Helsinki

In Helsinki, we were "parked" in the middle of the city right next to the Helsinki Eye.  One car on the ferris wheel is actually a sauna.  We're told that there are more saunas in Finland than there are cars.

We took a pretty extensive walking tour of the city.  Again, it was hotter than a pistol, but a nice breeze came up after a while.  We passed by the Senate Square:

Some curious architectural decor:

The train station, with its very serious looking guardians:

The Rock Church.  It really is constructed out of rocks, covered by a huge dome:

And ended up at the Sibelius monument:

We were off again, and headed for Russia.

Stockholm and Stieg

What kind of weather would you expect in Stockholm?  According to Weather Channel, 73 degrees.  So we hit it just right and got the high 80's.  In spite of that, we hit the streets for the Stieg Larsson tour.  But first, a visit to City Hall where the Nobel Prize banquet is presented each year.

The banquet hall:

Details from the mezzanine:

OK, on to Stieg.  As we started out, we paused in front of Larsson's favorite coffee shop (also seen in the films as Blomkvist's favorite) for a bio on the author from our guide.  Now we're going to talk here as though these characters lived...but really, these are the locations used in the movies.

As we began our walk around the Sodermalm area, one old boy in the group said to the guide "so who was this Larsson guy?"  Better question:  what the heck was the old boy doing on that particular tour?  The guide told him that Larsson wrote crime novels.  "Lime novels?"  Time to change the hearing aid battery, pops.

Salander's first apartment was too far away to walk to, but the top floor here is the 21-room apartment she later purchased with the purloined cash.  It's on Fiskargatan, you'll remember.

Here's the entrance to the offices of Millenium magazine, at Gotgatan 11:

Mikael's apartment on the top floor of Bellmansgatan 1:

And his view over Gamla Stan (it means old town):

Most important!  THE 7-Eleven where Lisbeth stopped to buy her Billy's Pan Pizza:

Finally, a beautiful sail-away from Stockholm, heading for Helsinki, Finland:

Holland for the First Time

For the first time this trip, that is.  In Antwerp, we were off on foot to Our Lady's Cathedral and to take a quick look around the city center with its Guild Houses.  These were the headquarters for the guilds (alias unions) that dominated the various trades such as barrel-making, butchering, building, and some other disciplines that don't start with "b".  They are all very ornate and most are topped with guilded (excuse the pun) statues.

The cathedral could be described, in European terms, as "abc".  Another Bloody Church, except this one contains quite a few fabulous art pieces.

And one heckuva clock tower.

We then visited the MAS Museum and rode eight escalators and mounted two flights of stairs to the observation deck. 

This part of Antwerp has its own take on art.

Our next stop was Amsterdam, where, much to our shock, it was not raining.  It was a glorious day (there's a joke about the cruise director here, but it requires a voice recording...we'll tell you when we see you).  So glorious that we took a cruise along the canals without our cameras.  We've seen and posted all kinds of stuff about Amsterdam, but we'd never been on the canals.  It's a very nice way to see the city.

Ever heard of the Kiel Canal?  We thought not.  We hadn't either, and even had a hard time finding it on the map.  It's the world's busiest artificial waterway and extends for 62 miles from Brunsbuttel at the mouth of the Elbe River to Kiel Harbor.  It was built between 1887 and 1895 and was enlarged twice to accommodate larger ships.  Using this canal saves about 250 nautical miles over going around the Jutland Peninsula.  It also keeps ships away from the storm-prone waters up there.  We had plenty of company in the canal.

There is a bike path all the way along, and plenty of people were taking advantage of it to ride, stop at various pubs and viewpoints, and take pictures of our ship passing by.

The passage took us about 11 hours.  We started in around noon and we were in the final lock at bedtime.  The next day was a sea day as we were on our way to Stockholm, Sweden.

More United Kingdom and Ireland

We did stop in Portland, UK but we made it into a "sea day" and stayed on board.  We did have clean underwear to show for the day.  The local folks gave us a rousing sendoff when we sailed, music blaring, people dancing on the dock, and a very ceremonial firing of the cannon.  I guess when they start shooting, it is time to go.  Then it was on to Waterford, Ireland and a quick walking tour around its Viking Triangle area, led by an Irish historian with an unspellable and unpronouncible but traditional name.  Sorry, no photos, nothing too photogenic there.

Next port was Holyhead, Wales and a coach (they're not supposed to say bus) trip along the Anglesey coastline.  As always, there's a castle.  This one is Beaumaris:

Next stop are the bridges that span the Menai Straight (one of them was among the very earliest suspension bridges), and a village with the world's longest name.

There are 57 letters in that name and it translates as:  The church of Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the fierce whirlpool and the church of Tysilio by the red cave.  Should be able to place that on Google Earth with no problem.

Finally, the lighthouse:

Dublin was a turnover, and most of the people changed out...353 of them.  The place was full of new faces.  We went off on a quick tour of the city with a stop at the Guinness Storehouse:

Yes, this really was there. 

But best of all, the tour included a free pint at the Gravity Bar atop the building.  It boasted a 360 degree view of the city.

We sailed overnight for Cobh.  It's pronounced "cove".  Because there is no V in Gaelic.  At Cobh, we went up towards the City of Cork, took a quick tour, and then visited Blarney Castle.  No, we did not kiss the Blarney Stone.  Two reasons:  kissing the stone is supposed to give one the gift of gab, which Gordon preferred Pati not acquire.  Pati was afraid that with her Scots blood, she'd probably explode.  And speaking of Irish spelling, we've probably all run into the name Erin.  Did anyone know that the traditional spelling is Eireann?  Meaning "Irish"?

The beautiful grounds at Blarney:

And a perfect garden for herbology classes:

Stonehenge!

There were three cruise ships in port at Southampton, two of them were the huge ones with, like, five million passengers.  And they were all at Stonehenge.

The whole point is just seeing it, so here it is:

Also in the area are hundreds of Iron Age burial mounds like this one:

We also visited Salisbury with its amazing cathedral where one can view a copy the Magna Carta.  It's called a copy because in order to spread the word of what the King had agreed to, many copies were made by hand and sent around England.  Few survived the years.  We hoped that people back then had better eyesight because it's in Latin and very tiny writing.  No photos allowed.

But it was OK to take pictures in and around the cathedral:

We liked these guys:

A hound guard near St. Ann's Gate:

The next day we were in Portland, UK for a short day.  The crew were excited because the Seven Seas Explorer was parked next to us and they got to get together with their friends.  We decided to take the day off and enjoy the views from the ship.  And catch up on laundry.

Still Life with Wine

Arthur, the sommelier, was rooting around in the wine stores and he found this bottle of wine, the last one of its kind onboard, and sent it up to us.  We remember drinking this Mondavi Meritage on our Navigate the World trip last year, so we know for a fact that this wine has been around the world at least twice!