Diane
and Dave
&
Woody and Wendy
Do Holland America Line "Treasures of Scandinavia and Russia" Cruise - September 2006
It really doesn't take much for us to sign up on a Holland-America Line Cruise. This one really caught our attention ...adventure of a lifetime ... fascinating ports of call ... splendor of the Baltic ... exotic locations, rich cultural and historical perspective. There was no hesitation to board the ms Rotterdam in Copenhagen Denmark. And off we went!
The ms Rotterdam had 1260 guests and 600 crew on this voyage. It's gross tonnage is 59,652 tons and maximum speed was 25 knots - not that I recall us doing that but I guess it could if it had to. For this trip, we covered 2533 nautical miles. When I figure out how often we were eating a meal - it was about every 100 nautical miles...
So here are some photos of us on the ship...
Must be a formal night...
WHO is that handsome man of mystery?
Returning "home" after another great dinner!
Ahh... just a little place we call home for two weeks...
Telephone service! Woody talking to Horn in Arhus Denmark. Our room was third to the right from that room.
Could it be they found their grandson? HERE of all places? No - it is his TWIN! Amazing!
Another wonderful sunset - as we leave St. Petersburg Russia
Gala Chef's Choice Night - What lovely little potatoes!
And how inventive of them to put those same potatoes in the table display! Along with the thyme and the sage! My, my!
Desserts are over the top! and likely immediately on my hips!
I ate the whole thing!
Our Ports of Call - Denmark, Estonia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark again, Norway, and The Netherlands
Ok - so for 12 day cruise, we left out of Copenhagen. We spent a few days there first. Woody and Wendy got there ahead of us and pretty much had the whole city figured out. Copenhagen is really, really pretty. We toured the city, rode the canal boats, even went on the Metro. People were very hospitable. Everyone spoke English (actually the case for all the ports of call on our cruise). Copenhagen has shops with incredible pastries and chocolates. Wow!
Of course we saw The Little Mermaid statue. It was sad that people had broken off her head and her arms (twice). She's such a sad little thing.
And we saw some wonderful sights in Copenhagen. Weather was cold at various times - jacket weather. And the weather changed through the day - sunny and warm and then cool and rain or drizzle. A great city to visit - this link has some more photos
As we left Copenhagen, we passed under this bridge at 2 in the morning. The captain had said it would be a tight fit - and indeed it seemed we had about 10 feet between the top of the ship and the bottom of the bridge. It was really quite something to see.
We were well on our way and ready to visit Tallin Estonia.
Sketch on the bus
This was a wonderful city - I'm sorry we didn't have more time to linger.
Our excursion took us to Rakvere
- A Medieval Village. We signed up for this. 
Once we got up the 177 steps, walked through the sheep dip, and survived the (really bad) torture chamber, we sat down and had a not bad lunch served up in crockery that we usually use for plants.
Ah well - on to RUSSIA! St. Petersburg! Which started with a lot of very serious and official people looking at our passports.
As we arrived - about 1000 Americans with all the same look on our faces - this kind of hesitant look... All our lives we've heard about Russia. We got a chance to see St. Petersburg.
Sketches I did in the bus
Here are some photos from our Gala Evening at the Yusupov Palace. We had a much nicer time than Rasputin had when he last visited for dinner.
Such a wonderful evening!
These guys were so cool! This is MODUS playing Russian folk instruments: Igor Vokov, Nataly Jakova, Andrew Sapkevich, Denis Klimov, and Uriy Shmuirov (Andrew is the smiling guy with the accordion).
And then the "real show" began in the opera hall of the palace.
What a great evening! BRAVO! The time just flew by!
But - the next day was St. Catherine's Summer Palace.
About two hours to get from the gate to this window.
BUT SO WORTH IT!
Yes, my backyard looks just like this...
Dave was pleased to see HP in St. Petersburg.
Finland was our next stop. This is a candy shop in Porvoo.
We also visited the Savijarvi Farm - WOW! I want to live here!
A farm that we passed in Finland
The Rock Church in Helsinki
Arriving into STOCKHOLM Sweden - very nice here.
Stockholm was dreary and cold - very pretty - but so we were so wet and miserable from the weather.
And just overjoyed to find that Berlin was WARM and SUNNY!
A train car just like Harry Potter - Wow!
Oslo Norway - such a pretty place. Three viking ships. Wow!
Men crossed the Atlantic in these ships. Not me. No way no how.
Rotterdam, The Netherlands - I never thought I'd ever see this!
We had a coffee at the little shop where all this begins - one of the best coffees I had on the trip.
There is a woman who walked up with her dog. She brushes the dog for a full 10 minutes. And then she tells the dog to stay (you can just see him to the left of the little pilot house) and then she walks into the pilot house and raises the bridge. Some dog!
And that was it!
SO! What's our next big trip? Not sure just yet but I'm sure it will involve rice and chopsticks.