The last segment of our cruise took us to the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Sweden and Denmark before disembarking in Amsterdam, Netherlands. We booked Alla tours at three of the next four stops to better see the cities in just the one day.  

Our first stop was Helsinki, Finland, and we began our day with a city tour and views of the Market Square where we saw the Parliament Building, a Cathedral and statue in the middle of the square . Our next stop was Sibelius Square, site of the Olympic stadium, of which Finns are quite proud. They seem to be rather athletic people, and we saw lots of people jogging and even a group running a marathon. Next was a picture stop at Temppeliaukio Church, the Rock Church, built in a circle into the granite rocks of the site. It's really very beautiful and modern with natural rock walls and fine acoustics. We then drove to the Seurasaari open-air museum, a collection of old houses and outbuildings representing the way people lived in Finland hundreds of years ago. It's kind of like a living-history, pioneer museum showing the cultural development of the Finnish people. It made me realize that people in Finland in the 1700 and 1800's were living much like our own ancestors in the U.S. at the same time.

Next stop--Stockholm, Sweden.  The highlight of our Stockholm tour was a visit to the Vasa Museum where there is one thing on display--the 17th century wooden ship Vasa that sank after floating only about 100 yards . The ship was a disaster of design, top heavy and very unstable. The Vasa was then recovered in 1961 and is now on display in a warehouse built to hold her. It's a remarkably decorated ship, with hundreds of wooden statues and decorations attached to it; a shame it couldn't float. We then walked through the cobbled streets of Old Town, watched the changing of the guard at the royal palace and returned to the cruise ship. The Swedes had an amusing, tongue-in-cheek sort of attitude towards their sunken ship and life in general. Our guide told us that if there was a problem, several Swedes would get together and go out for a beer to talk about it. No worries.

We also stopped in Kalmar, Sweden, where we took the tenders to shore. Kalmar is just a small town in Sweden with a rather picturesque Old Town. We found a nice bar, checked email and walked the streets for a bit. Not much to see there.

Our last stop was Copenhagen, Denmark. The weather was cold and rainy in Copenhagen, so I guess we were lucky that most of our tour was on the bus and indoors . Our first stop after driving through the city was the famous statue of the Little Mermaid sitting on a rock in the harbor. After taking photos, we boarded the bus again for a drive to Frederiksborg Castle and a tour of the castle which is also the Museum of National History. To be honest, by this time our group had seen so many castles and palaces in St Petersburg that we were rather disinterested in another castle interior. After boarding the bus again, we drove another hour to Kronborg Castle, also known as Hamlet's Castle. However, the plan was not to tour Kronborg Castle but to climb to ramparts for the view. When we arrived there, it was raining and everyone in our group politely declined the invitation to climb to the castle ramparts. No way were we climbing multiple flights of stairs, outside and in the rain, just to see a very cloudy view over the bay. After lunch and a warm drink, we rode back to the ship along the coastal road and were glad when that tour came to an end. We were not impressed with Copenhagen as there wasn't much to see there and we had to drive quite a distance to see the two castles on our tour. Considering the cold and rainy weather (in June!), it wasn't our favorite stop.

We had one more sea day before ending our cruise in Amsterdam and disembarking. Our sea day was spent playing cards in the casino, having drinks with friends and packing our suitcases for the next leg of our adventure. We're off to Prague in the Czech Republic. Stay tuned and enjoy the pics.