Amsterdam, Netherlands

Ah, Amsterdam, a city that caters to every way of life and finds nothing taboo. Its beautiful buildings and streets, it's endless canals and sophisticated ways. The perfect place to end our cruise and spend a few days exploring.

The diversity of this city is a wonder to witness; it's the type of place that sitting back and people watching can show you the extremes this town has to offer. Even though I've been here before, it's still an eye-opener for me. Your belief that you know what to expect in the redlight district is tested indeed; I now know more than before just by window shopping!

Decided to try some local fare in our area of Amsterdam. We were recommended to try Haesje Claes Restaurant that had Dutch cuisine, and we tried dishes that are local to the area. Trying the local cuisine is a way to understand the culture of the city. While Amsterdam itself is diverse, the traditional Dutch food is something I'm sure with which they can all agree. 

Having extra days in Amsterdam, we took a tour of the Windmills and local fishing towns. Although it felt like cattle driven through a tourist town, we did get to see some beautiful running windmills, a picturesque fishing village and how to make cheese & clogs.  If you can bypass the herding through tourist stores, you can still appreciate the local producers that make a living with the windmills, the cheese & the clogs. Included is cheese tasting with many flavours, also a stop to explain a brief history of the Netherlands.

 With the end of the cruise, and our time in Amsterdam we headed back to Rome to catch our flight back home. I enjoyed the trip, the slow, lazy way through Italy, the delightful places we stayed at, and the luxury cruise through the Baltic Sea. Another number of ticks off my wish list.

Regent Seven Seas - Voyager

I discussed this Baltic Cruise line in a previous post. I have been on a few different cruise lines, and it's not just the destinations, you need to take into account your preferences on the size of the ship, the typical traveller on board, family cruises, culture immersion cruises, luxury, age-appropriate, etc.

On this particular cruise, we decided to see if we could visit the ship's galley.  With our request granted, a group of approximately 20 people assembled to go the ships galley. The head chef took us on the tour through the galley and explained the mechanics of storing, cooking and serving the 700 passengers on board to the standard they need to meet.

The amount of bread baked daily is astronomical; fresh food is brought on board at every stop and usually consists of whatever is the local fare.  There are descriptions and pictures of how each plate is cooked and presented. The head chef comes in at 5 pm to do a run through, and all items on the menu are prepared and submitted for inspection. If all is satisfactory, then the staff get ready for the passengers selections. Before each meal goes out it must be like the picture, or they must start again and at the end of the night explain as to why their plates weren't up to par.

On board our particular ship we had a young but capable Swedish Captain. He was seen around the vessel often and was readily available. Our cabin being approximately three suites from the bridge made it more likely to bump into the captain, which we did. He was a delight to chat with and had a great sense of humour.

I would recommend that you choose your cruise line carefully as it can make the difference between a good cruise holiday and an excellent cruise holiday.  If you're interested, my new book on 'Who What Wear of Cruising' is to be released end of February. In it, I discuss cruise lines, dress regulations, ship terminology and tips on getting the most of your cruise. Please email me for more details at tanyalococo@gmail.com

Malmo, Sweden

Malmo is the third largest city in Sweden. Malmo is classified as a global city. It was one of the earliest and most industrialized towns of Scandinavia. It has an excellent relationship with Denmark and has undergone a major transformation after the completion of the Oresund bridge. It has attracted IT and biotech companies and well as many architectural changes.
A particular architectural structure that stands out is the 'Turning Turso' that is quite an architectural achievement.

The differences between the old and the new architecture are quite evident in Malmo. 

We were fortunate to have Baroness Trolle as our tour guide of her lovely property and castle Trollenas.

This beautiful castle built in approximately 1085 and has had a long history of family ownership.

The current owners obtained the castle when Denmark ceded to Sweden in 1658. The property had been returned to Knud Thott at the end of the Scanian war, he had in the meantime exchanged properties with Mrs Helle Rosencrantz whose family was originally from Sweden and she wanted to bring back her family to Malmo under Sweden's rule when peace was restored. Kund Thott wanted to remain in Denmark so was willing to exchange properties when Malmo became part of Sweden. The castle anf lands remained in the families hands after that. Then in late 1800, the then present Baron Trolle had the castle redesigned to give it its renaissance look of today.

Baron Ulf Trolle now owns the castle and estate, during the tour the Baroness explained that no longer does the eldest son gain everything, it must be shared amongst the siblings. As she is his second wife and he had other children, his older children will receive a monetary inheritance and the Baron & Baroness' daughter will inherit the castle, and hopefully continue the tradition. Listening to the history and the openness of the Baroness' life and the issue of how inheritance worked was fascinating.

To assist in maintaining the castle, they open for tours and cater for small functions. The Baron, Baroness and their daughter live on the property, and the only staff they have is cleaner that comes in once a week. Not the way I thought an owner of a castle would live but a truly lovely lady that loves her husbands family history.

Gdynia, Poland

Gdynia Poland is one of the most important ports in Poland. It had a long history and was part of the Kashubia area in Eastern Pomerania. The Port was developed in 1920 by the Polish government as they needed a port city for political and economic reasons.

Gdansk is the old town near the harbour of Gdynia. It had the largest mill in medieval Europe and was an important grain exporter, with many grain houses dotted along the river banks. Today only some remnants of the mills and that time can still be seen, but the town of Gdansk is still in its glory. Travelling from the port inland, the old town of Gdansk is now a tourist attraction with a long history and definitely, a place to visit. The buildings artwork tell stories of the history of the area.

Other than it's milling history the region's well known for its Baltic Amber, as its one of the most valued ambers; but take care when you purchase some to make sure it's real. One test is to drop it in salt water if it sinks it's not real.  Baltic Amber is a lightweight organic fossil resin and should float. You'll find it everywhere and for various prices, indulge yourself as it's a beautiful piece to own or gift, but check out the more reputable dealers.

You must try the local version of a strudel; it's vanilla custard on apple with a pastry base. A delicious dessert with your coffee and at a reasonable price too!
Between Gdynia and Gdansk you can find many new malls, which feature some of the western chain stores we all know. An indication that the economy must be doing well if these western stores are opening up there.
For me, it was a surprise to see this city had many recognisable chain stores as I thought they'd be more like Russia, with independent boutique style stores.

Klaipeda Lithuania

Klaipeda is the third largest city in Lithuania; it's had a different past with influences from German and Russian possession throughout its history. Although it developed as a German port, the Lithuanians considered it their own. Then becoming part of Russia to finally regaining its identity. Klaipeda has a population of 100,000 is still more predominately a Russian speaking city.

I took a tour of the legends and folklore of Klaipeda; it seems most of the stories involved an evil male trying to trick a female into marrying him and the female either tricking him back or getting away from him to find her true love.

The coastal town of Palanga is a popular summer tourist designation, known as the Summer Capital of this beautiful coastline, white sandy beach, and lovely buildings, it's where many of the locals of Klaipeda go for their summer break and many Russians travel too.  History shows this area as a large fishing town. The fisherman wanted others to know which area they fished and who they were, so they developed the Weathervanes that told their story, and these were put on their boat. These weathervanes indicated where you were from, the family; the number of boys and girls, basically they told your story.

The local food in this area is very high in fat due to the extreme cold conditions they have in winter; it was explained to us how these dishes were made, they sounded splendid, so we had to head off and try some of their local dishes. Wasn't disappointed either, there were excellent local dishes at many of the local restaurants.

Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and has nearly 1 million people living in the CBD. Sweden is made up of 14 islands. I have visited Stockholm before but albeit quite some time ago. It left the 'I must return' impression on me, and I have finally managed to make it back.
Cruising towards Stockholm you encounter so many beautiful properties on the waters edge, I remained on my balcony a considerable amount of time enjoying the views as we cruised towards the port in Stockholm.

As I enjoyed the Steig Larsson books starting with 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', this is set in his version of Stockholm. I took the ship's organised tour of his Stockholm, and we went to the south side. It's different from the CBD and has some stunning picturesque areas where if I had the time I would sit and meditate or just take in the beautiful city across the water. Of course, many of the areas he spoke about are a mixture of real and fictional, to enhance his storyline, but there are places, street addresses and coffee shops that you can visit that are real and mentioned in his books.

The Scandinavian way of decorating buildings is very obvious in Stockholm with all their colour and characteristic architecture. I've always enjoyed the Scandinavian style of functional, cleverly designed minimalist furniture; this reflects in the way they design their buildings too.  With this particular cruise we were crisscrossing the Baltic sea, and unfortunately, we had only a quick visit, and so Stockholm remains on my 'must return to' list.

It would have been my preference to have a longer stay in Stockholm even overnight like a few of the other cruise lines do and fewer destinations to be able to immerse yourself in the culture of each particular stop. I'd truly like to explore more of Sweden and its islands to get a better sense of this land, culture and its people. I'd suggest a tour of Scandinavia on its own, probably self-driven to see a different side of it and also get to more than just the capital cities, A trip like I did in Italy and wrote about at the beginning of this blog.

Helsinki Finland

What an unexpected welcome surprise we had in discovering Helsinki.  It's such a beautiful Scandinavian country. We found the city to be very cosmopolitan and with an upbeat vibe. Coming from a strong coffee culture, I was delighted to note that Helsinki is up there with their coffee culture too, did so enjoy having them here!
As we arrived into port, we were greeted with some stunning architecture and a beautiful vista of the city.

The architecture has a similarity to the buildings found in St Petersberg but without the obvious style of the Russians.  There has been heavy trade throughout the Baltic sea; therefore, many cities were influenced by their neighbours

The architectural styles even amongst their churches are noteworthy, from the traditional to

Helsinki's most inspiring architecturally designs. The Temppeliaukio Church a Lutheran church was designed by architects and brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen which open in 1969. Built directly into solid rock and is commonly known as the Rock Church.

      

I've always wanted to explore more if the Scandinavian countries and Findland is now on my revisit list.

I do recommend that you should go to the market in the wharf area and try some of the local

 fare they sell and cook there. I tried the reindeer sausage and meatballs. Gamey but good. 

                                

                                                           Enjoy!