July 26-27 Copenhagen Denmark & Oslo Norway

 Our stop in Copenhagen was also the turnaround day for the ship. A few of us were continuing onto the next cruise, and they had arranged a shuttle bus to take us from our remote dock to the park near the Little Mermaid. The destinations people knew nothing about it, but we finally found it and got our ride.

 We didn't walk over to the Little Mermaid - we've seen it from the land, from a boat, and one year when we were here the LM was in China, but they had a live video feed from the exhibit. That seems to have covered all the possibilities. We instead cut through the harbor fort which is still a semi-active military installation.

St Albans Church

Reflections

King Christian V

Nyhaven  We recommend the boat tour if you have the time. Copenhagen is also known for its street hot dogs, if you have the stomach.

Copenhagen has a pedestrian mall/shopping street from Nyhavn to City Hall.

City Hall

Hans Christian Anderson. 1) The statue always has kids climbing on it, and 2) Hans seems to be looking across the street at Tivoli, the amusement park that inspired Walt Disney to build Disneyland.

Displays of support to Ukraine were frequently seen. Here's one in front of City Hall.

Next stop Oslo Norway. We'll be visiting Norwegian ports for the next 10 days or so. Like Stockholm the sail-in is full of occupied islands.

The boat docks right downtown, no shuttle bus needed.

Cathedral

Cathedral square. The bronze guy is Christian IV

Karl Johans Gate is the shopping street and main axis of town

The Parliament building. Ukraine demonstration actively shouting in the square.

University of Oslo

Norwegian Palace as it would appear on the Day After. Cynthia applied the "Remove People" filter to wipe out several hundred people walking along the avenue.

National Theater

Oslo Opera House. The outside terrace is one huge ramp that looked like an effort to walk up/down. Hard to imagine evening clothed opera attendees walking that promenade.

Ski jump

Akershus Castle and Fortress as seen on sail away.

July 25 Gdansk Poland

 Another new country - first time in Poland. Since we have docked in Gdynia which is about 90 minutes from Gdansk, we have opted for a ship's excursion to show us the highlights. Our stay is pretty short, so we'll use up all the time available for travel and touring.

First stop is the huge mall right across from the old town. Restrooms and Starbucks.

Most of the city walls are gone, but this is northern gate

The symbol of Gdansk

Right behind the gate was the prison tower. Punishment and executions were very public events.

The armory, built in 1605

Gargoyle

The Gdansk Cathedral

Astronomical Clock

Restored wall coverings that had been painted over

The most famous Polish Cleric, Pope John Paul II

City Hall from the pedestrian plaza

The canal at the south end of the old town

We didn't stop but did drive past the shipyards where the Solidarity movement began. Solidarity is now a political party

Solidarity Plaza

The Shipyard

July 23-24 Stockholm Sweden & Klaipeda Lithuania

 We return to Stockholm, an old favorite. The shuttle bus took us to the north end of Gamla Stan, the old city. We had nothing planned, but had been thinking about taking the HopOn HopOff Boat ride. But as you can see the day was grey, cloudy and rainy. We actually brought our ponchos into play later in the day. It never rained hard, just enough to be annoying. So we stayed on land.

We just walked about Gamla Stan. We were early, shops weren't open in most cases, and the streets were pretty empty, compared to how it would be in the afternoon.

Orange Juice Bar

Poster in a shop window that needed repeating.

We're at the southern end of Gamla Stan and there's our ship. We could have walked from here to the ship, slightly over one mile. Instead we went back through the old town.

Stockholm is where the Nobel Prizes are awarded (except Peace) and here's the museum. The actual ceremony and dinner is done at the city hall a couple of miles away. When we first visited Stockholm with Globus in 2009(?) we toured the rooms and saw the elaborate china and silver they use for the ceremony.

I was unwilling to pay the entrance to the Nobel Museum just to see if they have a "gag" display of the Physics Nobel awarded to Drs. Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler.

At the Royal Palace they had an interesting combination of ceremonial guards and camo wearing guards. Neither type of guard looked anything but serious.

As we were taking this picture, a local cobbler made sure we knew the story. In the large statue, Sweden (knight) is slaying Norway (dragon). The smaller statue to the right is Stockholm (little girl) being saved.

The sail away from Stockholm is spectacular, with a long chain of islands. This is an amusement park near the city center.

Gamla Stan in the distance

We were invited to a wine tasting that afternoon, and learned about pairing wines with foods while  enjoying the sail away.

Beautiful places to live, but accessible only by boat. That's OK in the summer, but a boat trip to the local Piggly Wiggly in February must be miserable.

Klaipeda, our first time in Lithuania. We were greeted with local performers.

Very much a port city with river/canal forming a main artery.

The performing arts center. The parking lot to the right was filled by artisan tents selling jewelry, mostly amber related. We did do some shopping here.

Mural

Restaurant on the river

Family outing

Our home away from home at the end of the river

We had to cross a side channel of the river, but the swing bridge was open for 15 minutes each hour. We waited.

Here's the simple mechanism to swing the bridge -- two guys spin a crank and it wheels the bridge around. Do they just do this 5-minute job twice an hour, or are there other things they do? And what's their job title?

Matching towers