July 21 - 22 Ronne Denmark & Visby Sweden

 We are now visiting a clump of southern Baltic cities.  Superficially they are pretty much the same - old cities with old houses and cobblestone streets. There are no wheelchair ramps.

It's a Sunday in Denmark, so very little is open, or even stirring, at 9am when we take the shuttle bus from the port to the southern edge of town and this little church.

Danish architecture

A grocery store was open so we walked around. Universal constant: Pringles and Oreos are available everywhere. The pickled fish section was unique to this part of the world.

Colorful

Since this area was bombed during WW2, we guessed that this was a bomb shelter from that era, located in the front yard of the home above.

Waiting for the shuttle bus to take us back.

Turbine blades for wind machines. There were quite a few of these stacked up on the docks, and they are BIG. At first I thought the framing holding the blades was done in a standard container format, but the boxes a the ends are more like 12x12' rather than the standard 8x8' of containers. But if they can fit onto a container ship, albeit with some additional handling on loading and unloading, it would make transport costs much lower.

 

Visby Sweden - we've been here before.  This town is best known for the large number of church ruins. GPSMYCITY publishes a tour of 12 different church ruins in the town. Throw in the walls that surround the town and you've got a massive amount of stones piled on stones.

One of the oldest houses in Visby.

A bigger church ruin. Just think of all the time and treasure that went into the building of these churches over the course of hundreds of years and only thousands of people to pay the taxes to build them.

An active church

Visby was a fortress, with walls surrounding it. This is the northern gate and tower. Cars and trucks still come through this gate (and even pedestrians if they move quickly).

Hollyhock grows natively along the walls and sidewalks.

Botanical Gardens

Old and New: a sightseeing train passes through the western gate and tower.

The old pharmacy

July 19-20 Kiel and Warnemunde Germany

 On to cruising the southern Baltic ports. First, Kiel an important German harbor and ship building area during WW2. In a repair berth directly opposite us was the German ship Berlin.

We went for a walk around town. Here's a door picture.

I didn't watch long, but this appeared to be the way they were moving items from a top floor apartment. No "Pivot, pivot" required for the sofa this way.

Directly opposite City Hall.

The tops of traffic bollards in the town center have been shaped and painted to look like a fruit basket.

Not filled with hydrogen...(name of boat is the Hindenburg!)

Our home for next 40+ days!

In the evening we had a balloon flyover

Next day, Warnemunde, the gateway to Berlin. We've been before, so we walked around the town. Just like a summer day on Ft Lauderdale Beach. Sand carvings....

We were docked on the river, and this is a canal paralleling it, where the commercial vessels berth.

Street art I liked

and the street itself, leading to the beach.

The lighthouse and Teapot on the coast. They are proud of their unique auditorium, yet those of us who have lived near Raleigh and the Dorton Arena would dispute the uniqueness. Does the Teapot have a leakage problem also?

 

Street art - foot high Victorian action figures

Market

Tourist boat with ferry in background. Along this river there are several ferries in lieu of bridges. They go back and forth continually during the day.

Golden hour on the river.

July 14 Summer Cruising begins

 We started our summer of cruising -- 44 days from London to London, followed by 30 days Athens to Barcelona. Unfortunately this travel required an airplane trip to get us started.

Oceania had scheduled us RDU-IAD-LHR. We arrived in plenty of time on a hot Sunday and waited for our flight. Through a series of creeping 20-minute delays it became obvious that we would not make the connection in Dulles. We were able to to change to an American flight direct to Heathrow at the last minute. However, our bags did not.

Instead of Business we were in Economy Plus, which has seats that I would have called Business Class back in the 90s. The flight is still too short to get any real sleep even if you're laying flat. We were met with the sunrise as we approached London. 

We had arrived a day early and had a nice room at the Bailey's Hotel in Kensington. Notice all of the extra room when there isn't any luggage to clutter it up. It was conveniently located near shopping.  I needed a hoodie since London was cold compared to Chapel Hill, and we had to buy those liquids that were still traveling in our bags on some unknown continent.

Hotel Exterior

We ate locally and Cynthia had the fish 'n chips complete with mushy peas.

The next day, Tuesday, we were bussed to the ship in Southampton and boarded. Unpacking was a breeze taking less than 5 minutes. On this day and the next, a sea day, Oceania provided overnight laundry service - in by 7pm out by 7am - for the clothing on our backs. We had purchased a few items of clothing in London so were able to get by for the first days.

Thursday, July 18th, was our first port at Gothenberg Sweden. We took the shuttle into town and were deposited at the Concert Hall.

We walked the main street.

Past Botanical Gardens.

On the walk back we ventured further afield and passed the food truck rodeo.

A pedestrian street very busy on a Thursday.

City Square

Feb 14 makes sense for the heart shaped flower frame for your pictures, but July?

Thanks to work by our family back in the US, we were expecting our bags back at the ship. Because the shuttle bus apparently quit working we were taking a taxi back to the port when I got a call from a person at Gothenberg airport -- where should they deliver the bags? The ship Concierge had assured me that everything was arranged, yet they airport is calling me. Even worse, they said they couldn't deliver by the 7pm departure. I had an image of the bags following us along the trip, always one port behind. 

Returning to the ship I tried to get everything sorted out. The ship was saying the airport was lying, they knew all along where the stuff was to go, and the cruise line attempted to pick up the bags that morning and were turned away by the airport. The airport people refused to give a phone number so I had to wait for them to call. Finally they agreed to special deliver the bags.

After four days we were reunited. Unpacking took longer this time.

Now maybe we can begin enjoying the trip.