Around the World: May 2011

Helsinki, Finland

The very next day we got another taste of Scandinavia by stopping in Helsinki, Finland. Right outside the ship was a souvenir shop. It was pretty interesting and many of the souvenirs felt very Canadian in style. We didn’t hang around too long and took one of the shuttle buses into the centre of the city.

Unfortunately one of the major landmarks was closed due to renovations so we had decided to just explore the city on our own. The city was very nice and we apparently blended in very well as Kelly got mistaken for a local. Helsinki was very similar in feel to it as compared to Stockholm. The streets were wide but not crowded and it was a nice scenic city to just walk around and enjoy the day.

Since there weren’t any other major landmarks we wanted to see besides the one that was closed we decided to head back to the ship after our self guided walking tour.

Stockholm, Sweden

Our first stop on the cruise was Stockholm, Sweden. Most of the sites we wanted to see were all fairly close to each other so we decided before to either walk or do a hop on hop off tour. We were able to get tickets for one of the hop on hop off boat tours right by the ship. It was very convenient because the boats also left just down the dock.

After surviving the pushing crowds and a few umbrellas in our faces we got on the boat and headed for our first stop in Old Town. It was still early in the morning so the streets were not very busy yet. We slowly walked down the cobble stone streets and made our way to the Royal Armoury.

The Royal Armoury holds many of the items from Sweden’s Royal Family. There is clothing, coaches, crowns and many of those sorts of things. It was interesting to see some of the history of the country and their Royal Family.

After the Royal Armoury we made our way back to the tour boat for our next stop in the shopping district. We did a lot of walking around the city at this point and a bit of window shopping. The streets were all nice and wide and it was definitely a nice city to walk around in. We never felt overcrowded and it is a clean city with some interesting buildings.

After our walk we made our way on to the boat tour again and headed for the Vasa Museum. The Vasa Museum is a museum dedicated the Swedish Viking ship named Vasa. The ship was over 400 years old and sank just minutes into its maiden voyage. The ship was too top heavy and never stood a chance. The ship was very well preserved due to the calm waters in the harbour as well as being protected by the mud. It is the only surviving type of ship from that time period. We were actually lucky to get to see the ship as we heard earlier in the day the lines were 3 hours long. Thankfully we only had to wait around 30 minutes and could make it back to our ship on time.

Royal Armoury

This pic didn't turn out well but in Scandanavia they have what's called shaker fries. You get a bag and a packet of sauce and you put everything in the bag and shake! You also order on a touch screen instead of at the counter...much faster.

For Wayne

The Vasa

Copenhagen, Denmark

We got into Copenhagen around 8pm on the 12^th of May and decided to stay in after a few long days of traveling. We got up the next morning and walked around the area surrounding the hotel passing Tivoli Gardens. We decided to get on the cruise around 1 pm so we got a taxi and headed to the port. Pulling up to the ship was a bit weird because we were so use to the Pacific Princess. The Pacific had 11 decks and this ship has 19 decks and we’ve already got lost trying to find a few things. The one thing that we really noticed is that none of the other passengers seem to talk to each other and also the crew on the ship don’t make much conversation with you. We got really used to knowing all the passengers on the ship and stopping to talk in the hallway. We also got use to the crew knowing us and getting to know them. We often would see crew out in cities when we were in port and would stop and talk to them. We even made a few friends with crew on the Pacific that we hope that we will stay in touch with. Hopefully over the next few weeks we will get use to the big ship cruising but right now I think both of us our missing the small ship and how much more intimate it was. We would definitely sail on a small ship again and hopefully we will run in to some of the crew and passengers we met. Because more than 300 of the 600 passengers on the world cruise come back each year if we ever did another segment we are very likely to run into them again.

Windsor & London, England

On the morning of May 9^th we took a train to Windsor which is just outside of London. The views from the train coming into Windsor are amazing you can see a lot of the town including the castle. We booked a B & B which was right in the city center and within walking distance to everything. We went to see the castle and walked the cobblestone streets surrounding it. The next morning we went into London. We had been there before on our last trip but only for a few hours and it was a night so we didn’t get to see much. This time we got on a bus tour which was a great way to see the sights although it takes forever to get around because of the traffic. We got off and saw the Parliament and Big Ben and went inside Westminister Abbey. We walked from there to the Royal mews where we saw the horses used in the procession for the Queen as well as the glass coaches and state cars. We walked from there to Buckingham Palace and through St. James Park which is a really nice ornamental garden. After we walked back across the London Bridge to Waterloo station to catch the train back to Windsor. We had the best fish and chips we’ve ever had that night in Windsor and we were both really happy that we had decided to go there. The next morning we got up and got on a train to Dover and crossed on the ferry back to Calais. Our plan was to go to Paris and take an overnight train to Hamburg so then we could just catch the train from there to Copenhagen. When we got to the port in Dover we were told that the ferry was having electrical problems so the next ferry would be 2 hours later. Because of this we missed our train to Paris and weren’t able to get on the overnight train to Hamburg. We ended up decided to go to Brussels and stay there and go to Hamburg the next morning. We didn’t have a hotel in Brussels so we walked out of the train station and along the street to see what we could find. The only one we found that wasn’t really expensive looked really sketchy but we decided to take a chance. Once we got to our room we were pleasantly surprised. Our room had been recently renovated and was very modern with everything from IKEA. We stayed the night and left at 6am the next morning for Hamburg where our train was delayed so we ended up missing our connection to Copenhagen and having to wait for a few hours for the next one. About 2 hours into the train ride to Copenhagen the train started to slow down. No one was really paying attention but then all of a sudden it was dark and the train turned off. The conductor got on the train and told everyone to get off and go upstairs. Everyone kind of looked at each other...upstairs? Turns out we got onto a ferry.