Arrival in Copenhagen

Saturday, 1 August 2009

Our flight to Copenhagen was uneventful, which is good. We hired a taxi to take us to the port, where we met our ship, the Holland America Eurodam. The taxi driver was from Lebanon, but had been in Denmark for 19 years. He liked listening to classical music (Vivaldi). We registered and were allowed to board around 13:15. The registration was a lot smoother this year. We were on the Maiden Voyage for this ship last year and went to ports in Denmark, Norway, Scotland and England. We got settled into our room and made early dinner reservations, so that we could get to bed early for our 6:00 AM excursion in Warnemunde, Germany.

Sunday, 2 August 2009

The ship docked just before 6:00 AM. We exited the ship to get on a 3 -hour train ride to Berlin. We took a city tour including Check Point Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag. Then, we had lunch at a local restaurant. Finally, we were off to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which was our main attraction to this 13-hour excursion. Although it was a very depressing place, it was very interesting and definitely makes the torture that took place there come alive. Those who deny what happened here should be required to come on a tour. Our tour guide definitely add to the history behind this place, as he is East German and Jewish. We returned by motorcoach to the train and started our journey back to the ship. We arrived back at 21:00 very tired. The Lido Restaurant was still open...so we had dessert.

Monday, 3 August 2009

We arrived in Tallinn, Estonia at about 0730 hrs. The view from our balcony on the way into the port was really nice, with the spires of the churches from the skyline of the old town. We did not have to change clocks last night, which was a good thing after our long day yesterday. Our group was the second group off the ship. It was a cool and partly cloudy day, which was a welcome relief from the heat of yesterday. We first visited a distillery museum in Rakvere, where we got to start our day with a vodka tasting..nothing like a shot of vodka and a bit of pickle to start the day! Our next stop was "The Citizen's Museum" with furnishings from the late 19th century and early 20th century. The main event was the castle ruins (partially rebuilt) on the hill above the town. The Rakvere castle was in use from the 14th to the 17th centuries, but fell to ruin in the 18th and 19th centuries. It has been repaired and partially rebuilt with modern materials and has a lot of participatory activities to help you to understand what it was like to live there in those days. Our lunch was salas, barley mash, chicken, water, beer, and wine. We drove for about 1 hour back to Tallinn to tour the old town including the Alexander Nevski Russian Orthodox church. After a short stroll around the old town, we had a short drive to the ship. There, we had to re-connect with the communal jigsaw puzzle on deck 11 in "The Crow's Nest".
We had a light dinner and then headed for bed. Our hotel room will deliver us to St. Petersberg in the morning.