Baltic Sea Cruise, cont...
Day 6 Visby, Sweden
In Visby, Jeff and I took a 4 hour bike tour through the country side.
View of our ship (on the left) in relation to the port. We had to take "Tenders" to the port and back to the boat. These work as the life boats also. The ride was pretty fun as it was quite bumpy and we all got wet (I guess not all of us had fun but Jeff and I did!)
Jeff and Nicole on outcropping overlooking the ocean.
Can't have pictures of Scandinavia without a picture of a windmill. Many countries are now using the modern windmills instead of these old ones.
A good view of our ship.
Day 7 (or was it 8, I'm beginning to lose track), Warnemunde, Germany
In Germany, we joined up with another couple and their daughter who had been here before. We went on our own to two small towns (Schwerin and Wismar) by train.
This was a deserted building that had been turned into a modern art sculpture using old clothes hanging from the windows. There were a considerable amount of deserted buildings in these small towns where tourism hadn't yet reached.
Thought this car was adorable. Many of us noticed that there were next to no pick up trucks and very few SUV's in these countries. Most people got around by bicycle. If you did own a car, it was pretty old (though we did see one corvette).
Walking through East Germany was quite surreal. It was hard not to think about the Jews and other persecuted people that were forced to hide in the attics of the old buildings and to walk down the streets where battles had been fought only 60 or so years ago.
These countries are still in poverty and dealing with pulling themselves out of that dismal time. It shows. Graffiti is everywhere though there are no real organized gangs. Many people do not have phones. I really wanted to purchase a stein from Germany but couldn't find a tourist shop to get one at. When I finally found one in a tobacco store, they didn't take US money and they didn't take credit cards because they had no phone to process them with.
Our last stop was Arhus, Denmark. By this time, all the brick buildings and gothic churches began to look the same. We took a very short (30 minute) walk around the downtown area and got back on the boat.
It was a great trip but just a little too long!