ROSTOCK - GERMANY
We toured around the historic town, one of the Hanseatic Ports of the ancient Hanseatic League. More recently this was part of East Germany, and venturing away from the port, evidence of the GDR architecture became evident (varying shades of grey).
We took a tram to Rostock, the sister city to Warnemunde. The term 'sister' sounds friendly enough, but history tells us, this too involved fighting - the Baltic countries are historically very aggressive.
Rostock is a beautiful university town. It was heavily bombed during world war 2 because it was the home of the Heinkel aircraft factory, just a small part of the wall of the old factory still remains... thankfully though, the allies didn't inflict much damage on St Mary's cathedral which is the home of the only intact and working astrolabe clock in the Baltic (yep, we had no idea what that meant either; it's a huge, enormously complicated astronomical clock that is still wound by hand every day by the church sexton - see photo, which doesn't do it justice). A RAF pilot on a former tour had pointed out to our guide that St Mary's was probably left intact intentionally by the RAF so that it could be used as an orientation point when bombing the aircraft factory!
Our guide Yvonne, was around 35 or 40, and talked comfortably and at length about the recent past; she talked about the time under "national socialism", and the time as the "GDR" - much more interesting than the "ancient" history!
With 40 minutes of free time in the heart of Rostock and in the pouring rain - we decided to seek the comfort of a coffee shop, where I had a beautiful iced coffee and Wayne succeeded in his mission to have at least one German beer in Germany - a "Rostock Pilz".
We took what should have been a scenic boat ride back to the ship, but ultimately it was a way of transporting wet cruise ship passengers en masse to a bigger vessel. We were fed afternoon tea: black bread with cheese - so practical.
COPENHAGEN - SWEDEN
Beautiful weather in Stockholm, beautiful tour, and a beautiful guide, Karen. Michelle woke feeling giddy (vertigo), as she had the day before. Determined not to miss a thing she punched through... but unlike the day before in Rostock, poor old M didn't get better as the day wore on, she got worse!!
At one stage Karen and I were both steadying Michelle, one on each side. At the end of the tour Karen gave Michelle a beautiful hug and a kiss!
Our guide again happily acknowledge those parts of Danish history when they were pretty universally disliked, even after the Vikings they were continuously invading/ruling their Baltic neighbours, Sweden and Norway.
But now they are a quiet contented people. With a great system of social support (all of our guides, in Sweden, Finland and Denmark remarked on the high taxes but great system, free education, health care....) and they even seem to love their royal family too! Mary is extraordinarily popular and apparently her Danish is pretty good as well. The Amelienborg palace is in four parts, and you can walk up to the front door of each. The door below is the front door to the quarter that Frederick and Mary use... the flag flying indicated they were home whe we were there, and amazingly, this is the door that either could appear from at any time - off for a bike ride or a jog!!
Copenhagen is incredibly compact, bright and clean. But we have to remember that this was a beautiful autumn day - apparently things get a bit dark and depressing during the winter months (which is true of all of the cities we visited - temperatures in St Petersberg during winter are typically -25 Celsius)! What that means is that WHEN the weather is fine the locals make the most of it... the outdoor spaces are full of people enjoying the fine weather...
What visit to Stockholm would be complete without:
... I had no idea tha Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales could be so deep and prophetic - Emmy, Fraser, I feel I let you down!
Now I want to go there.
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