GENERAL MUSINGS – Cruise
There is only one day to go on our cruise and we are sailing down the North Sea, dodging oil rigs, towards Dover which we will reach early Wednesday 8th. We know we are in the North Sea, as the seas are over 4 metres high, while the Baltic had nary a ripple. In fact we are told that many people have stayed in their cabins. We, of course, are made of sterner stuff and have eaten and drunk to our hearts’ content!! We have been on many cruises, each one is different. On this cruise we have sailed up the Skagerrak and down the Kattegat to Copenhagen but as the channel was too shallow we had to sail back down the Store Baelt (The Great Belt) to Warnemunde. This meant we had to sail under the Storebaelts-forbindelson (Great Belt Fixed Link). This is an 18 kilometre long combined road and rail bridge which is supported by two suspension bridges. Now that was a sight to behold! That is now the way to enter and leave the Baltic by large ships. Each city we visited had its own charms and other than St Petersburg and the bus into Stockholm, we did it our way. It’s easy enough to do. We were armed with Helen and Don’s Lonely Planet and visited the Info Centres and the people there were always most helpful with maps and where to go. Local transport is user friendly and easy to use too. And who said Americans are selfish? On our last night a woman from Pensacola was given a bottle of bubbly from her travel agent and insisted on sharing it with us. As it happened she had been to NZ so we were able to share a few experiences.