to move.

There was a small room at the back where Tsar Nicholas II and his family’s remains have been interred.

We left the Fortress and headed to the Hermitage. We spent about an hour and a half walking through some of the Great Masters exhibits. We saw some DaVinci’s and Raphael’s. We also got to see the Faberge eggs. We didn’t have time for a whole lot else. The crowds were really bad and Monday’s are reserved only for groups.

Entry Hall at the Hermitage.

This is a 19th century gold peacock and rooster that was a clock with moving parts.

It was so hard to choose which pictures to post here. There were so many beautiful rooms and pieces of art. The only thing we saw that we weren't allowed to take pictures of were the Faberge Eggs, which were extremely difficult to get near.

Lena then took us to the subway station and we boarded a train and went down past several stops. Once we got off, we looked around the station then got back on the train. We then got off for a few minutes at 4 stations to see the subway art as each one was different.

There were not many references to Lenin around Moscow and there were none of Stalin.

Each station stop was different and more beautiful than the last.

Our last stop was at the train station, and we had a few minutes to grab

something to eat to take on the train. I got us 2 stollie pies and a merinque.

Lena took us to our train platform and helped us to all get aboard. The train attendants put in our passport numbers on the platform this time, so we were finished with them.

The train left promptly at 7:40pm. We ate our dinner, John had a couple of beers and we dozed on the way back. The train arrived at 11:30 and we were met by the same red headed girl that led us to the train this morning. We walked quite a way to our bus, so far that someone muttered under their breath that we could have walked to the port.

We did get to see some of St. Petersburg by night, which was also very beautiful.

We boarded our bus and drove first to the Eclipse to drop off 4 passengers and then back to the Silhouette. After going back through Immigration, and boarding our ship, we got back to our cabin about 12:45. After showers and getting ready for bed, we had our lights out about 1:30.

Hi Everyone!

I've been out of town and just returned, so I'll start working on this review again. Hopefully I'll have it finished in a few days. Thanks for following along!

We walked down to the Tsar’s cannon and the Tsar’s bell and walked through some of the gardens.

Tsar's Cannon

Tsar's Bell with DH and Myself.

Kremlin Gardens

We went to a Ukranian restaurant for lunch. We had chicken noodle soup, some beef dumplings with sour cream and a scoop of raspberry ice cream.

We left there and walked into Red Square, after we had gone through security again. We were given a bunch of information about the area and were given about 15 minutes to wonder around and take pictures.

We all wanted to take pictures in front of St. Basel’s Cathedral so that was how we spent most of our time. I didn’t wander too far away from that area and was really sorry that I didn’t as there were other things to see in Red Square.

St. Basels

I saw Lenin’s tomb on the way out and was able to take a picture of it, but wasn’t able to get up really close.

Lenin's Tomb

The tomb is only open from 10:00-1:00 so we could not have gone in even if we'd had the time.

Red Square was quite large and there were probably other areas that I didn’t get to see. Lena pointed out buildings around Red Square and we soon left the area.

We walked a couple of blocks and into GUMS Department store. The ceiling looked much like the ceiling is the shopping mall in Milan. It was quite beautiful. We all stopped at an ice cream kiosk and had an ice cream.

Did you start another post, if so can you share the link

 

Sent from my STV100-2 using Tapatalk

I did start another post.

The link is:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2520932

I've been out of town so I haven't caught back up yet, but I'm going to start working on it again.

Thanks for asking!

Kim

I have been working for almost two weeks on a trip review using Photobucket as my 3rd party site. I didn't even have my review finished and had to start all over again. I am now using Shutterfly. It's actually much easier and faster than Photobucket and you don't have the constant pop up ads either. Go to your photos. Click on a photo to get it as a full page, right click and choose copy link location. Go back to your CC post, click the little yellow mountain button. Paste your picture and click OK. Voila!!

Sunday, May 28 Moscow

We met as a group at 5:20 at the Martini Bar and went through Immigration together. It went much faster and took us about 15 minutes. There weren’t a lot of people up that early. We were out at the port gate by 5:45.

As we were leaving the ship, I was in front of DH and began walking to the port gate with another Mom. I realized there was a bunch of commotion behind me, so I turned to see what was going on. I saw several of the ship’s workers going to help someone on the gangway. I heard someone say, someone fell. Then I watched them help DH up. I went running to see what was going on. DH had hit his head on the low door frame at the doorway of the ship and had hit it so hard, that it knocked him down. His cabin card fell into the Baltic. Amazingly, they had another key card for him in under a minute!

The staff wanted him to go to the Medical office, but he said he couldn’t or he’d miss Moscow. He was a bit dazed for a minute but we walked on. Once we got to the train, I gave him some advil and other than complaining that his neck hurt, he was OK. He had a red splotch on his forehead, where he hit the door frame, but within an hour, that was gone. He was really lucky.

We were supposed to be picked up in the parking lot outside of Immigration 6:00. At 6:30, someone called Alla and we were told they were on their way.

We were picked up a few minutes later and were taken to the train station where the woman in charge was running through the train station to get us to our track. Someone finally yelled for her to slow down and she slowed to a fast walk. We arrived at our track about 6:55. The train was leaving at 7:00. We were all allowed to board the train after several of us began to rebel, when the young guide with us thought she was going to call everyone’s name and have them board the train as she called them. Someone came around and checked our passports instead of using tickets after the train had gotten on its way.

The train left on time at 7:00 and arrived in Moscow at 10:45. We dozed a bit, had a snack on the train, read and watched the landscape go by. Most of what we passed was forest with an occasional small village.

We were met by our guide Lena, as we got off the train. We boarded our 16 person van and began our day in Moscow. There were people and cars everywhere. We spent about 20 minutes in traffic and hardly moved, so Lena suggested we get off the van and take the subway to the Kremlin. She said our armory museum tickets were times and we were going to be late. We all agreed although that meant that we wouldn’t get a driving tour of the city. We thought that was OK as we’d get to spend more time at the Kremlin.

We took the subway to the Kremlin stop. We went through security which took some time, as the crowds were huge.

State Historical Museum

We walked into the Kremlin grounds through the Nikolskaya Tower

The armory is not a military museum, but rather where clothing of the Tsars and Empresses are housed, where past crowns are exhibited, there’s a collection of carriages and a large room of gifts that had been given to Russia from other countries.

Pictures weren't allowed, but I just couldn't resist this! Don't judge.:)

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier along the Kremlin Wall

When we left the Armory, we went into the Cathedral Square and went into the Church of Dormition. It was a beautiful church.

There were several churches in the Kremlin and we went into two of them.

Annunciation Cathedral

We then headed to the Church of Spilled Blood. We all filed out of the van and waited for Irina to go get our tickets. She came back to say that the church was closed for a service but would reopen in 15 minutes. She asked if we wanted to stay and wait and come back on Wednesday. It was late and we were all tired, so we decided to come back.

We were then driven to a very large gift shop and were met by a few people at the door offering us each a shot of vodka. At the back of the shop was Alla’s counter where we all got in line to pay for our Alla tours.

Once we had all taken care of our payment, we left to head back to the ship. We had to stop at Immigration to turn our Immigration slip back in. When you go through Immigration, they put a white slip of paper inside your passport. They take this paper back from you when you go back through Immigration in the evening, so be sure you keep it. They don't give you that slip of paper on the subsequent days.

We boarded the ship about 6:45.

We had dinner in the dining room and complimented the waiter on the pacing of the meal.

We were to bed very early as we had to get up really early tomorrow.

A couple of other interesting pictures...

Subway and Coke are everywhere!!

After lunch our van picked us back up and we were taken to Peterhoff Palace where we walked along the beautiful gardens behind the Palace. There are 148 fountains in the gardens. We were there about an hour and a half. Irina gave us a lot of information and history about the Tsar’s and how they lived.

This area was jaw- droppingly beautiful.

Irina then took us to a small souvenir shop and gave us a few minutes to shop.

We were dropped off at the subway station and got to ride to two stops to see the gorgeous subway sculptures, chandeliers and wall art.

I've never seen subways like this anywhere!

We then walked to a place called the Summer Palace for lunch. This was an event hall used for various large events. There were many tables set up here and they served lunch continuously. We had brown bread and butter, borcht with sour cream, chicken with veggies and some kind of cake for dessert.

Irina led us on a tour of Yusapov Palace and we eventually made our way down to the basement and saw where Rasputin was killed. We spent about an hour on our tour there.

The Palace was absolutely gorgeous, but then this was our first stop and we didn't know any different!

In the basement is a re-creation of the room where Rasputin was poisoned, then shot. It was a bit creepy. Rasputin on the right.

When we left Yusapov Palace we boarded our bus and headed to St. Isaacs Church. This was a beautiful church.

We spent about 30 minutes here and then we headed to our next stop.

Saturday, May 27 St. Petersburg

Now for what I considered the "Crown Jewel"of our trip!

We got up at 5:50 this morning and were at the Martini Bar at 6:30. We had bought some cherries and blueberries yesterday in Helsinki and we had gotten some yogurt and granola from the buffet the day before. We went out to the Hideaway and got some coffee and tea so we were all set for breakfast.

As soon as all 16 of us were together, we went down to deck 4 and got in line. We were about the 8th people in line. The ship was supposed to arrive in Russia at 7:00 but we weren’t cleared to leave the ship until about 7:45. We quickly got off the ship and got into the Immigration line. There were 100’s of people already lined up when we got in line. They were people taking the ship’s tours and they were allowed off the ship first.

Somehow our group was asked to go upstairs where there were additional Immigration lines and someone else pointed us into a line that was moving pretty quickly. Immigration moved about one person a minute. There were many lines but they still moved very slowly. We were all through Immigration by 8:45, and all went together to find our Alla tour.

We found out later that there were so many people in line, that Celebrity stopped allowing people to leave the ship from 8:15-8:45 to let the crowd die down some. Several other people in other groups, told their groups to meet later than ours and they were much more delayed.

We found the Alla tour sign and since we were all there and together, our guide took us to our van and off we went. We were on our way by 9:00am.

Our guide in St. Petersburg was Irina. She was excellent! She explained how much the guides there have to learn in order to be guides. They must be certified for each place that they enter to conduct tours and they have to study for a year and take a test.

Irina pointed out buildings and landmarks as we made our way to Yusapov Palace.

Here are some pictures of some of the sights.

Church of the Assumption

Senate Building

Egyptian Sphinx

Rostral Column

Buildings along the Neva River

St. Nicholas Monument

We were able to get off the bus to get up close to this beautiful monument and walk around for a bit. We had to be really careful as there were buses and people everywhere.

We went back down to City Hall and turned right onto the Esplanade. It is meant to represent the Champ Elysees in Paris. It was a beautiful wide street with a large grassy strip in the center of the road that had a gorgeous fence and some benches and tables. There were higher end stores all the way down the street on both sides.

When we finished we took a taxi back to the ship. We shopped a bit along the pier and then reboarded the ship.

We cleaned up for dinner and met everyone at Qsine at 6:30. There were 8 of us and we ordered 9 different items. We were unable to eat the last two and had to cancel them. We did all try dessert and we were all so full we could pop.

The food was all very good and interestingly displayed. There was one surprise after another. You have to go to this restaurant with a lot of people so you can try many different things so having this large of a group was a lot of fun.

Dinner took up most of our evening and we left the restaurant after 9:00. Back to the cabin and then to bed.

Here are some pictures of the food at Qsine.

We left the church and reboarded the bus. We were then taken to Senate Square and shown the Helsinki Cathedral from the outside. It's quite an imposing building at the top of many stairs. Entry is over on the side.

Senate Square

Helsinki Cathedral

We were then taken to City Hall and stopped to use the bathroom there. They are free and open to the public. We were given a time to meet back or if you wanted, you could make your own way back to the ship.

We left the tour and walked over to the Open Air Market, where we found a booth and got some lunch. DH and I shared a 3 meat plate that had moose meatballs, salmon and fried smelts. It also had some potato balls and mixed veggies with lignonberry jam on the side.

We went to another booth and ordered piggies, which were fried oblong donuts with apple filling and a rhubarb, whipped cream, dough and meringue layer cake. Watch out for the gulls! We watched them take food off an unsuspecting person's plate!!

We walked through the Marketplace and did some shopping and made our way over to the Uspenskin Greek Orthodox Church. It is up on a hill, so we climbed up and went inside. It is a small church but very pretty.

We climbed back down the hill and crossed over the Marketplace and back through City Hall. City Hall has free wifi and chairs and tables to sit for a while so we stopped for a bit and used the wifi and called home.

We walked back to Senate Square and up the stairs to the Lutheran Church. We were unable to go in as the University of Helsinki was having their Graduation Ceremony for one of their schools. We did get to watch the graduates in their caps and gown. Some of them were in top hats which were those receiving Doctorates. Some had on laurel crowns representing those receiving Masters Degrees. Most were in white gowns, but a few of the men were in bright blue clothing.

Friday, May 26 Helsinki

It was sunny today and a high of 65.

We set our alarm for 7:00, but hadn’t considered the time change didn’t occur on the ipad since it hasn’t been anywhere to sync the time and we woke up 45 minutes late and were rushing around like mad to leave on time. We actually were only about 5 minutes late in going to breakfast and were on time to meet our group at 8:40 at the Martini Bar and we all walked off the ship together. We met our Alla guide promptly at 9:00. We took the 3 ½ hour Helsinki Highlights tour that included Sibelius Monument and Rock Church.

We went first to the Sibelius Monument and were given a bit of background and then were given about 20 minutes to walk around and take pictures. It was a very interesting metal monument made up of different sizes of tubes.

Thought this was a cool picture looking up!

We left the monument and re-boarded our bus. The next place we were taken to was Rock Church. It was a very beautiful church made totally of rock. It was basically a round church and people walked in on one side, walked across the front and left on the opposite side. Once back out in the lobby, you could go upstairs to see the church from another perspective.

It doesn't look like much from the outside....

but pretty inside!

These directions were in the Ladies Restroom.

Thursday, May 25 At Sea

We slept until 9:00 this morning. It was very nice not to have to be up and be somewhere. When we got up we went to the buffet for breakfast. It was quite crowded, so many other people had the same idea today.

We went back to our cabin and enjoyed our balcony until about 1:00. I left for a watercolor class at 1:00 where I painted a sunset. I went back to the room about 2:20 and DH and I went up to the buffet for a light lunch.

After lunch, we went to the Hideaway which was outside our door and sat and read until 4:00.

If you've not been on the Silhouette before, deck 7 has an area midship called the Hideaway. This is a nice quiet area with lots of seating and nooks for reading, but the really nice thing about it is that they have a 24 hour coffee and tea service there. It makes it very easy to get a cup and not have to go all the way up to the Oceanview Cafe or down to Cafe Bacio. Since we were on deck 7, we used it a lot!

We went back to the cabin and showered and got dressed for dinner. Tonight was the second dressy night. We met our group for drinks at 5:00 at the Martini Bar.

We went to dinner in the dining room and met up with some new friends and had a lovely dinner.

We commented to the waiter that we’d like our meal to go more quickly and we were finished with dinner before 8:00.

We went to the show at 9:00. It was a comedy/juggler named Pete Matthews. He was very funny and DH thinks we saw him on another cruise.

We came back to the room after the show and got ready for bed. it was a nice day where we really did nothing, and we needed it. Our next 5 days were going to be very busy indeed!

I wanted to add a couple of other interesting pictures. At least I thought so!

A plaque at the spot Reagan gave his, "tear down the wall" speech.

The bear is Berlin's mascot. All of the Embassies were given a bear to design as they wished. This is the US Embassy's bear.

We got back into the van and were driven through areas of the old East Berlin. We rode by what was left of Checkpoint Charlie and into some of the smaller streets. Checkpoint Charlie was razed and this building was a rebuild.

Bernie then dropped Jeremy off and then we began our drive back to the ship. We left Berlin at 3:50 and as the next several days were going to be a holiday, traffic to get out of the city was really bad. It took quite a while to make our way to the autoban and when we got about 30 miles away from the port, we were stopped by bridgework going on and the road went down to one lane. It took us almost an hour to make our way to the bridgework and we arrived back to the ship at 7:15, which was in plenty of time, but the ride back was 3 ½ hours. We didn’t know it until later, but there was other work going on and over 1000 people were still not back to the ship at 8:30, many of them were people on Celebrity tours. The ship did wait and we left port about 30 minutes late, at 9:30.

We boarded the ship and went to our room where we cleaned up and headed to dinner at Murano. We had been offered dinner there for $30 per person, so we took up the offer. The food was delicious and the service was wonderful. DH had the goat cheese soufflé and a spinach salad and I had a salmon, crab parfait and a mozzarella and tomato salad. We shared chateaubriand for dinner and DH had cocoa cake and I had grand marnier soufflé for dessert.

We have decided that to have the kind of cruise experience that we had 25 years ago when we began cruising, we will have to pay extra for it. Sometimes it’s worth it and sometimes it’s not.

After dinner we sat outside of the restaurant in one of the lounges and listened to a violin duo that were very good.

Off to bed around 10:30 and set the clocks ahead 1 hour before we went to sleep.

We saw several other sites in the area. Jeremy took us to the train station and we went upstairs to see the ceiling and the tracks. We bought sandwiches at the train station for lunch and then we walked a bit to a memorial park for those that died trying to cross the Berlin Wall. As you walked into the memorial, you began to go downhill a bit and there was a wall on either side of you that got higher and higher. It was built so that the top of the walls were always out of reach. It was very quiet at the bottom of the memorial and was quite moving. There were benches at the bottom and it was out of the wind, so we sat and ate our lunch while Jeremy gave us more information.

Memorial Park to those that died trying to get across the wall.

Memorial to the first 6 who died trying to go over the wall.

Soon after lunch we walked to the area where Hitler’s Bunker was and is now a parking lot. The bunker had been filled in with concrete, but there was a map of the bunker on the edge of the parking lot. We also were shown where his body had been burned.

The lightened stone was the entry to Hitler's Bunker

We were taken to the Holocaust Memorial and given some time to walk through it. We then met back up and discussed how we felt about it and why it was designed in the way it was. I had thought I would be much more moved, walking through the memorial, but didn’t have that reaction. There were many other people there, some not being respectful.

We walked through a very pretty park and over to the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. There was going to a large gathering throughout Berlin the next day to celebrate the 500th birthday of Martin Luther, and President Obama was going to be speaking by the Brandenburg Gate so Security had already roped off the area and we couldn't get up close to it.

Reichstag

We got back in the van and were taken to the area where the largest piece of the Berlin Wall still exists.

We got out of the van and got to walk up to the wall and go into the Topography of Terror Museum which went through Hitler’s rise to power and the atrocities of WWII.

Wednesday, May 24 Berlin

Chance of rain and high of 62.

We got up at 6:00 this morning and had room service for breakfast. We requested a 6:00-6:30 delivery time and breakfast arrived about 6:15. They called to let us know they were on their way and someone knocked on the door about 30 seconds later. Breakfast wasn’t bad. We both had omelets, bacon, yogurt, toast and coffee and tea.

We met the other two couples in our group at the Martini Bar at 7:00am. The ship was early getting into port and was already cleared by the time we all met up.

We left the ship together and our driver Bernie, was waiting for us with a sign as soon as we went through the port gates. We quickly boarded the van and off we went. Bernie talked to us in his halting English all the way to Berlin. He had interesting stories to tell as he grew up in Eastern Berlin and was in the Russian military. He became a water border patrol guard and when the wall came down his life changed for the worse. He lost his job and couldn’t find another because he was deemed a Communist. He proudly admitted this, and he doesn’t have much good to say about a Capitalistic Society. He told us the two things he was taught not to talk about behind the wall was politics and the wall. We found him very interesting.

The drive was white knuckle for me, as I sat in the front with him and he averaged 110 miles an hour. There wasn’t much traffic and we arrived in Berlin in 2 hours 10 minutes. Our guide Jeremy, was waiting for us at the spot arranged with Bernie. We got out and stretched our legs for a minute and then our tour began.

We spent the next 6 ½ hours walking and driving. Jeremy talked for the entire time. He was wonderful! He gave us history mixed with interesting stories to tell and humanized our experience there.

He explained the culture during WWII and the culture of Berlin now. The people there are still trying to make up to the world for what happened. He told us there is no national pride except when it comes to sporting events.

We started our tour at Olympic Stadium, where we got out of the van and went up into the Bell Tower.

Notice the clock on the left tower. The right tower had a swastika, but it has been removed. They are not allowed anywhere in Berlin.

We saw the area where Hitler held ceremonies of allegiance in the building beside the Bell Tower. We also saw the military parade grounds that the Bell Tower overlooks.

We then got back in the van and drove toward the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Jeremy pointed out buildings and areas of interest along the way. We visited this church which is undergoing some restoration inside.

We then stepped outside and into the beautiful Church of Reunification. The beautiful blue stained glass had been taken from other churches that had been destroyed in the war and placed all together on the walls of this church. There has been intentionally no pattern used with the glass.

As we came out of this church, Jeremy pointed to the area where the terrorist attack occurred in December 2016. There were many flowers and candles on this spot and there were people there paying their respects.

We got back in the van and were dropped off in a bit for a walking tour. Jeremy showed us the Parliament buildings that are two buildings with a bridge between. One building in the old West Berlin, the other building in the old East Berlin.

Tuesday, May 23 Copenhagen

Today is was sunny with a high of 65.

We were up at 7:00, cleaned up and went up to breakfast. We left the ship at 8:45 and we walked the 1/4 mile down to the bus stop. We rode the city bus to Kronen Nyhavn, then walked several blocks to the meeting place for our walking tour with Fairy Tale Tours. The meeting place was a co-op coffee shop that was manned by students. It was actually right next door to Rundetaarn and we didn't realize this was a well known site until we got back home! We took a 3 hour walking tour with Burak that began at 10:00. He was from Turkey, grew up in Germany and was living in Copenhagen. He was very friendly and knowledgeable about the area and was able to answer our questions. He took us all around the downtown area of Copenhagen. We noticed that at one point we were very near the ship, yet we had taken a bus to get to our starting point. Burak asked us at the beginning of the tour, if there was anything we really wanted to see and we mentioned the Little Mermaid and Nyhavn, so we worked our way to both. We were given quite a bit of history of the city and shown a lot of the older areas. We walked through Rosenborg Gardens, but didn’t have time to go inside.

Little Mermaid--she's surprisingly small!

Nyhavn

Gefion Fountain and St. Albans Church

The tour was over at 1:00 and we asked Burak to show us where to go to get Smorrebrod for lunch. He gave us directions to Torvehallerne Street Market that was glass enclosed. There were two separate buildings. One was mostly for drinks and gift items and the other was more for food. There were separate booths set up inside each and you could shop the aisles. We found a smorrebrod counter and got in line. We had plaice with potato salad, Danish meatball and a shrimp one.

In the other building, I had come across a gourmet chocolate booth and went back to buy some chocolates to take home.

We got back to the ship about 4:15, just in time for our 5:00 departure.

We had reservations for dinner at 6:45 and we sat with 8 people. Dinner was very slow and we didn’t get up until 9:20, making it too late to do anything else this evening. I complained to the maître’d about the service and he said to let the waiter know we wanted to have our courses served more closely together.

Two couples had signed up for our private tour tomorrow with Jeremy, The Berlin Expert. They had heard some talk that there was a large celebration occurring in Berlin tomorrow and some people had cancelled their trip to Berlin because of it. They wanted to know if we had heard anything about it and if we were worried. After we talked for a bit, we all decided to trust our guide and decided to go.

We got back to the room, showered, got ready for bed and put out our room service order on our outer door knob.

We were asleep tonight at 10:00.

We arrived back at the ship about 6:00, stopped in the room and then left the ship again. We had to walk down the Langelinie pier from the ship about ¼ mile to reach the bus stop that would take us to Tivoli Gardens. We were picked up, but the driver wasn’t going in the direction we wanted. He told us to get on, because it would be him that would come back and pick us up in about 15 minutes. We didn’t realize our stop was almost at the end of the line. Our driver went to one more stop and then got out of the bus to take a break for a few minutes. When he got back on and started the route again, the second stop was at the place he picked us up. We asked him to let us know when we needed to get off for Tivoli Gardens and he happily agreed, but there was another couple that got on the tram that were getting off there as well and they knew where it was. We got off the tram, crossed the street and we were at the Tivoli entrance.

It cost about $32 for both of us as entry into the park. That was quite pricey, but I really wanted to have a chance to see the grounds.

We ate dinner at a Danish restaurant in the park call Groften. We were able to get a table that evening without a reservation with no problem. I ordered a herring platter as a starter. It was wonderful with 3 different types of herring and a couple of sauces and a bit of salad in the middle. It was so large that some soup or a small salad would have been enough for dinner, but… I didn’t know!

If you like herring... this was fantastic!!

DH ordered lobscouse for dinner which is a traditional Danish dish that is made with mashed potatoes with vegetables and meat mixed in. It was a very hearty dish and although it was all you can eat, one serving was enough. I ordered weinerschnitzel that came with mashed potatoes. It was way too much food to eat and I had to leave about ½ on my plate. DH had a large and then a small beer which he deemed excellent! The meal was quite expensive at about $135.

When we left the restaurant we wanted to walk around the grounds. There were not a lot of people around in many of the areas but there were some people around the rides and they were still running. As it began to become twilight, the lights on the buildings began to show up. It was quite beautiful! All of the buildings are lined with different colored lights.

Notice how light the sky still is at 10:00pm!

We walked around Tivoli until about 10:00pm and decided to take a taxi back to the pier. I made a mistake and had him drop us off by the bus stop instead of taking down to the ship gangway, so we had to walk the ¼ back to the ship.

We left there and drove to Fredensborg Castle, which is the summer home of the Royal family. We were able to get pretty close to the entrance of the Castle and there was a guard at a gate right by us. He walked back and forth across the front of the gate. 13 steps, click his heels, turn, 13 steps, click his heels, turn….

He carried a very large automatic machine gun. There were several other guards back by the entrance of the building and we were told the Royal family was likely there, to have as many guards present.

We spent about 15 minutes walking up to the castle gate, watching for a bit and then walking back to the bus.

We were then taken to an area about a mile away from Kronborg Castle. This is the Castle that Shakespeare took inspiration from when writing Hamlet. We were not going to visit this castle and were told where we were, was the best place to view from a distance. It was easy to see it even though it was so far away, as it was a huge castle.

We were then driven back to the ship. The tour was fine and we were happy, but I think I should have tried harder to find a private tour in hindsight. There were about 45 on our tour and we were on a large tour bus. It takes time to board and get off the bus and it takes a while to gather everyone from place to place. It was also not always easy to hear what the guide was saying, and with that many people, you couldn't always be the one at the front, standing by the guide.