To the North!

Here are some highlights from the first half of our Scandinavian cruise. We sailed from Southampton and had stops in Denmark, Germany, and Sweden. We also had an unexpected change of plans.

From Spain, we flew to London. We spent the night—just long enough to stop at one of our favorite restaurants, Dishoom, for excellent Indian food. We also caught a show at the Top Secret Comedy Club from a comedian that we saw at the Edinburgh Fringe six years ago. He’s working up his new show, so admission was free! We stayed near King’s Cross station. We got up the next morning and hauled our big backpacks through rush hour traffic on the Tube to Waterloo station and our train to Southampton. After a very pleasant ride, we tramped right through town to the port and our home for the next two weeks, the Emerald Princess.

After a full day at sea, our first stop was the tiny town of Skagen (pronounced like “skein”), which is situated on a spit of sand that reaches far up into the sea. We walked through town, past old German bunkers on the beach, and up to the northern-most point of Denmark at Grennen. It’s where the North Ses and the Baltic Sea meet and you can actually see the waves from the two bodies of water crashing into each other. There were lighthouses like what you would expect. They also had a replica of a 17th-century “lighthouse” that is basically a torch on a big lever. It looks almost like a trebuchet–it’s called the Vippefyret. The town was very cute, with the houses painted in cheery yellows and reds. 

Our next Danish stop was Copenhagen. I’m not sure how we do it, but this is our second time in the last year where we’ve shown up in a big city on marathon day. We were out early, so we actually got to see the pack of leaders about 30 minutes into the race. There were 18,000 people running that day and the course weaved all over downtown, so we encountered it pretty much everywhere we went. The town was a-buzz with the added energy of the race and it was fun to see finishers walking around with their medals and their cheering squads. We did multiple DIY walking tours, ate some delicious pastries, and spent an exorbitant amount of money on a smørrebrød lunch (open-faced sandwiches). We also shared a hotdog (excellent) and a butter burger (also excellent). We were happy to walk off some of that food at the fortress called Kastellet. We took a nice boat tour through the canals and under bridges. We also saw the original Christus and the Twelve Apostles sculptures in the Vor Fire Kirke.

Next up was like going “home” because it was in Germany. We docked at the small town of Warnemünde, the port for Rostock. We heard a German joke that the Americans think it’s the port for Berlin. He said, “They spend two and a half hours on the train to take a photo at Checkpoint Charlie just to turn around and go back for two and half hours.” He’s not wrong! But we didn’t do that. We wandered around both Warnemünde and Rostock and had our favorite German food—a Thüringer bratwurst and a (huge) Döner Durum. We took a boat down the river back to the port and it was a cool but sunny day. It was great to hear German and to see a part of the country we hadn’t previously visited.

The last stop for the first week was Stockholm. We were scheduled to arrive at the harbor right in the city one afternoon, stay overnight, then have time the next day to explore more before sailing. Well, the night before our scheduled arrival, the captain announced that the expected winds were too high for the ship to safely transit through the archipelago into Stockholm. We were fully prepared to hear that we would have to skip that stop altogether. But instead, we were allowed to anchor outside the port on the Baltic that serves Stockholm, Nynäshamn. It was a wild rush of a day, since we had to be ferried to land, walk a way into town from the ship, catch the commuter train into the city, and then see as much as we could in a few short hours. 

The weather that prevented us from docking in Stockholm was definitely present, making for a brisk and blustery day. But we very much enjoyed the hop-on, hop-off bus and boat and walking around the old town. But the best two things about that day were food and one very unique museum, the Vasa. The pastries in Sweden were awesome (sorry, Denmark) and we had a truly remarkable lunch of goulash and fish & chips at a cafe. The museum was built around an amazing warship that was built for the king of Sweden in the 1620s. It was adorned with dozens of elaborate carvings and had two gun decks. It was made to impress and intimidate. Unfortunately, it was also made quite top heavy so that it sailed for about 30 minutes before it was blown by a gust of wind, it tilted and took on water, and sank not a kilometer from the dock. It was under water for over 300 years before being salvaged in the 1960s. The museum is basically just an enormous warehouse of a space with the ship in dry dock in the middle.

It was a mad frenzy trying to catch the train back to the port and since our train was delayed, we felt like we were cutting it close to the time when we absolutely had to be back to catch the tender (ferry) back to the ship. But when we arrived, the line to board the tenders snaked around the parking lot, so we didn’t have to worry much. We made friends with people in line and waited for our turn. Just as we were crossing the pier, the rain started and then just as we were sitting down inside the boat, it really let loose and the rest of the passengers were soaked as they climbed into the vessel. It was a rocky, wavy ride out to the ship.

We are really enjoying the food and entertainment on board the ship and the comfy bed!  All the people we have met on board and ashore have been so nice and we have seen so many beautiful spots. There are more ports to share with you next week. Have a good one!