A Baltic Sea graduation trip for grandsons

Recently, Kami and Garret Braun, Kara, Jenaka and Gunnar Nelson and I enjoyed a cruise on the Baltic Sea, where we visited seven countries. The trip was a high school graduation present for my grandsons, Garret and Gunnar. The group landed in Copenhagen, Denmark and visited the Tivoli Gardens where we were surprised by how many people rode bicycles. There are lanes set aside for the bikers with hundreds of people pedaling by. They walked down to the canals and saw the Church of our Saviour with its corkscrew spire. We noticed the price of gasoline there was about $7 per gallon.

The next day our group got on a ship and went to Oslo, Norway. It was here that Garret had bad luck and was taken to the hospital where he had an appendectomy. He and Kami stayed there two days and then flew back to the states. Four of them continued on the cruise. In Norway we visited a Viking museum which had a ship that was built in the 800s; we shopped in their modern mall and found out there are no free public restrooms.

On to Germany where we docked at Warnemunde and took a train into Berlin. We saw the Holocaust Memorial, the Berlin Wall (the east side was covered with art work while the west side was just like it was during the Cold War), Check Point Charlie, museums and a famous Christmas store.

The ship then cruised to Tallinn, Estonia. This was one of our favorite cities as we could just walk off the ship and into the city. There we visited an old monastary from 1246, an open air market and climbed to the top of Kiek in de kok which is a German nickname for watch tower. We shopped for amber jewelry and trolls. Lots of movies set in medieval times are filmed there.

St. Petersburg, Russia was next. Here we went into Catherine the Great’s summer castle, ate caviar with vodka, cruised on the Neva River and down many canals; there are over 340 canals. It’s a beautiful downtown area, but the apartment buildings and outer factory buildings were ugly and decrepit. We were on a guided tour and only got to see what they wanted us to see. We also saw the ship, Aurora, which fired the shot which started the October, 1917, Russian Revolution.

Next was the Church of Spilled Blood, which was a beautiful gold-draped, onion-domed church.

Gas there was $3 per gallon.

Helsinki, Finland, was our next stop. It was nice to see happy people and colorful buildings. We visited the farmer’s market, Helsinki Cathedral and the Sebelius Monument.

Then it was Nynashamn, Sweden, where we had to take small boats on our ship to shore as the harbor was too shallow. We saw the famous Swedish swans and enjoyed the harbor sights. The signs said “No parkering.”

On our way back to Copenhagen, we saw hundreds of wind turbines (like the ones near Ellensburg) out in the ocean. Our great trip was now over; we had covered 2,343 nautical miles and learned there were 55 different nationalities on board our ship.