We are back

Arrived Southampton on schedule at 5:30 am. Early shower and breakfast then next stop home.

BTW Sorry I disabled "comments" in order to stop spambots from infiltrating the blog. They are turned on again, now that I can manage them from my PC, and I am expanding the cruise details.   

Final Day

It's a beautiful warm sunny day and the North sea is as flat as a pancake - just typical! Ah well, a bit more culture, chilling out on the lawn, bling shopping and packing.

Need an early night as the ship docks at 5:30am and we are due to disembark at 8:45am.

Home Run

Two days at sea en-route to Southampton and the end of our cruise. Time for some on-board enrichment. Russian history, scrap booking, talks on the ships systems, glass blowing, cookery demos, cocktail drinking and dining. One final DJ night and then its packing. Disappointingly cloudy and cool again so no sun bathing round the pool or on the balcony today . Apparently we can look forward to a hot BBQ weekend back home.

Copenhagen

Walked along the front to the royal palace to see the changing of the guards. We passed the famous little mermaid only a few hundred yards from our berth. It was almost hidden by Japanese tourists taking photos. We coffee'd by the old harbor, just to use up last year's Krone, then went back to the Eclipse for afternoon tea.   

Later we had an excellent dinner in the Qsine speciality restaurant with sushi lollipops, lobster snails and other weird and wonderful dishes. Everything here is different. You order any number of course you like, up to 20 that is, on an Ipad and just wait to see what appears! As they say - a unique dining experience.

Sea day and well deserved rest

After four days of intensive sight seeing - today we did - absolutely nothing. Cruising south and east now towards Denmark so we are only getting a bit of morning sun on our balcony.

Tallinn

Tallinn is lovely and relaxed, such a contrast with its next door neighbor Russia. Friendly, picturesque and compact old medieval town. As I write this on my phone we are sitting in a tiny alley cafe in the sun, sipping coffee and eating quiche, away from the hoards of tourists (must be at least 6000) from the cruise ships.

Lots of pavement cafes and good quality souvenir shops. Wonder what they do when the winter comes.

We are only here for a few hours so we must come back again for a mid week break before it is ruined by all the stag and hen parties.

St Petersburg again

Today we were taken to the Hermitage Museum complex (world class art in abundance), Church on Spilled Blood (iconic onion architecture) and St Peter and Paul Cathedral (where all the Czars are buried). So much gold in all the palaces and churches it makes your eyes water. There must have been a massive contrast between the rich and the poor, little wonder there was a revolution.

We lunched on typical Russian pies called Pioggia a bit like Cornish pasties but many different types fillings including the signature cabbage and egg ! Its been another hot sunny day so we have been lucky with weather. Back to reality tomorrow in Tallinn maybe. There is a barrage across the Baltic with huge lock gates to protect St Petersburg, which is not many feet above sea level, from being flooded by storm surges.
The outer ring road follows the barrage and there is a deep tunnel under the lock. Its 3 hours cruising and almost dark when we pass through the gates.    

St Petersburg

Ships photographer

Now it's toooo hot - 90! After an hour getting through customs we started our 2 day tour with 3 other couples (two American, one Liverpudlian) on an SPb mini bus tour we had arranged on the Internet. A young student Alioli was our guide.

First it was Peterhof Palace gardens and fountains, then Catherine's Palace (at Pushkin) preceded by a quick photostop tour of the other main city landmarks. We had a fast food lunch of savory pancakes The sunny weather was good for the sights but very hot and tiring as we were stuck in Pushkin's carnival traffic for about an hour. Magnificent golden palaces and fountains, puts our NT heritage to shame. The very stressed young guide found it difficult to cope with a mutinous tourist group at times. We even ran across a road where a marathon was taking place to get to the Hermitage museum!!!

Helsinki

Lovely sunny day. We took the shuttle bus to the city centre and walked down the main boulevard to the  harbour side with its market and then up to the Russian church. We followed a military band to Senate square and did a bit of souvenir shopping. We had lunch at City Hall staff canteen (don't ask!) but it was a real bargain. Sun shone all day and it was warm! Nice sail away with the sun setting at 11:25pm, We are so far north now it doesn't get dark at all!

Stockholm sailaway

A highlight of the cruise, so far, sailing between the thousands of islands that make up the Stockholm archipelago. Five hours of beautiful scenery in the evening sunshine on route to Helsinki. Very exclusive summer retreats on the islands.

Now I have another 100 photos to sort out! But its a nice problem to have.

Stockholm

Cloudy but warm. Shuttle bus dropped us in town by the opera house and we walked into the adjacent old town area known as Gamla Stan. Bought shares in coffee shop and had free coffee - well it seemed like it. We took a ferry to Vasa Museum to see the jaw dropping restored ship wreck. The massive flagship went down in the harbour in 1628 on its maiden voyage. We had an expensive roll and coffee in the cafe. Walked back to shuttle bus stop along the harbour front passing the royal palace, government house, etc. taking photos. Rosemary took lots of photos of trolls  - she will explain if asked.

All at sea - again

Cruising from Germany to Sweden today. First it rained, then it cleared, then the fog came down and now it's windy but at least the evening sun is appearing. Plenty to do on board but the lawn is now too wet for the golf tournament. Just have to hit the cocktails until we dock in the morning.

A grey day in Rostock

Another winters day, this time in Germany. Rostock and Warnemunde would both be very nice places in the  sun, but we made the best of them with a walk around and a lunch time snack.

Warnemunde is on the coast and has a nice pleasure harbor and beach, but it was a bit too cold and breezy for a paddle.

It poured with rain in Berlin (one of the day trips). 

All at sea

A sunny day cruising between Belgium and Germany, the long way all around Denmark. Watched the Corning glass blowing demo on the lawn and a bit of sun bathing on the balcony.
Had dinner in the sea view cafe for a change, it was almost deserted. Due in Warnemunde at 9:30 tomorrow.

Zeebruge - Sunday

A miserable start to the day so we stayed on board (we have seen Bruges in the rain before!) and explored the ship which is very big and spacious, but its open plan atrium is very noisy in the evening.

Brightened up later as we left for Germany. DJ needed for the formal dinner tonight.

We are off

Rosemary on our balcony

Left at 5:00 pm Saturday after a long drive delayed by a traffic accident for 45 nail biting minutes on the A34. Miserable weather, the ship looks great, just unpacking as we cruise past Isle of Wight. 

Next stop Zeebruge in 168 miles, hope its a bit brighter tomorrrow morning.

This is our 2013 Cruise Blog

This is a companion to our motor home blog roemin around and I will be using it for our forthcoming Baltic cruise.

Our "boat" this time is the Celebrity Eclipse and we have a state room (ie cabin) in the middle of the lower deck at the back. Its so cool to watch the wake as we cruise along.