Europe, 7 June 2012 - going home

International Church House

House Stairway

Today was another very early morning. We had a 6 AM flight out of Copenhagen to Amsterdam, which meant we needed to be at the airport by about 4:30. Ron & Vonnie were kind enough to get up that early and take us to the airport, on the opposite side of town from their house. We made that with time to spare.

It's a fairly short KLM flight to Amsterdam, and there we had a couple hour layover before the flight to Los Angeles. That one was 10.5 hours "over the pole." Not exactly, but over Iceland and Greenland, Hudson's Bay, and south from there to LA. Not that we could see out since we were in the middle section of a 747.

Those international flights are still good, as they serve two meals (with wine) and plenty of snacks and water along the way. Or coffee, juice, pop. The international terminal is still under reconstruction at LAX, so it was a long taxiing to the terminal. And then all the usual process of immigration, retrieving luggage, customs, etc. Then you are out of Security and need to catch an airport bus to another terminal for the flight home on Alaska Airlines. 

Yosemite Valley

That accomplished, we had a fairly long layover for the flight home. Probably because we were using frequent flyer miles and had to take what they gave. Out of LAX we were on the right side of the plane so that we had views of the Sierra Nevada mountains along their entire length. Once again we clearly saw Yosemite Valley, Mono Lake, and Lake Tahoe. North of there, the clouds obscured the ground mostly, and the report was rain in Portland. When we arrived in Portland, it was partly cloudy and no rain. Which meant we made it through the entire trip without getting rained on (except overnight in Copenhagen the night before). Orlie picked us up and brought us home. With all the flights and layovers, we had been up for about 27 hours with fitful sleep on the plane.

Lake Tahoe

That was a good ending to a great month-long trip!

Europe, 6 June 2012 -Lund

Today's adventure was a train ride to Lund, Sweden. On the way to the train, we stopped at the Russian embassy so Ron could pick up their visas for their trip to Saint Petersburg next weekend. We then met their friends at their hotel to join us on this adventure into Sweden.

The Group in Lund

After walking to the train station, we boarded the train for Lund. The route is through the tunnel and over the bridge we had seen and sailed past twice. We arrived in Lund and walked from the train station into the old town center. Our interesting luck held, as most places were closed for a national holiday, at least the third city we had visited during a major holiday.

Lund Cathedral

When we arrived at the cathedral, it was not yet open for sightseeing as a service was in progress. So we continued our walk and returned a bit later. This is a very interesting building, begun in the eleventh century, and one of the few stone buildings in the city. Most are brick, as is true in most places we visited in Scandinavia.

The cathedral has a wonderful mosaic in the apse, a new free-standing organ near the chancel, ancient wood choir stalls for the monks, and an interesting crypt under the chancel. There are, of course, several graves in the crypt, as well as a small organ, and the original altar from the eleventh century. It is amazing and very interesting to be in a church that has been standing for about 1000 years!

Apse

Altar

Choir Stalls (for monks)

Astronomical Clock

11th Century Altar in Crypt

Crypt

Lund - lunch restaurant on left

Thatch house in Museum

After lunch in a middle eastern restaurant, we continued our exploration of the town. We planned to go to an outdoor museum where many old buildings had been assembled for display. Since it was a national holiday,  museum was open for free,  Ron and Vonnie didn't even need their membership. We spent a couple hours wandering through while there was entertainment on the stage, children playing in the play area, and all the  buildings open for viewing. There is a typical (I think) wooden Scandinavian church with a sharply pitched roof (to dump the snow). It had all the usual appointments of a medieval church, including an interesting small organ.

Old Church

Church Ceiling

Interesting typical brickwork

From there we walked back through town to the train station for the trip home to Copenhagen and Hellerup. We left the group and got off the train in Copenhagen city center to do a little final souvenir shopping for the girls. After going several blocks the wrong way on the main shopping street, we walked back and finally discovered a souvenir shop (with the help of a clerk in H&M) many blocks from the train stop. But we accomplished our goal and finished our gift shopping. We returned to the train to complete the trip back to Ron & Vonnie's.

On arriving back in Hellerup we enjoyed a typical Danish dinner prepared by Ron and Vonnie. It was a festive evening with them and their friends. Then it was time to pack for the trip home.  

Europe, 5 June 2012 - Helsingor

Today's destination is Helsingor, a city of both real and literary history. Helsingor (or Elsinore in English) is straight north of Copenhagen on the northwest corner of the peninsula. From there it is a very short ferry ride across the strait to Helsingborg, Sweden, a ferry ride we did not take. Making this more interesting for us, was that we had sailed through this strait twice on the cruise, once in each direction, and could clearly identify the castle and cities. Now we were back for a closer exploration.

1699

Buxtehude was here (really!)

In the Cloister

Cloister Organ

 The town is a very interesting Medieval city. Here in Scandinavia brick is a much more prominent building material than stone, so many large buildings as churches, cathedrals, and town halls are brick. So it was at our first stop, Sanct Mariae Karmelite monastery. It had a simple, beautiful cloister. The church was major, looking like a cathedral and had all the usual appointments; altar piece, organ, apse, etc. Wandering the town brought us to the Cathedral, Sact Olai. Same story here, except the organ was new and of a very modern visual design. It would have been great to hear some of these instruments.

Cathedral Organ

Cloister Church ceiling

Cloister Church

Cathedral

We found a small café for lunch. The waiter's English was not good, and obviously our Danish was worse. Even Ron, who knows some Danish, had trouble communicating. The food was good, just not exactly what we expected.

Helsingor Castle

After lunch Ron headed home and left us in Helsingor to explore the castle, Kronborg. This is the castle we had seen sailing by on the cruise. It is well situated at the narrowest point of the strait. And may be more interesting in some ways because it is not the usual sort of extremely elaborate royal castle or palace we saw most places. Its other claim to fame is that it is "Hamlet's Castle" made famous by Shakespeare. So it may be more famous as a fictional castle than a real one.

Castle Defense

The castle itself is a square surrounding a large open area. It has a large number of auxiliary buildings around it, and is approached by crossing water a couple of times including a more traditional moat. Dick could not pass the opportunity to climb the observation tower, a large square on one corner of the building. There are a couple taller towers which look more like traditional castle towers.

Karen crossing the
Castle Moat

View of town from tower

 

Helsingor street

After spending a couple of hours touring the castle, we headed back into town to catch the train back to Hellerup. It was a pleasant walk around the edge of the old city to the train station. We bought our tickets and easily found the train for our return. It's an easy walk from the station back to Ron & Vonnie's house, where we had another quiet evening. 

Europe, 4 June 2012 - Roskilde

Today was the first day to explore the environs of Copenhagen. Since we had been there as a stop on the cruise, and had wandered the old city then, we decided (or Ron decided for us) to explore other towns in the area. Today's destination was Roskilde.

Like several other stops on this trip, I had not realized how much of Copenhagen and the other cities in this part of Europe are on islands, peninsulas, and otherwise connected to the water. Roskilde is west of Copenhagen on the south end of the inlet that forms the peninsula that Copenhagen is on.

Roskilde Cathedral

As is often the case, our first stop in town was the Cathedral. From the outside it is not spectacular, but inside it is wonderful, with its white paint and clean gothic lines. And as is often the case, many royalty are buried in the church.

Altar Piece

The altar has a beautiful altar piece with biblical scenes, covered in gold leaf. The organ, which we did not hear as usual, is in a side gallery above the pulpit. In addition, there is a small two manual free-standing organ near the chancel.

Main Organ

Chancel Organ

Cathedral clock

The other very interesting feature is the clock, which, of course, strikes the hour. And puts on a little show in which St George slays the dragon before the clock chimes. The dragon dies screaming, with three out of tune organ pipes making the sound. Quite interesting.

Karen with Viking Ship
under construction

Old Viking Ship

The afternoon found us at another museum of Viking ships. This time, there are the remains of five ships which had been sunk at the mouth of the harbor as a blockade. They are not restored, but displayed in a way that shows what size the full framework was. Again, a very interesting history lesson on the Vikings. (Ron sat and read while we explored.) The museum includes several other very good displays, a film, and reconstructed workshop, including ship building. Most were not working yet for the summer.

Viking Ship Replica

We returned to the Rentner household in Hellerup which is a residential suburb on the north side of Copenhagen, and spent a quiet relaxing evening.   

Europe, 3 June 2012 - Copenhagen

St Andrew

Today is Sunday, and since Ron is a preacher we went with them to the International Church of Copenhagen. Vonnie was the day's Sunday School teacher, so we sat by ourselves in the service. It was a slightly larger crowd than normal, but they didn't know why. No complaints.

Coffee Hour

They have a fairly large coffee hour, which most people seemed to attend. Dick discovered there was a CD available of the organ, and bought one from who seemed to be a caretaker and also an organist. By then we were just about the last ones out of the church.

In the afternoon we returned to the church, this time with music in hand, so Dick could have some time on the organ bench. It is a III/49 Frobenius, Op.466 built in 1956 and very nice. They were installing a new electronic combination action, which wasn't in yet, so it was manual stop setting. Fun to play, and good sound.

Frobenius Organ

The Little Mermain

On the way home from the church, we went to see one of Copenhagen's most famous tourist sites, The Little Mermaid. Yes, she is little (for a statue) and very close to the shore. Interesting that she's such a big tourist draw.

We then spent a relaxing evening at home.

Europe 31 May––2 June 2012 - on to Copenhagen

OK, this is the end of the cruise. We have two sea days to get back to Amsterdam, and then on to Copenhagen.

Baltic calm & sunset

We experienced some more of the incredibly smooth water in the Baltic, but not as much as last time.

Bridge to Sweden

Sailing between the Baltic and the North Seas, we passed by Copenhagen, with clear views of the city and its surroundings. OK, the city was a bit off in the distance. But the airport was clearly visible, and we could see the city center area. We also passed the bridge to Sweden again, and saw windmills lined up in the water. We'll be back in a couple of days.

Last Dinner on Cruise

Copenhagen Airport (CPH)

Helsingor (Elsinore)

Overnight we sailed in to Amsterdam and docked before we woke up. Our luggage had been picked up the night before, so we only had small carry-on bags. Since we didn't have a short connection, we were some of the last group off the ship. After retrieving our luggage, we walked to Amsterdam Centrum to store our luggage. The luggage lockers were expensive, and we needed three to get all the luggage in. But we did it.

Bikes in Amsterdam

Our goal in Amsterdam was the newest and largest Starbucks in Europe. We needed to use the free internet. It is a large interesting store on Rembrandt Plein. So with drink and snack in hand, we found comfortable chairs and caught up with email and the like. We returned to Centrum to retrieve our luggage and catch the train out to Schipohl airport.

Lunch at AMS

We had miscalculated the time of our flight and got to the airport quite early. It took a little time and effort to find the right terminal for SAS for the flight to Copenhagen. And they were not even checking people in for a couple of hours. So we had a typical Dutch lunch at a restaurant in the airport near the observation deck where people can watch the planes.

They told us the flight was fairly empty, but actually it turned out to be nearly full. And we missed the announcement of a gate change, wondering why no one was there to start the boarding process. There was plenty of time to change gates when we did discover it.

It is a fairly short flight to Copenhagen from Amsterdam. And we didn't go through any passport control or customs. Arriving in Copenhagen, the first order of business was find a Starbucks for a Copenhagen mug. The first store had none, so we walked across the airport to another. By the time we got to Baggage Claim, only our bags and a couple others were left, and someone was gathering up the left behind luggage. We got ours just ahead of him.

Ron &  Vonnie met us outside the customs area, which we had simply walked through. We walked out to the train platform and road the train to near their house. We settled in for a few days of visiting and site seeing. 

Europe 30 May 2012 - Stockholm

Our visit to Stockholm, Sweden, required tendering to a port and a long bus ride in to the city. We were about an hour south of the city at a port in the town of Nynashamn. The country was beautiful, and in some ways similar to the Pacific Northwest coast, especially around Puget Sound and Vancouver Island.

Stockholm Waterfront

We had bought a shore excursion for the bus ride in and a tour of the Vasa Museum. That turned out to be a good choice.

Once in Stockholm, we got a bus tour of the city, making a stop at Riddarfjarden Lake. From there we could see Stadshuset  (city hall) where the Nobel prize banquet is held. We then went to Djurärden Island where there are several museums.  We drove by Skansen outdoor museum with many school groups touring.

Vasa

Vasa model

Next we came to the Vasa Museum, one of the most historically interesting places in Stockholm. The museum houses the warship Vasa, which sank a couple of hours into its maiden voyage about 300 years ago. It was such an embarrassment, it was simply left where it sank and forgotten about. That is after the cannon were salvaged and masts were cut off so they didn't show above the water line. It was rediscovered in the 1950s, well preserved because of the brackish water, raised, preserved, and moved (carefully) to a museum built for it. It is a fascinating piece of history rediscovered, and reminded us a bit of the "Jesus Boat" at the Sea of Galilee.

After our visit to the Vasa Museum, the bus took us to the city center and let us off near the Opera for a free afternoon. We had about three hours to wander and explore.

The Guard Brass Band

Changing of the Guard

We walked to the Gamla Stan, the Old Town area. At Kungliga Slottet, the Royal Palace, we were just in time for the Changing of the Guard, a rather elaborate ceremony. Soldiers march in to the square, and ride in on horseback, led by the military brass band, also on horseback. They play very well in spite of being on horses. We stayed through most of the ceremony, which lasted about 45 minutes.

St George & The Dragon

Storkyrkan

Next to the Palace is the Storkyrkan (Great Church), a 15th century building that was the scene of kings being crowned till into the 20th century. Notable features inside are a massive sculpture of St George slaying the dragon, and a "light painting" with interesting use of light.

From the church we wandered to Stortoget, the Great Square. It is typical of medieval European town squares. We ate lunch in a café off the square, which seemed to be frequented mostly by locals.

Stortoget

Shopping Street

After lunch we walked the Västerlägatan back to where we were to catch the bus. It just wasn't quite where we expected, but not far away. It was a pleasant ride back to Nynashamn for the tender ride back to the ship. And that ended our last shore excursion of this cruise. We will spend the next two days at sea on the way  back to Amsterdam.