Sea day today as we make our way up the Baltic to the Estonian capital, Tallinn.

Not much to report.  We had an explore around the ship but I could not get Jeanette to go on the outside as it was blowing fairly strongly and she had just done her hair. So I wandered around on the upper decks on my own. First I tried the Sea Walk which is a walkway sticking out over the side of the ship with a glass floor. It was seriously underwhelming.

Then I climbed up as high as I could and took a view looking forward. This is looking over an area called the Sanctuary.

Then looking aft.

And I finally wandered down to the stern which normally is a favourite hangout spot of mine on cruises but on this ship it had been made into a smokers’ area which does make sense when you think about it. So I took a deep breath, headed for the stern, got my photo of the wake and then got out of there.

Around 8 am we walked about 150 metres from our ship with about a thousand other people to a nearby siding to board our chartered train. During that walk we copped the only downpour of rain for the day. Despite the publicity pictures showing couples relaxing in luxurious two seat train accommodation we wound up in a rather spartan commuter carriage but we found a little corner where I could stretch my legs out and we were comfortable enough. 

We were travelling through the old East Germany and the bigger towns looked rather depressed with lots of ugly Communist era apartment blocks and industrial buildings, and a graffiti problem almost as bad as Melbourne’s . The country and woodlands were pretty but very dry.

Around 11am we rolled into the East Berlin Station. The area around here is an absolute mass of construction sites.  First stop was the Berlin Wall. We had a great guide who was aged in his 40s and talked of his childhood growing up in East Germany, and his horror as a child on receiving the news that the Wall had come down, as he was convinced their village would be overrun by starving unemployed people from the West that the Wall had been keeping out.

 On the way to the Brandenburg Gate we travelled through areas of East Berlin which were a copy of Soviet streets in St Petersburg. This style of construction proved too expensive however and for their later flats, they went for standardised concrete towers very much like our Housing Commission ones in Melbourne, and looking equally as awful. It was interesting that each of these concrete  building types were standardised and had a code number. The guide was rattling them off  “on your left we are now passing a PS 85B”, etc.

Finally we got to the famous Brandenburg Gate. 

You can see from the repairs on the pillars the battering it took durning WW2

The line of the Berlin Wall where it no longer exists is marked in the roads by a double line of cobblestones. Along other parts of the wall, they have removed the concrete but left the steel reinforcing bars standing

Just beyond the gate, in what was then the British Sector, was a huge war memorial put up by the Russians. Apparently the Russians built it before the allocation of sectors was finalised.

Next stop was at the Reichstag where Hilter came to power and where the last battle of WW2 in Europe was fought – Stalin apparently being under the mistaken belief that Hitler’s bunker was located under it.  It is now the seat of the German Parliament.

Our next visit was to Checkpoint Charlie. Not much to see here. The original checkpoint hut is in a museum somewhere and what is left is a fake hut manned by fake Americans who charge to have photos taken with them. On the subject of museums, the Berliners seem to have an addiction for them and there seems to be literally dozens of them, covering every possible theme.

We then headed across to Kurfürstendamm and walked down to look at the ruins of Kaiser Wilhelm Cathedral which is very impressive and thought provoking.

Next door was the Catherdral replacement, a singularly ugly building inside and out which stands as a testament to the hubris and incompetence of 20th Century architecture. You can see its exterior in my shot of the cathedral ruin. It’s the structure on the left that looks like a stack of egg crates.

We found a nice Italian restaurant nearby and then had a walk around the back streets off the Kurfürstendamm. Here you could get a feel for the graciousness that must have been Berlin at the close of the 19th Century.

Back to the East Berlin Station where 1,000 people sat on a train and waited for over 30 minutes while they frantically searched for an 80 year old woman who had failed to show at the bus that was to have conveyed her to the railway station. Finally they gave up and we all left getting back to the ship at 8:30pm.

I am glad I visited Berlin. There are many historical lessons to be learnt here and it really gives one cause to reflect. I doubt however, that I would come back. Much of the city’s buildings are very plain and of the remainder that aren’t, 90 percent are really ugly. The town council seems to have either been on a long strike or given up. Centre median strips and nature strips in many places are either dirt or boast weeds over a foot high, the sidewalks are dirty and graffiti blights large areas of the city. 

And on the 21st day they rested. 

Since I am a bit short of photos for today’s blog I thought I would stick in this photo from around midnight last night as we pulled away from Oslo.

Sea day today and we have just wandered around the ship and read, getting our strength up for the big push to Berlin tomorrow. We will be docking at Warnemunde around 7am then a two and a half hour train journey to get to Berlin, a two hour bus orientation tour, then we are free to explore for a few hours before getting the train back to the Ship.

We woke this morning to the rather pleasant sight of pine-covered shoreline sliding past our window. Around 10.00am we docked at the Oslo cruise terminal and shortly thereafter we set foot on Norwegian soil.

The first visit of the day was to Oslo’s famous Ski Jump tower. I know nothing of ski jumping but as long as it isn’t a castle or a cathedral I am all in favour of visiting it.

The weather had turned and it was the chilliest day we have struck so far on our travels so wrapping up was the order of the day.

Our next visit was to the Vigelund sculpture park. This was an amazing place created in the 1920s  by one sculptor with at times over 100 assistants working on the project. He was not paid for his work but the town council funded his materials and assistants’ wages and gave him a place to live and work.

It  attempts to tells the story of life from cradle to the grave and there are some truly beautiful and inspiring pieces. You could easily spend many days here.

The next stop on our day’s itinerary was the Viking Ship Museum where we saw three large and two small amazingly preserved and almost complete Viking ships from the eighth and ninth centuries. These had been recovered from burial mounds.

Back to the ship for a freshen up before Jeanette and I headed out again on foot to explore Oslo but due to the cold gale and rain our last expedition only covered the Akershus Fortress next to where we tied up, before we were driven back to the ship.

Here is a shot Jeanette got from the wall of the Fortress looking into the city.

Around midday we said farewell to our IKEA suite at the hotel of which we had become rather fond and caught a taxi to the cruise ship terminal. We breezed through the boarding formalities and walked on board the Regal Princess which will be our travelling hotel for the next 11days.

Our ship was docked on a new Cruise Terminal that had been built on land that was being reclaimed from the sea. Work on extending this area for other docks was in progress. The thought crossed my mind of the ruckus that would occur if anyone tried something like this in Aus.

This ship with 3,500 plus passengers is huge (see the large bus on the wharf for comparison) and rather disorienting to find your way about in.

It is relatively new and you can see the finishing quality has been pared back compared to their earlier ships. The stairways are surprisingly narrow. I guess not many people are expected to use them.

Our Dining Room is located low down at the stern and vibrates significantly when the stern thrusters are in use which happened through the first half of our first dinner. Fortunately it is all okay when the ship is going straight ahead. We are on a table with three other nice Australian couples. They seem to have arranged their tables here by country of origin.

Our cabin, however, is the best we have struck and we have settled in and made ourselves very comfortable.

 A slow start this morning and we finally set off on foot around 10:45 with Siri as our guide. Our objective was to make Amalienborg Palace by around 11:45 to see the Changing of the Guard. Amalienborg has an open square and three of the sides are made up of the Queen’s residence, Prince Fredrick’s and Princess Mary’s residence, and some other royal who I have never heard of (Jeanette’s note: Frederick’s brother Prince Joachim’s residence).

We had an enjoyable leisurely walk down through interesting malls and squares. One jeweller’s window caught my eye with an N Scale gold and diamond encrusted train pulling gold wagons filled with diamonds and other precious stones. Meanwhile the replacement guard with the accompanying band had set off from Rosenborg Palace on their 30 minute march through the city to get to Amalienborg Palace.

 

We were in position in time to watch them march into the square, play a couple of tunes, change the guard then head off on their 30minute march back to their barracks.

As it was now lunch time we headed down to the nearby canal and had lunch.

Lunch over, we reprogrammed Siri to take us to the Tivoli Gardens and set off arriving there about 20 minutes later. 

The Tivoli Gardens are just an amazing place: part Luna Park, part botanical gardens, part side show alley, part beer garden, part casino, with fine restaurants and wine bars thrown in. Apparently its founder some 175 years ago convinced the King to grant him some land on the then outskirts of town with the argument that if the people were busy having fun, they would not have time for politics.

 Today we checked out a few significant sites out of Copenhagen. The first was the part Romanesque part Gothic Century Cathedral in the town of Roskilde. Roskilde was the original capital of Denmark, and this Cathedral, which dates from the 12th and 13th centuries, is where the Danish Kings and Queens are buried.

Buried is perhaps the wrong term as they are all in sarcophaguses in chapels off the sides of the Cathedral. Here is where Christian the Fourth with the missing eye wound up.

Slightly more creepy, here is where the current Queen will be interred. They have it all finished but it is kept covered till it is needed.

Our next stop was at the Viking Ship Museum at Roskilde. Back in the 11th Century, the inhabitants here sunk a number of old ships across the fjord mouth as a protective measure against other marauding Viking tribes. They were discovered by a fisherman in the 1960s and a wall was built around the wrecks, the water pumped out and the remnants recovered.

The 5 Viking ships that were discovered are displayed here as well as replica warships and cargo ships that they have constructed. You can see them building further replicas using the original techniques. This is a fabulous museum and one could easily spend a day here, and yes Gary, I should have listened to you and allocated more time for our visit here.

 

Reluctantly we dragged ourselves away and headed to Frederiksborg Castle. This place is billed as the largest and most beautiful Renaissance castle in Scandinavia, and I would wholeheartedly agree with that description.

Externally it is stunning,  internally you pass through magnificent room after room, each full of amazing art works and beautiful furnishings. There is literally just so much to see here, it overwhelms your senses. You could spend days here.

Their gardens also are magnificent 

Feeling dazed and stunned from sensory overload, we hit the road again to Kronborg Castle where Shakespeare is supposed to have set Hamlet. Now if one was looking to save time to spend more at the Viking Ship Museum or at Frederiksborg Castle, you could easily give this place a miss.

It’s an old castle that has had a hard life. Having been destroyed by fire, captured by the Swedes and used for a couple of centuries as an army barracks, its interior is understandably, rather sparse and ordinary.

The one interesting feature was the chapel. Built on the ground floor, it had a stone roof then a ballroom built on top of that. This protected it from the fire that destroyed most of the rest of the castle and the licentious soldiery subsequently in residence probably gave it a wide berth so its 15th century interior is virtually complete. I am not saying it’s pretty or cheerful but it is complete.

We made it back to Copenhagen around 6:30pm fairly exhausted.

Around 11pm we were awoken by loud explosions. It turned out to be a fireworks display in honour of the Tivoli Gardens’ 175 birthday. We had a ringside seat from our room on the 11th floor.

 We set off early this morning for a tour of inner Copenhagen. We had a great guide, Henry. He was a guy in his late 50s who is a writer but needs to guide so he can pay his bills . He was very knowledgeable and very witty.

First stop was the Christiansborg Palace where we had a tour of the state rooms 

One room that took my fancy was the Queen’s reference library. Access to the balcony is via this little lift in the corner.

And for Izzy, here is a shot of the Palace’s horse training area. At the time we were there they  were training up two horses to pull the Queen’s carriage. This complex also accommodates the Danish Parliament as well as their Supreme Court.

We then did a boat tour of Copenhagen’s canals and waterways. The canals in the area we set off from are lined with restaurants.

There is an island off the city that the military had abandoned and in the 1970s was occupied by leftists squatters. They are still there and today it looks like an overgrown mess of shacks and derelict boats.

We passed the Danish Royal yacht that their Queen uses to visit their island territories.

And then the backside of the famous Copenhagen Mermaid, which apparently was voted in a US magazine as the world’s most disappointing tourist attraction.

As we were heading back in our open boat, it started to rain. No worries, Jeanette, the always prepared one, had her rain jacket and I managed to score one of those plastic poncho thingys from the guide. But the rain went up a few notches to torrential. The floor was filling up with water soaking our shoes and socks but worse than that, the fibre glass seats we were sitting on were also filling up with water and because of the very low canal bridges, standing up was not an option.

By the time we escaped the boat we were saturated from the waist down. Fortunately the weather cleared and we dried somewhat over the remainder of the day, though not completely.

Last stop of the day was the Rosenborg Palace. This was a mini palace originally built on the outskirts of the old city but now of course totally surrounded by the modern city. Here we came across the story of one of their earlier monarchs, Christian the Fourth. He was somewhat of an action man.

In a sea battle with the Swedes, he was hit in his right eye with an exploding shell. All thought he had been killed. But he came to, tied his handkerchief around his damaged eye, and apparently gave a rousing speech which so inspired the sailors that they went on to victory.

He had the shrapnel from his eye set in gold and made into earrings for one of his mistresses. They preserved his uniform that he was wearing as well as the handkerchief and the earrings and you can see them here.

To finish off our day, downstairs in this Castle we saw the Swedish Crown Jewels.

We spent the whole of today getting to Denmark. We checked out of our hotel around 10 am and caught a cab to Heathrow. We did battle with the automatic machines, tagged our bags, got our boarding passes, dropped our baggage in, got through security, checked out the duty free shops, then had a coffee at our favourite Heathrow cafe, the Clockwork Knife.

Now I am not sure that it is actually called that (Jeanette’s note – it’s actually called The Perfectionists’ Cafe) but there is an amazing clockwork knife that whirs away over your head as you are drinking your coffee. While we were there the restaurant staff were furiously engaged in setting up a very long table for a  very large party. We watched as all the hot food was put out but no people showed. We hung on as long as we could but still no people. By the time they finally made it the food would have been very cold.

Down in the main body of the departure hall, we admired the modern sculpture and played the old game of Heathrow roulette. They seem to only put departure gate numbers up at the very last minute. It’s okay if you get a Gate A one which is only 5 minutes away but if you get a Gate B one, that’s a 15 minute plus walk and you really have to motor. Fortunately we got Gate A.

So by the appointed hour of 2pm we were onboard our SAS flight ready to depart. All the world was looking rosy then disaster struck. On the inbound leg of the flight that we were taking out, there was a passenger who needed a wheelchair. There was a delay in getting the wheelchair to said passenger and the terminal staff let our flight head down the boarding ramp before the wheelchair bound passenger had cleared the ramp.

As a result of this technical breach of security cordon, after about 15 minutes deliberation by the relevant poobahs, the whole aircraft had to disembark with our cabin baggage and go through a full security checking again. Essentially we were tossed off the aircraft and left to our own resources. We ended up wandering down miles of corridors telling our sad story and begging directions from any half sentient offical we could find.

We finally wound up at the security checking area for transiting passengers. I am not sure if the staff here were on a work to rule go slow or this was the spot where people who were too slow to work on the normal security check were put but the pace here was absolutely glacial. It took us an hour and a half to get through all this nonsense and back on to the plane.

We finally made it to our hotel around 7:30 pm. Being Denmark, our room feels a bit like living in an IKEA showroom but it is comfortable and much more spacious than London.

Today we hopped on a District line train to Richmond where we were catching up with John and Kerry for lunch. John is just finishing up a Bursar relieving spot here then they are off travelling for a bit.

Kerry had suggested the Petersham Hotel for lunch. This is about 1.5 Ks out of Richmond so we thought we would get to Richmond with an hour to spare and have a walk.

My first attempt at using Siri’s walking directions took us down a very interesting collection of narrow alleyways but being Richmond, these were very posh and clean alleys.

Finally we made it to the bank of the Thames. Unfortunately the day was grey and overcast and it was trying to rain.

The hotel is positioned on a hill overlooking a bend in the river so we settled down in the bar area and waited for John and Kerry who arrived shortly after us.

We had a great lunch and good time catching up and swapping stories. After lunch we got one of the hotel staff to take a photo of us in the Lounge. You can see from our pose the poshness of the place was starting to rub off.

John and Kerry kindly took us for a drive around Richmond Park. It is famous for herds of deer that roam the park and claim right of way on the roads. Humans did not seem to worry them that much.