May '18 - Viking Cruise part 2: Germany to Sweden

Yesterday I posted part 1 - Norway to Denmark, click here for that post if you missed it. The rest of the cruise took us from Germany to Sweden:

Dave and I didn't go into Berlin (the 6 hour train ride stopped us) but went to Rostock, Germany instead - well technically we went to Rostock, in actuality we rode the train there but the tickets and the stops were all in German and we never figured out where to get off the train! We rode to the end of the line and back without getting out, duh! Walked around the little town of Warnemunde where the ship was docked,  had lunch sitting outside in the sunshine (again with the sunshine! still in a heat wave). 

In Warnemunde, after catching the train to nowhere, I mean to Rostock, Germany

I got to eat pierogi in Gdansk, Poland (I have to say I was a bit disappointed, I guess I'm used to the Michigan version of pierogi which I love); on a plus note we had the best ice cream there - it was thick and creamy, not overly sweet - sort of like frozen yogurt but better;

walked around Tallinn, Estonia and had a delicious sausage and potato lunch outside (yep, in the sunshine!) 

St. Petersburg was beautiful - we went to the Hermitage, cruised thru the canals, and toured the city;

 

Helsinki, Finland was a short stop but we were able to walk around and found an outdoor market - I'm not sure where they were grown but I could smell the strawberries before I saw them at one of the fruit stands, another vendor was stir-frying little fishes and potatoes (I still wish I would have tried the potatoes - not the fish!), they had a flower display on one street that was maybe a contest or something - it reminded me of a mini Rose Parade, the flowers were designed to look like animals, dresses, one was a shoe "tree" - what a fun thing to find! Oh, and we had lunch at a little cafe on the sidewalk - in the sunshine...

Last 2 days were in Stockholm - cruising into the port was the most beautiful landscape! The first day we went to the Vasa Museum where they have an almost perfect and complete Viking Ship that sunk in the harbor 20 minutes after it's maiden voyage, it was submerged for 300 years before someone discovered it. It's been restored using almost all original pieces and it was amazing to see.

amusement park set right on the water

authentic Viking ship at the Vasa Museum 

The second day I'm sorry to say that all I saw was my pillow, I got very very sick that morning and unfortunately stayed in bed the entire day. The rest of the gang got to explore tho and took some great photos, Sweden is beyond beautiful - I loved what I saw.

Our last night on the ship we were talking to Emrah (such a fun, talented, charming bartender - his wife also works on the ship and they were so cute!) and he told us a story about the scariest cruise he on - on their way to Iceland in the North Atlantic and the weather was so rough it blew out windows, people were crashing around hurting themselves, he said it was really bad but he "told the guests if they drank enough they wouldn't notice how rocky the boat was" (always the bartender haha) but then he worried about flying bottles and glass breaking -so he asked his manager if there were any helmets, naturally there's no helmets, so he improvised - here's his solution...yep, he has an ice bucket on his head :)

So there you have it - 14 days boiled down into a couple page of highlights. If you ever get the chance to visit any of these places you won't regret it - this was an amazing, breathtaking, fun trip! And doing it with friends made it even more special - I didn't even highlight the real fun which was all the dancing, card games, shuffleboard tournaments, a bit of drinking, lots of eating, and more laughter than we probably had a right to!! Love these people, loved the cruise. 

Thanks for reading!! 

Travel Log - Passau, Germany

Passau was our first stop in Germany - they have 3 rivers that meet in the city so the first instructions we were given is to make sure that if you asked someone how to get back to the boat you specified what river you're on, good tip haha. We went on a guided walking tour in the morning and had the best guide (Andrea), she was very knowledgeable but also entertaining; something I learned on this trip is that there is one thing that makes the biggest difference when on a tour - getting the right guide!

There's the kind of guide that knows a lot (and tells you all of it) so you feel like you're in a lecture and hoping there isn't a test coming at the end, and then there's finding out the important things you want to know about a place and still be entertained! Andrea would give us info with names and dates and then go "but you don't have to remember any of that - just remember this..." and give us a solid piece of interesting history. Nice. Don't get me started on the last tour guide that spent at least 30 minutes pointing at a genealogy tree from like the 15th century and describing each person in succession. I was trying very hard to not roll my eyes at her. Back to Andrea.

Andrea and her Drindl, bow on the right :)

She's a great storyteller - one of my favorites was about the way they tie the bow on their dirndl (their "traditional" dress which apparently has been out of favor by everyone except for during Oktoberfest but is starting to become popular again): Andrea was wearing one for the tour and explained that you can tell a woman's status depending on where she ties the bow - if it's tied on the right she is married or taken, in the back she is a widow, on the left she's single and dating, in the middle she's a virgin (she loudly whispered "there's not many that can tie it in the middle"). Then she changed the subject to drinking beer, how much Germans love their beer, how drinking too many beers leads to thinking you are a very good singer, and if like her you drink too much beer one night you might enter the beer garden (a bar) with your bow in the middle but leave with it tied on the side! She was laughing when she said it so I'm pretty sure it was a German beer and Dirndl joke LOL!

I didn't look it up but this appears to
be a white Mallard? Unusual (to me anyway!).

this is now being used as a boys school

Can't remember the name of this church but
it's my favorite, totally different than any
other on this trip - so calm, simple
and serene. I took pictures of everything from
the color scheme to the light fixtures hoping to
be able to channel this feeling in my house! Love.


We (no surprise here) toured some churches, walked around town, went to an organ concert at St. Stephan's Cathedral where they have the largest cathedral organ in the world - beautiful. Although I have to say I had the biggest distraction in front of me during the concert -  watching the woman in a pew ahead of us repeatedly fall asleep, droop over almost touching the person next to her, then when a super loud organ chord played she'd jerk straight up only to immediately droop over asleep again! In the afternoon we had free time and spent it (to the "joy" of the hubbies...) walking around town shopping :). 

For lunch we went to a super cute outdoor restaurant in the rain (the patio was covered with umbrellas), the guys had schnitzel but I went for cheese spaetzle (sort of a noodle/small dumpling thing - I googled it and think the name of this dish is Käsespätzle) and it was like having the best mac and cheese ever. I died. It was SO GOOD!!!! Anyway, back to the cruise...

cheesy spaetzle. omg.

That night on the boat we decided that things needed to be livened up, enough with the "love boat" background piano music and no one dancing...so we made a list of songs for the piano man to play (Mr. Zoltan was a good sport - unfortunately someone wrote the "chicken dance" on the list and that was the first one he played - all of the non-Americans on board just stared at us HA!) and off we went to round up others to dance. Cathy started a Conga line and sure enough talked everyone in the lounge into participating. Even Danijela and Rad our bartender/dance teachers got involved. So much fun!

Cathy and Rad