Star Princess Baltic -Long

[Talisker92]

To avoid those long flights to Europe from the West Coast, we mad arrangements to overnight at Dulles Airport. Also, to eliminate doing two extra crossings, we took a riverboat cruise that ended up in Amsterdam.

 

COPENHAGEN

After an hour and a half flight from Amsterdam, we landed in Copenhagen and were taken to the ship. We had

booked a minisuite that was identical to the one we had on our Australia cruise.

Our next day was a sea day, so it gave us time to decompress from the flight and the river cruise, and take care of laundry. I had brought a sack of quarters with me, but they were not enough as we had 4 loads to do.

We were wondering if people thought we brought our dirty laundry with us!

 

STOCKHOLM

We Sailed into Stockholm passing numerous houses sprinkled on all the little islands, which were which were summer

houses. When you are this far North, you must make the most of every summer day.

When we got off the cruise ship, as we were touring the city, we were lucky enough to catch the parade for the changing of the guard at the royal palace!

Since Stockholm, like Venice, is situated on a number of islands, we felt the best way to sight see was on a tour boat. We passed by the beautiful Nordic Museum located on Djurgården in central Stockholm, displays the cultural history of Sweden from the 16th century until today. We also passed the Stockholm City Hall, which is where the Nobel Prizes are awarded.

We discovered that all of Stockholm is granite, so there are no sandy beaches. We saw

what the Swedes consider a beach! They were spread all over granite rocks like ants on an anthill! Kathy said she would never again complain about sand on the beach.

One funny thing that happened on our cruise was that we had to pass through the locks connecting the Baltic Sea and freshwater Lake Malaren. There is about a 3 foot difference between the lake and the Baltic, so they made a big deal of it. They were not aware that Kathy and I had to go through 69 locks between Budapest and Amsterdam, where the deepest lock was 86 feet.

As we left Stockholm, we passed by a very interesting fountain and a cute little steamboat that had trees on its bow that was actually blowing smoke rings out its stack.

 

HELSINKI

We boarded our private launch along with our guide for the approximately 90-minute scenic cruise. We sailed past the old Yacht Club, a city landmark, and the diplomatic district, located on a peninsula that juts into the bay.

We cruised past Suomenlinna Fortress, the "Gibraltar of the North" built by the Swedes to protect Helsinki from Russian attack.

After the cruise, we had some free time to explore the local open air market down by the pier. Unfortunately, there were a number of food stalls and tables, and the seagulls were thicker that pigeons in St. Mark’s square in Venice.

On our way back to the ship, we passed the huge Lutheran cathedral in Senate Square and the Uspenski Orthodox cathedral. The Cathedral is set upon a hillside on the Katajanokka peninsula overlooking the city.

 

ST.PETERSBURG

One of the real highlights of our cruise was the visit to the Hermitage, the Tsar's former Winter Palace and four other buildings which house one of the world's premier art collections. Our guided tour visited the display rooms, which contain over three million art works, including paintings by DaVinci, Rafael, Monet, Rembrandt, Renoir - to name a few. Designed by Rastrelli, the Baroque Winter Palace boasts patterned parquet floors,

ornate staircases, molded and decorated ceilings and gilded appointments. Unfortunately, the grand staircases were undergoing restoration, and we were crowded into a small space going up the stairs.

We were taken through room after room, but there were 5 cruise ships docked, and it appeared that all the passengers were in the Hermitage with us! The tour groups were so tightly packed that they were actually overrunning each other.

Two of the most spectacular views were of the throne room and a long hall that rivaled one in the Vatican.

We passed works of a number of great masters, but it was difficult to get close to them. Many people had these tiny cameras with only a viewing screen, and it took them forever to get the picture framed properly. Kathy was annoyed by this, as she rightly felt she had as much right to have a turn at viewing a painting as someone else waving a camera around. At least in the pre digital days, people had the camera up to their eye instead of waving it in other people’s faces.

I took a photo of 2 paintings that struck me, and yes, I use a viewfinder on my camera. One was a Rembrandt depicting the return of the Prodigal Son and the other a Monet titled Woman in the Garden at Sainte-Adresse

On our way back from the Hermitage, we went by the statue of Peter the Great and then stopped at St. Isaac’s cathedral. The cathedral's massive central gold dome - one of the largest in the world - dominates the city skyline.

We also stopped at the cruiser Aurora - Now a museum on the west bank of the Neva, the armored cruiser Aurora fired her guns to signal the beginning of the Bolshevik Revolution.

We also stopped at the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood - This recently restored church sports a fantastic and ornate "Russian-style" exterior and is built on the site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.

 

TALLINN

Old Tallinn is closed to motor coaches, so we drove around the Old City's medieval walls, gates and watchtowers. We walked around the city walls and then walked up the road to visit the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. It was a typical Orthodox cathedral, with beautiful icons behind the altar.

That afternoon, I went to a wine tasting on the ship. One of the reasons was they were offering a taste of some very expensive Cabernet Sauvignons among others. We were first served champagne from Veuve Cliquot that a number of us agreed was lousy, and it was $79 a bottle! We then tasted 2 Chardonnay wines, one from Napa Valley and the other from a prestigious vineyard in Burgundy.

The Napa wine was clearly better, and was also $21 a bottle less expensive. Then we tasted the “big guns”; a Silverado Cabernet and the Opus I from the Mondavi-Rothschild vineyard. They were both nice wines, but the Silverado was a third the price of the Opus I. We were then told there was a “fire sale” on the Opus I, and we could have it for a mere $129 a bottle instead of the usual $169. What a deal!! NOT!!!

 

On the way to Gdansk, we stopped at Sopot, the summer capital of Poland this seaside resort featuring miles of beaches and the longest promenade pier on the Baltic. There was an interesting lighthouse on the beach there. After Sopot, we passed by Oliwa and its 13th-century cathedral.

Our guide led us a short walk to the Main Town's Green Gate. From the Gate, he pointed out sights of interest including the Long Wharf with its crane, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque buildings, and the Long Market.

The oldest documented mention of the wooden port crane on the right was in 1367. What we saw, however, was reconstructed in the middle of the 15th century after a devastating fire devoured the original structure. The large crane was used to place masts on ships and to load cargo.

The buildings were very reminiscent of Amsterdam, and we wandered through the Long Market “window shopping”. On the way back to the ship we you passed Gdansk Shipyards and Solidarity Square with its monument to the striking workers slain by the regime in 1970

We had a little excitement as we left port, and the passage we had to go through was 150 feet wide and the ship was 110 feet wide. The problem was that there was that the wind was blowing against the side of the ship pushing it sideways. The captain solved the problem the same way airplane pilots do. He headed for the upwind side and let the wind push the ship through the center of the channel

 

OSLO

We sailed up the Oslo fiord and docked at the edge of town. From our ship we could see the ski jump in the distance and also the small castle of King Oskar I.

Our first stop was at the Holmenkollen ski jump. Perched high above Oslo, Holmenkollen is the cradle of ski jumping and the site of the 1952 Olympic ski jumping competition. It is in the process of being rebuilt for future Nordic ski championships.

At the base of the ski jump, an enterprising person had installed a simulator similar to the ones used to train airline pilots. It had 2 axes of motion-roll and up and down. It simulated a ski jump off the hill, plus an Olympic downhill ski run. Watching from the outside, I could see how the people inside were getting bounced around!

Our next stop was at Vigeland Sculpture Park, Once considered controversial; the park is now one of Oslo's favorite attractions. Our guided walk visited the stone, iron and bronze sculptures of Gustav Vigeland. The sculptures depict a complete human life from birth to death. Fortunately, we started at the highest point, so it was easy to walk down as opposed to climbing all the stairs.

There was a funny quote in a travel magazine about the pace of some tours.”Plainly we cannot keep up with joggers or speed walkers. The guide holding the umbrella with the duck’s head for a handle quickly disappears in the crowd when walking at a pace that must have been set by a marathon planner”.

The most striking sculpture is the Monolith which towers 46 high and is composed of 121 human figures rising towards the sky. This is meant to represent man’s desire to become closer with the spiritual and divine. It portrays a feeling of togetherness as the human figures embrace one another as they are carried toward salvation.

The Monolith Plateau is a platform made of stairs that houses the Monolith totem itself. 36 figure groups reside on the elevation bringing with them the “circle of life” message.

As we left Oslo, we cruised down the fiord past the Oscarsborg Fortress. This gun battery was responsible for sinking the German cruiser Blucher. The ironic part of the story was that the guns were made by Krupp, a German company. The rest of the flotilla, seeing the explosions, mistakenly believed that the Blücher had hit mines. As a result, the flotilla reversed out of the narrows, thus ensuring that Oslo would not be invaded at

dawn as intended. This delayed the invasion long enough to allow the Royal Family to escape. They also took all of the Norwegian gold with them to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Germans.

 

THE SHIP

As far as we were concerned, the accommodations and the food on the ship were very good. There have been enough comments about the ship posted already. The pictures we took are posted on our website

http://home.mindspring.com/~highlandpark/

[Wormy53]

Thank you, Thank you!!! This is one of my favorite trips, and I enjoyed it once again! Your river cruise sounds interesting too. We wanted to do the Princess cruisetour that went to Prague, Vienna, & Budapest, but just didn't have the time. Your way sounds even better - what a good idea! I always wished I had more time at the Hermitage - but would like to experience it when it was a little less crowded. Our tour director told us to come back in October - but that it would be raining continuously!

[travellover3]

Thanks for the good information. Headed out on the Star next Tues....sure I'll enjoy!

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for the review.

[candydane]

To avoid those long flights to Europe from the West Coast, we mad arrangements to overnight at Dulles Airport.

I've thought of doing that but not sure how much hassle it'd be to leave the airport, check in the hotel, then go back to the airport and "continue on" the next day.

 

I'm debating if it'd be mentally more challenging than just hanging in there for the long flight. Sometimes I can "zone out" and just keep going. Afraid the break would make it 2 long days instead of 1 REALLY long day.

 

I'm also considering paying a little more for the "polar" non-stop route so it's one long 12-hourish flight and a small one. That way no plane change on the East coast which reduces hassle.

[cdngrl]

thank you for your review. i'll be there next year and i appreciate you taking the time to give me a taste of what i'll see.

[azbirdmom]

We did this cruise in May. We especially loved wandering Tallinn and Oslo on our own. Thanks for sharing.