June 22, 2016: The Baltic Cruise

Kurt had always feared travel by cruise ship: the crowds, the crowds, the crowds. But early on Wednesday he found himself with Kathy loading their luggage in the car taking them to SFO.  Business class seats (courtesy of Delta Skymiles) to Detroit, then overnight to Amsterdam (taking advantage of the showers in the Sky Club there) and then on to Copenhagen. We only slept a few hours and found thundershowers in Amsterdam threatening the entire cruise to be shadowed by a giant storm working its way up the Baltic Sea along our itinerary of Copenhagen-Helsingborg (Sweden)-Mecklenburg (Germany)-Riga-Talinn-St. Petersburg-Helsinki-Stockholm (with a quick flight to Oslo). Arriving in Copenhagen we took the train to the central station and a cab to the Marriott on the inner harbor. After a brief respite we walked along the inner harbor exploring the city. Arriving in Nyhavn (New Port) we took a canal cruise through the city seeing all the sights including the (famous) little mermaid statue. We then walked through the old town enjoying dinner on a square at Cafe Norden (Kathy enjoyed a goat cheese salad and Kurt 3 mini-sliders). We noted a number of young people wearing distinctive hats of a similar style. Thinking we were missing the newest fad, we asked the waiter about them. It turns out that today is their graduation and the hat indicates the school and course of study they completed. We then strolled along the pedestrian shopping street Stroget to Tivoli Gardens (which Kurt thought was a garden but turns out to be an amusement park). At the recommendation of the ticket agent, we watched a children's pantomime ballet (not worth the time) then strolled though the rest of the park and returned to our hotel exhausted. Marinn told us that Copenhagen has the happiest people on earth and we did find them to be very happy and friendly.