The next stop on our (seemingly) round the world tour was to the white cliffs of Dover, where we met up with some of Allen's family for a Baltic Sea cruise. The thought was, since not everyone could visit us in India, we would meet half way in Europe and get to see some of our extend family there as well! I've broken up my descriptions of the various ports into three parts, so I don't completely overwhelm you with pictures.
Cruise Day 3: Copenhagen, Denmark
Allen on bike tour
Our first stop was Copenhagen, Denmark, where Allen, Richard (Allen's brother) and I did a bike tour of the old city.... Copenhagen was mercifully flat and just the right size for a bike tour.
The canals
The city center is what you would expect a well-preseved and old European city to be: beautiful. I will openly admit that I really do admire that so many European capitals make a concerted effort to maintain and preserve the historic buildings, and thus the real charm of these spaces.... what a difference from New York City, where the buildings touch the sky and mostly look like they came out of a sci-fi movie.
Allen in front of the Little Mermaid
This is a funny story. So I'm sure most of you are familiar with the Hans Christian Andersen story "The Little Mermaid"...? Well, Andersen is from Denmark and actually lived in Copenhagen. In honor of him and his wonderful stories, a little mermaid statute was unveiled in 1913. Copenhagen used it for branding the city... but as tourism has grown it has become a symbol for the whole country of Denmark. Which isn't so surprising or seemingly weird ... except that the Little Mermaid is currently in Shanghai for a visit to China.... so for the tourists in Copenhagen they've erected a screen with a live feed on Shanghai... which is pretty weird. As the tour guide put it, The Little Mermaid has been Shanghaied to Shangai.
Cruise Day 4: Berlin, Germany
Next stop was Warnemunde (technically), but we opted to take a 2.5 hour train into Berlin to do a bus tour of the main monuments there. As I'm sure you can imagine, a lot of our stops were related to WWII in some fashion or another. We saw Checkpoint Charlie, one of the checkpoints in the American part of West Berlin...
Checkpoint Charlie
and a portion of the Berlin wall that has been turned into an art gallery...
East Berlin Gallery with Alexanderplatz in background
One cute hold over from the Cold War though are the cross-walk lights in former East Berlin.
The crossing man of the East Berlin traffic lights
Berlin was a lot more beautiful than I expected --- they have clearly spent a lot of time and energy on refurbishing all the buildings that were destroyed during the war and rebuilding the areas that had been deserted while the wall was up. Now, instead of seeming very distinct, East and West Berlin felt as if they blended into each other --- for example, at one point while we were in the bus we must have gone into an out of East/West Berlin a dozen times while winding through some backroads and there was no seeming difference between the two...... but this could just be because we got the sterilized view of this city. Nevertheless, we really really enjoyed our time in Berlin.
Parliament Building
Cruise Day 6: Tallinn, Estonia
Tallinn's old world charm
Now, "Who goes to Estonia for tourism?", is all I have to say.... the answer (not alltogether suprising) is anyone on a Baltic Sea cruise. The capital and port town of Tallinn is ready, willing, and able to take on any of the cruise ship passengers that come in. They've found their edge -- playing up the medieval roots of the old town (divided into Lower and Upper Town).
Town Crier (of sorts)
I didn't realize this till we were there - but Estonia has been bounced back and force between the control over various other Baltic countries and only gained (lasting) independence in 1991. Despite their long histories, it was pretty surprisng to learn how "young" some of these Baltic nations are.
Allen in Upper town
Tallinn also won a ton of points from the young people on our group because they had free wi-fi broadcasting from the port which we could pick up from inside the ship. Richard's now famous quote from that afternoon was "I'd rather wi-fi than eat" (he skipped lunch to take advantage of the free signal for as long as possible).
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