Warn-de-Stock

Our second port of call was Warnemunde, which in German apparently means place where cruise ships stop, as there really isn’t any other reason to find yourself in this sleepy little German town. Amazingly, this was one of our longer stops on the trip and so Amanda and I rolled with the schedule and decided to see as much as we could of Germany. As small as Warnemunde is I can tell that the locals are determined to make their town as accessible as possible to the numerous tourists who come calling throughout the year. It is fastidiously clean, as only a German town can be, and the locals are attentive and helpful. 

The last time Amanda and I were in Germany was over our 2012 Christmas Holiday and we stayed in the sleepy medieval town of Rothenburg, were I might have had the best German Sausage ever. It was so good I somehow talked Amanda into letting me get two! So you can imagine that when we disembarked from the Marco Polo I was keen to see if Warnemunde or Rostock could equal my previous culinary experience.  Unfortunately for me Amanda said I had to wait until at least eleven o’clock before I could begin my quest.

We began our brief tour of Warnemunde by following the cruise ship’s suggestion and strolling down the main thoroughfare which is lined by small shops and the odd home on your left, and a canal where you can find several barge styled restaurants, a few personal yachts, a local ferry and an emergency fire and rescue watercraft on your right. The path eventually comes to an end atop a jetty that stretches back into the Baltic Sea and supports one of two small lighthouses that indicate the entrance to the small harbor. Walking back from the lighthouse we detoured along a surprisingly wide promenade that was intended to support a far busier summer day than we were experiencing at the end of September. Interesting aside about the promenade, I honestly thought I'd taken a picture of it specifically for the blog post but apparently I was mistaken. This is becoming something of an unfortunate trend and really not all that interesting I suppose.

Anyway, On our way back towards the town center we tried to make friends with some of the locals but they paid us little heed.

Of course at least the birds didn't bury themselves up to their ears like this guy. German art is a bit odd.

Having exhausted all the tourist attractions of Warnemunde we hopped a train and made our way out to the Hanseatic village of Rostock. Rostock is one of the oldest towns in northern Germany and has a rather surprising intellectual heritage as the University of Rostock, established in 1419, is one of the oldest Universities in the world.

It’s also home to what is believed to be the third oldest working astronomical clock in the world and displays a calendar that stretches into the year 2017. Let the end of the world long-form calendar debates begin anew! The clock can be found in St Mary’s church which is just off the reconstructed Ernst-Thalmann-Platz which, like so many other places throughout Europe, suffered mightily from heavy bombing during WWII. The church has under gone renovation efforts numerous times throughout its history and work is still being done to shore up its interior structure of columns as well as a few areas of crumbling façade on the exterior. Even with the scaffolding it is a striking sight when you round the corner and confronted with this view.

Rostock is also home to a handful of street vendors who practice the fine art of crafting dough into the uniquely wonderful shape of a warm, freshly baked pretzel! Here you can see Amanda thoroughly enjoying her pretzel on a park bench along Kropeliner Strasse. A few of the street vendors specialize in Bratwurst as well, yet I devoured mine long before Amanda had a chance to reclaim the camera and catch me in the act of passionately consuming my lunch. After lunch we continued our walking tour of Rostock where we saw one of the original entry gates into town. It's rather large!

The town also overlooks a small harbor that has access to the Baltic yet is far too shallow for contemporary cruising vessels.

After another half hour of meandering we came to an ivy-covered wall that Amanda thought was pretty but I thought looked potentially poisonous. She wanted to touch it but settled with having her picture taken next to it.

Our tour of Rostock ended back at the Ernst-Thalmann Platz where the second gate into the ancient town stands guard. This end of the Platz is also home to a handsomely constructed red and brown brick building and capped with a beautifully adorned tile roof. I thought it looked a bit like some of the churches we'd seen around Germany and thought it interesting that it was home to a bank and a cosmetology school.

Of course the town square across the street was very nice as well.

Upon returning to the ship we discovered a rather peculiar series of sand carvings that we somehow missed while disembarking earlier in the day.

There’s apparently a story behind these carvings but my German isn’t quite good enough for me to make it out. Anyway our time in Germany was coming to a close and we had time for just a few photos or our ship before setting sail again.

Next stop: Estonia!

Kobenhavn

Our first port of call was the striking Danish port capital of Copenhagen.  Originally a Viking fishing village, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark at the beginning of the 15^th century.  We had only a short 6 hours in the city or else the boat would leave us there, so we had to be quite organised in our sightseeing plans.

We started with a walking tour of the city.  I loved that so much of the city had the beautiful patina caused from many years of salty sea air against all the metals.

It wouldn’t be a European capital without a good obelisk or two.  Copenhagen’s celebrates Denmark’s transition to Lutheranism in 1536.  The reliefs around the base are all Danish reformers.  Much in the same way that Henry VIII famously decided there were advantages to being the head of his church, King Christian III of Denmark decided that he’d like some independence from the Pope.

In the centre of the old town, is the Fountain of Charity.  Considered highly risqué in the 1600’s when it was originally installed (certain private parts were used as the spouts) so they nearly immediately corked it and it wasn’t fully used until the early 1900’s.  Now fully functioning, locals are still allowed to come take water from the fountain for drinking.  Um, I might just stick to my sink...

Just as we started to head out of the Old Town, we were stopped by the parading Royal Guard.  We didn’t see anyone we thought were Royal with them so we assumed they were just stretching their legs a bit.  We had read in a guide book before we came that often the guards often have a police escort when they march through town leading locals to joke that they have the only army in the world that needs police protection.  We laughed even more when we did in fact see police flanking the guards as the processed.

We headed past the processional towards the new town.  The brightly coloured buildings along the canals were packed with people spilling out of the restaurants and cafes to enjoy the last of the summer sunshine.

You could also tell we’d left the old town with buildings like this one.

This building is actually their Opera House opened in 2005.  Over half of it is underground.  It was donated to the city by a wealthy oil-shipping magnate.  Some politicians were offended by the private donation, in part because the full cost of the project would be tax deductible.  Our guide said that eventually some palms were greased and the politicians objected less.

From the Opera House we started heading towards the icon of Copenhagen : The Little Mermaid Statue.  On our way we came across the Gefion Fountain.

The fountain illustrates the myth of the goddess who was given one night to carve a chunk out of Sweden to make Denmark.  According to the tale, Gefion transformed her four sons to do the job, and the chunk she removed from Sweden is supposedly Vanern (Sweden’s largest lake).

Finally we made it over to The Little Mermaid.

The cliff notes version (because I had to read it before I could go see the statue)… One day, a young mermaid spies a passing ship and fall in love with a handsome human prince.  The ship is wrecked in a storm, and she saves the prince’s life.  To be with the prince, the mermaid asks a sea witch to give her human legs.  In exchange, she agrees to give up her voice and the chance of ever returning to the sea.  When the prince did not return her love she prepared to die heartbroken and alone.  She was given one final chance to live if she would kill the prince she loved on his wedding night.  But she couldn’t.  The mermaid threw herself into the sea to die.  Suddenly, she’s miraculously carried up by the mermaids on air, who give her an immortal soul as a reward for her long-suffering love.

The statue is actually smaller than it looks in the photos, but as they’ve cleverly put it on a podium in the middle of the sea, you never have perspective on it.

For those wondering, we made it back to the ship with 20 minutes to spare before departure; just enough time to prepare for Germany the next day.

Bon Voyage

“You’re off to Great Places! Today is your Day! Your mountain is waiting, So…get on your way!”
Dr. Seuss, Oh The Places You’ll Go

Like many children who grew up on Green Eggs and Hamm or Horton Hears A Who, Dr Seuss stories were an indelible part of my childhood. For my high school graduation Mom and Dad gave me the Dr Seuss classic “Oh The Places You’ll Go”, I’m sure in the hopes that life would take me to some amazing places and meet one or two incredible people.  I’m not so sure however, they ever dreamed that life would lead me on the adventure Amanda and I have gotten to share for the last few years.

That adventure has now taken us to a place I never dreamed I’d get to go. But before we got to our ultimate destination in this series of travels there was the journey that got us there that deserves a little time as well.
Amanda and I had talked about going on a Baltic Cruise almost since the moment we arrived in the UK and very nearly missed our chance when we couldn’t get one scheduled during our first two years here.

Thankfully, we were able to extend our time in the UK for another year which gave us the opportunity to cross this trip off our list. Of course, simply deciding where we wanted to go on our cruise was only a small part of the decision we had to make. We also had to decide which cruise line we wanted to sail with. Having never been on a cruise before, neither one of us where quite sure what to expect. Our primary goal for the cruise was to spend some time in St. Petersburg and that helped to eliminate several Baltic cruise lines from the beginning, as not every company makes a stop there. Then some of the other cruise lines that did stop in St Petersburg either skipped a few of the other locations at the top of our list, (Tallinn, Helsinki, Stockholm or Copenhagen) or are companies that primarily operate as ferry services and maintain a few cruise ships as well. Ultimately we decided on a company called Cruise & Maritime which, along with stopping at nearly every port we were interested in, also has the distinction of being an ‘adult’ only cruise. It may come as a surprise to some but this was actually rather appealing to both of us.

When we received our brochure however, we began to realize just how ‘adult’ this cruise might be. (Not that way – get your mind out of the gutter!)  Let’s just say that no one in the advertisement photographs appeared to be under the age of 50. I half expected this was an attempt to pass the cruise off as being focused on a more mature cruising clientele and in some respects I was right. However, I may have underestimated just how mature our cruising compatriots would be.

The photo above was taken on the shuttle bus which transferred us from London Victoria Bus Station to our ship at London, Tilbury. Our age was about to be one of the top talking points for the next two weeks!

As a significant part of our adventures are typically derived from the effort it takes to get somewhere, making our way to the Cruise Terminal was no different. The options for arriving at London Tilbury (which is about 20 miles east of London) are personal vehicle, taxi, train (then a 20 min walk with your luggage) or chartered bus. As parking is around £20 a day and taxi fares into Tilbury can run upwards of £100 depending on, of course, how far you are traveling from, we decided to brave the rail network on a weekend so that we could take advantage of the £50 round trip chartered bus that ran from London Victoria bus station to Tilbury.

If you’ve spent any time living around London for the last few years you know how difficult it can be to make it into the city on the weekends. There are numerous multi-million pound improvement works taking place across the entire network of stations throughout greater London so it really can be a Craps Shoot as to whether any particular station will have service into London on a given weekend. Thankfully trains from our local station into London Victoria were running every thirty minutes or so. A little less often than normal but at least they were running. Taking the train into London also meant we had to lug our baggage through what is the busiest train station in London as we made our way to the Victoria Station bus terminal. Now, one might reasonably assume that the London Victoria Train station is in the same place as the London Victoria Bus Terminal. One would, however, be wrong in that assumption as the bus and train stations that both bear the Victoria name are actually a few blocks apart. So, on we trudge, darting between tourists and locals alike as we hustle towards the bus terminal in hopes of arriving before our bus departs for the boat. In the end our last minute rush paid off as we got to the station in just enough time to grab a VERY quick bite to eat before joining the queue to board our coach.

Arriving at the Cruise Terminal we were processed through customs and immigration relatively quickly and took the gangway up to the boat where we were greeted by the official cruise photographer and a plywood cutout of the ship we were about to board. Having had our photo taken we proceeded onto the boat and were directed to our quarters directly. Once we’d examined our room we set off to do a bit of exploring. Unfortunately I decided not to take the camera with me as I figured I would be on the ship for the next 12 days and would get plenty of photos of our surroundings. This proved to be a monumental oversight on my part as we somehow managed to take pictures of everything else on this trip except where we were staying. In fact, the only other photo I have prior to our setting sail is a rather uninteresting shot of the harbor.

Once underway and sailing down the River Thames I recalled a series of structures built during WWII at the mouth of the Thames Estuary intended to serve as a warning stations and the first line of defense for the river and its famous city. Known as Maunsell Forts, after the man who designed them, they were constructed in the late 30’s to early 40’s. I was curious to see if they were still intact or if the ravages of the sea had laid claim to the forgotten structures. Much to my pleasure we were able to spot these structures as we approached the mouth of the estuary.

Then I was even more thrilled when we drew to within a couple miles and could clearly see that they were not only still intact but appeared to have weathered remarkably well considering. Having done some additional research I should also mention that one of these forts is actually managed by an unrecognized principality called the Principality of Sealand.

Okay so perhaps I was a little excited about the Maunsell Forts but then is anyone really that surprised?

After the excitement of setting out on our very first cruise we settled into a cuppa on the deck before returning to our room and preparing for dinner.

Dinner the first night was a casual affair and gave us an opportunity to meet our dinner table partners (or as Amanda says, the old people we ate dinner with every night). Having been onboard for a few hours at this point and still not seen anyone within shouting distance of my own age I was a bit concerned that we would end up at a table with at least one or two stodgy retirees who would disapprove of eating with a couple uncultured ne’er-do-wells who are too young and far too American to be on this cruise. However we quickly discovered that the couples we would be dining with for the duration of our trip were wonderfully lovely people and nothing like the ones I had envisioned prior to being seated.

Having polished off the last of dessert we made our way to the Marco Polo Lounge for our first evening show on board. It was a selection of movie theme songs primarily from films that were popular in the 50’s and 60’s. They might have been playing to the crowd a bit. For the most part all of the performers were very talented and did the songs the justice they deserved; however, one particular song apparently required a Texas accent that just didn’t come across all that well to my highly trained Texan ear.

All in all it was a great start to what we hoped would be an amazing trip.

London Fog

London Fog actually refers to a black (or yellowish, or greenish according to some history books – yuck!) smog, caused by air pollution from the 1800’s coal burning fireplaces. The smoke combined with the mists and fogs rising off the Thames, thus creating the phrase.

Luckily in the last 200 years, the use of coal has decreased and the air quality has increased (or at least stabilized!) and there isn't thick, choking fog in London anymore.

That being said, we did wake up to the most amazing foggy morning earlier this week.  Enjoy a few pictures from our neighborhood below.

Bletchley Park

So what do these photo’s have in common?

 Hint: It’s an Enigma

Mom, Dad & Leeds

One of the benefits of moving from Bristol to London is a brand new list of places we can take visitors when they come to see us. We recently got to take advantage of this when my parents came to visit a few weeks ago.

During their previous visits we’ve taken Mom and Dad to Salisbury, Stonehenge, Bath, Stratford, Windsor and Wales. All places that are predominately in the South. This trip however Mom wanted to go somewhere north. We had discussed Scotland a couple of times and maybe spending a few days in Edinburgh but decided that it was a bit far of a drive if we were only going to spend one day. You really need at least three days in Edinburgh to do it any justice and we just didn’t have that kind of time to devote the city on this visit.

Therefore we decided on Leeds.

Yep that’s right Leeds.

Now for those of you from the states who may have at least heard of Leeds before I would challenge you to name why exactly you have heard of that particular northern city…..Anything yet…..well it’s not terribly surprising when you consider that when we tell our friends here in the UK that we are taking family to Leeds we get a lot of blank looks followed by the greatest question any 4 year old has ever learned. Why?

However I can honestly say now that we have been to Leeds it’s in a lovely part of the country and we really enjoyed our time at the Royal Armouries as well as the Bronte Parsonage a few miles outside of the city. Plus the hotel was rather nice.

The Royal Armouries are in a brand new building near the city centre and house a host of armour and weaponry dating from antiquity to present day. For a guy like me who finds military history very intriguing it was an excellent way to spend the morning.

It also made up for getting to go to the Bronte Parsonage later that day. On the way to the parsonage we had a bit of a problem finding somewhere to eat as every pub we stopped at on the way to Parsonage was only serving drinks. Finally, at one of the pubs we managed to find someone who directed us to the only restaurant in town at the local hotel. My mother got some pretty good pictures of the interior of the restaurant which had more decorative copper nick knacks than anywhere I’ve ever seen. And the carpet was so blue it almost hurt the eyes.

After lunch we finished our journey to the small village of Haworth where the Bronte Parsonage can be found. When mother first told me that she wanted to see the childhood home of Bronte family I’ll be honest that I had to actually look up who they were. I’ve never really been all that excited by great literary works as most of what critics claim to be amazing achievements in literature I find boring and often times nonsensical. Needles to say I wasn’t terribly excited to see where the creators of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights grew up. Yet seeing how they lived and where they grew up did much to lend a bit of perspective on what they were able to accomplish in a very short amount of team. And while I’m still not likely to run out and immerse myself in The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall I do have a new appreciation for their ability to influence other writers at a time when women weren’t viewed as literary giants.

Yes, this is how excited I was to visit the Bronte Parsonage.  Luckily it got better.

If you’re interested in more info of the weekend and my parents' trip you can find them on my mother’s blog here.

Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock

Adam found a playmate at the Royal Armories in Leeds.  The sign said that it was a replica of Henry VIII's armor.  I told Adam that by all means, let Henry win.  Do not anger the man who liked the death penalty more than anyone else in history.

For anyone who doesn't watch The Big Bang Theory...

1. You should start.  Immediately.  Quit reading this blog and go to Netflix.

2. Watch this.