Month: July 2017

Had a great time in St. Petersburg.  On Saturday, we took an afternoon canal/river cruise and the views were amazing.

 

On Sunday, we went to the Hermitage and it was wonderful as well.  We were admitted an hour before it was open to the general public and it was not crowded at all.  It helped that there were not many cruise ships in port on Sunday.  After the museum, we had three hours on our own and we had lunch on Nevskiy Prospect. Then we went to the Church of the Spilled Blood and the mosaics were amazing.

We had a beautiful sunset on our way to Helsinki.

More about Helsinki tomorrow.

Docked in Tallin this morning and we booked a coastal drive and lighthouse tour.  We wanted to get out in the country side and see some of the rest of the country.  We were not disappointed.  The first photo is of Old Town Tallin from our balcony.

We then drove to see the Suurupi Front lighthouse.  This is part of a two part lighthouse so the ships can line up going into a harbor.

The highlight was the Pakri Lighthouse.  I climbed to the top (275 steps!!) and the views we great.  There were wildflowers near the lighthouse which were beautiful.  We also saw a stork in its nest (no picture).

Sailing this evening to St. Petersburg.

After a relaxing day at sea, we had a beautiful sunset.

The sail into and out of Stockholm was stunning.  The little islands with their painted houses were amazing.

We had a great day in Stockholm.  We went to the Vasa Museum where they have preserved the ship Vasa that sank within 20 minutes after it was launched.  The ship is massive and the carvings that have been preserved are amazing.

Went to central Stockholm and to the Royal Palace and the old town.

We are off to Tallin, Estonia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had a relaxing day at sea yesterday concluding with a wonderful meal at the Specialty Italian Restaurant on board.

Woke up to a glorious morning in Copenhagen.  It was a bit cool, but the sun was out.  We booked a hop on/hop off bus that also included a canal/harbor cruise.

We had coffee on the main shopping area and also we both had a Danish salad with gravad halibut.  It was wonderful, and I am sure the nice glass of French white wine didn’t hurt.

Here are the pictures. The ship internet is slow so I am just putting them up as a group.

Tomorrow is a day at sea on our way to Stockholm.

Woke up this morning as we docked at Zeebrugge, the port for Brugge.  We had a Belgian welcoming party on our balcony.

We took a walking tour around Brugge, which is a wonderful medieval city.  The building survived both World Wars essentially undamaged.

Here we are in front of one of the many canals in Brugge.

There are lots of horse-drawn carriages taking tourists around the city.

We also saw a chocolate demonstration on making Belgian chocolates.

More Brugge pictures

Linda in Brugge

 

Took the train from London Paddington to Southampton.  The UK trains are wonderful, comfortable and on time.  Had fun talking to other passengers.

Checked in and walked around our ship, Crown Princess. We were on the old Crown many years ago.  This one is lots bigger.

Here is our embarkation photo.

Here is a view from our cabin while docked in Southampton, a selfie taken on our balcony, and a photo of the sunset tonight.

Will be in Belgium tomorrow!  There is chocolate in our future!

 

The flight from Boston to London was uneventful.  As we took off there was a beautiful sunset and we landed over Downtown London.

It took us an hour to get thru customs, a very long line.

We then took the train from Heathrow to Paddington Station

After that we walked to our hotel. Our room wasn’t ready so we walked to Kensington Gardens, stopped in a Pub on the way, and visited Kensington Palace and saw the room where Queen Victoria first met with her Privy Council.

The area where our hotel is located is really quaint, mostly homes.

We are off to the ship tomorrow. Until then.

 

 

Got up to make a morning flight from Milwaukee to Boston.  All went smoothly, especially because we allowed plenty of time to Check-In and get thru security.  Had a big breakfast at Nona Bartalotta’s on the concourse and then relaxed at the gate. We are now at the Delta Club at the Boston Airport waiting for our London flight that leaves in about 6 hours.

Us in MilwaukeeView from the Delta Club

 

We have been packing and getting ready.  We have been watching the extended weather to get an idea of what we will encounter.  Right now, London will be beautiful when we get there and it will be nice in Belgium as well.  It looks right now that for the rest of the cruise the max temperature will be in the  mid-70’s with Stockholm likely being the coolest at the upper 50’s.  We definitely threw in an extra sweater based on the forecasts.

Off to the airport tomorrow morning.  Our flight leaves Milwaukee at 9:10 AM and we have a relatively long layover in Boston before hoping on the flight to Heathrow.  We get to London in the morning on Friday  and plan on taking the train from the airport to Paddington Station.  Our hotel is near the station and we plan on doing a little touring on Friday.