A Baltic Sea Cruise

I'm back from my cruise which took place on a smaller ship than the usual monsters (800 passengers maximum) and therefore was a lot more fun for me. As usual, I got a truckload of photos. So here's the traditional overview post of the places I've visited.

Visby and Gotland's west coast (Sweden)

A Medieaval town that belonged to the Hanseatic League and to the Gotland Trade League before, with some well conserved town fortifications, a cathedral, nice old houses (trade made for rich merchants who in turn built pretty houses to show off), and a few ruins.

Visby, the town walls
I took a bus tour along part of the west coast of Gotland so I could catch some impressions of the landscape, too. We had some interesting stops; one of them the ship setting at Gnisvärd. The flip side to guided tours are the other people in the group, but I managed to keep their appearance on photos to a minimum.

Bronze Age ship setting
Stockholm, and Stockholm Archipelago

I've lived there back in the 80ies. It was nice to revisit the place. The sun played along, too, as it did most of the tour. No grey and stormy Baltic Sea photos, I'm afraid. Well, we got some of those along the Norwegian coast last year.

Stockholm, the town hall
One place was new to me; the Vasa Museum where Gustav Adolf's flagship, which had sunk in Stockholm harbour in 1628 and was resurrected in the 1950ies, is now displayed in full splendour after years of conservation and reconstruction work.

The Vasa
Our ship cruised the archipelago in the evening which made for some great motives There are about 2400 islands of all sizes from several square miles to 'just a boulder with a fir tree', and on the larger ones, many Swedes have summer houses.

Romantic islands in the evening sun
Helsinki and Porvoo (Finland)

Helsinki is a rather young town, compared to places like Visby, but there was a tour to nearby Porvoo, a small Mediaeval town with pretty timber houses which, albeit not exactly Mediaeval (those had a habit of burning down during history), give the place an old fashioned, charming flair.

Helsinki Cathedral
St.Petersburg (Russia)

We stayed in St.Petersburg for two days. It's the time of the white nights now when it doesn't get fully dark, but twilight remains. It was unusually warm, too. Petersburg is a town of cathedrals with golden cupolas, splendid palaces, kitch vendors, and cars. I bet London has nothing to the chaos on the roads in St.Petersburg.

Church of Christ's Resurrection
The town is also bascially built on a swamp by Peter the Great, and it's a place with a history of assassinations. The above church was erected on the spot where Tsar Alexander I got killed, and Tsar Paul wasn't safe in his pretty palace below, either. I took an evening cruise on the many canals that cut through Petersburg which was a nice change to the road traffic. Here are some impressions from the Neva.

Palace of Tsar Paul
Tallinn (Estonia)

Another Hanseatic town, known as Reval when most of the territory of todays Baltic States was in the hands of the German Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights.

Tallinn, view from the Upper Town to the Old Town
Riga (Latvia)

Another member of the Hanesatic League. It is amazing how fast those towns managed to repair their historical sites that often had been damaged or destroyed during WW2 and neglected during the Sovjet area. Tallinn, Riga and Gdansk all have World Heritage status today. And the beer is still cheaper than in Germany. *grin*

Riga, House of the Black Brotherhood
Curonian Spit and Nida (Lithuania)

The Curonian Spit (Kurische Nehrung) is a 98 km long dune spit that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. To prevent the dunes from covering everything, a reforesting program had been established in the 19th century, and today there are birch and pine woods, but still a lot of sand, too.

The Geat Dune
And some pretty villages like Nida (formerly Nidden) which had been a summer residence of rich Germans post WW2. The writer Thomas Mann spent some time there, and it would still make a good writer's retreat today; the place is very quiet, with the lagoon on one side and only a mile or so to the Baltic Sea.

A fisherman's hut in Nida
Gdańsk and Malbork Castle (Poland)

Gdańsk is another town with a great Hanseatic tradition and lots of beautiful old houses as well as an interesting cathedral. It's also a centre of amber working and amber trade, in good Medieaval tradition when amber was one of its main export articles. Yes, I got me a bracelet.

Gabled houses in Gdańsk
Amber trade was in the hands of the Teutonic Knights, and boy, did they build a whopping big castle a bit inland. Sorry, Edward I, but your Welsh castles have nothing to the Marienburg (Malbork Castle). I was lucky to be able to spend several hours there, exploring at least part of it.

Marienburg (Malbork) Castle, middle and inner bailey
Kiel Canal (Germany)

Better know as Nord-Ostsee-Kanal in Germany. Since our ship sailed off from Bremerhaven at the North Sea, we had to cross the canal to get to the Baltic Sea (it's much shorter than rounding the entire peninsula), and on the way back it took place mostly during daylight. It was almost like a river cruise.

Traffic on the Kiel Canal
Bremen (Germany)

On the way back, I stopped in Bremen for a few hours, to add another Hanseatic town to my collection. Its Renaissance town hall is one of the most beautiful in Europe, and there's a cathedral and some narrow streets with old houses as well.

Bremen, the town hall
Blog fodder for months to come, and I haven't even finished all posts about the Welsh castles from 2008. *sigh*