Baltic Bliss

European cruises are like exquisite appetizers. Your ship gives you a taste of the delicious culture capitals, allowing you to decide which cities and countries are most intriguing and appealing. Each stop on the cruise ship’s itinerary is designed to provide convenient access to the primary attractions, but the cruise ship must maintain a schedule, limiting port calls to 10 hours, occasionally overnight.

For a fuller flavor of any European destination, a few extra days in one of the Continent’s great cities allows you to explore more and get a sense of the rhythms and personalities of the place. To take full advantage of the trip across the ocean, more and more experienced travelers are taking the extra time before or after their cruise, extending their stay in Europe to learn and enjoy a particular place.

Following are some quick descriptions of some of the favorite European cities where cruise travelers are choosing to spend a few extra days, find some favorite restaurants and soak in the local flavors.

A large city offering travelers and visitors many events, attractions and activities, Sweden’s capital is a friendly, attractive place built on 14 islands.

Most popular of those islands and receiving more than 10 million visitors each year, Djurgården (translated as Game Park) is an island park right in the middle of Stockholm, perfect for a pleasant two-hour stroll.

At the Vasa Museum, the restored Royal Warship Vasa, which lay at the bottom of the sea for more than 300 years after it sank on its maiden voyage in 1628, is on display with more than 4,000 coins, carpenter’s tools, sailor’s pants, fish bones and other pieces of archaeological interest retrieved along with nearly all of the ship’s 700 original sculptures.

The Nordic Museum contains fascinating exhibits of how people lived in different parts of Sweden throughout the ages, with exhibits encompassing costumes, tools, furnishings and dwellings.

A beautiful and eminently livable city, Scandinavia’s largest city was originally a fishing village that evolved into a major port of trade and is now a jewel of Northern Europe.

Despite massive 18th century fires, Copenhagen retains its charming medieval layout with plenty of Old World appeal, even as it modernizes.

There are still great buildings and 1,000 years’ worth of history to explore here, including 17th century landmarks such as the Rundetårn (Round Tower) and the Børsen (Stock Exchange).

Foremost among Copenhagen’s attractions, the Rundetårn is , an observation tower honoring astronomer Tycho Brahe, and Amalienborg Palace, the royal residence, incorporates four Rococo mansions.

Other can’t-miss sights include the Rådhus (Town Hall), with its ornate interior and gilded statue of Bishop Absalon (founder of Copenhagen), and the Royal Library, whose black-granite exterior is a beacon of modernity.

Of course, no feature is more visible than Tivoli, the city’s much-loved amusement park and a destination for culture, sociability, and dining as much as for thrilling entertainments.

Before setting out to pedal around Copenhagen, my first challenge was to obtain the proper bike to straddle. I found it at Kobenhavns Cykler, located at the Copenhagen Central rail station (on the right side if you’re facing the station).

I even found a convenient way to get to the city center to rent my bike. Outside my hotel room, Radisson SAS Scandinavia, I found two city bikes. Copenhagen has 2,500 “City Bikes” that anyone can pedal away on simply by inserting a DKK 20 coin into the bike’s locking mechanism. Lock your bike upon return at any of 110 bike-parking stations to retrieve your coin.

Or just lean your bike against a wall if you can’t find a station. Don’t worry: Someone else will return it. Of course, they’ll also collect your DKK 20 coin. Oh, and don’t take the city bikes out of the City Bike Zone, or you will be fined.

The city bike wasn’t the bike that would win the Tour de France. The tires could have used a few more pounds of pressure, and the bike clanked with each revolution of the pedals. It was shy of material for my 6′ 5″ frame. My knees knocked my chin with each pedal. I had to stand on the pedals for most of the ride, but luckily, I wasn’t going far.

The city bike would have attracted all sorts of snickering back home, but no one gave me a second look here. Cycling in Copenhagen is more of a utilitarian activity than a fitness event. Copenhagen commuters ride all sorts of bikes, in various degrees of disrepair. Some cyclists straddled nice bikes, yes, but the majority were “beaters,” bikes that, if stolen, would not send the owner into lasting despair.

Copenhagen cyclists wore utilitarian clothing as well. There wasn’t a great deal of lycra or cycling jerseys or even cycling shoes. Most cyclists wore the clothes they would wear to work or for a night out. I found that cyclists in Copenhagen and in Amsterdam generally don’t wear helmets, and I did not either.

Even without helmets, statistically, these cities are much safer than cycling in the United States. According to Bicycling magazine, Dutch bike commuters are 30 times less likely to be killed on their bikes than their stateside counterparts. I suspect Danish commuters are equally as safe.

I abandoned my city bike, not at a station, but by leaning it against a wall. It felt odd to walk away, but I did so. I walked inside and rented a worthy bike for my ride up the coast.

Finding Bliss in the Baltic

SOMEWHERE IN THE BALTIC SEA, July 1 — It is near midnight, or at least that it is what my watch tells me. The sun and sky suggest otherwise. The bright orange orb hovers over the watery horizon, casting a reddish-yellow glow on a cloudless sky.

My (then) wife and I stand on our stateroom balcony waiting for the sun to dip below the horizon. Our body clocks are out of sync, six times zones east of our home (we’ll lose two more hours as the clock moves forward one hour on each of the first two nights of our cruise from Copenhagen).

The sun seems that it will never set, even as the clock ticks — and ticks.

What a mysterious and enchanting region of the world. We are cruising at the same latitude as the Alaska Panhandle, yet aside from the midsummer sky that hardly darkens, the Baltic Sea’s similarities to Alaska are few.

For starters, we will visit not one but six countries during our cruise. Our ship will disgorge us in some of the world’s most fabled cities.

On the Baltic Sea’s eastern edge, at the head of the Gulf of Finland, we will explore Peter the Great’s St. Petersburg — for two days. No less impressive is the Baltic Sea’s western edge, marked by Elsinore, Denmark, which lays claim to Kronborg Castle, the setting for Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

In between and along the shores of the Baltic are fairy tale lands. Copenhagen gave the world Hans Christian Andersen, Sweden gave us Astrid Lindgren, creator of “Pippi Longstocking.”

Indeed, having inserted ourselves into the comfortable fuselage of an SAS jet to travel across the Atlantic and step out on Danish soil seven hours later felt like a fairy tale. It still amazes me that I can leave a small city in America and wake up the next morning in Europe.

Our days were sunny and hot (not once would we pull out the fleece we had packed). And though we had not a single day of rain on our cruise, precipitation throughout the Baltic averages 24 inches annually. By contrast, Ketchikan receives 150 inches of rain yearly.

While we would see no snow-capped mountains or glaciers, we would stroll wide pedestrian streets free of cars, sip coffee at charming outdoor cafes, suck up nearly 20 hours of sunshine each day, marvel at world class museums, stand among opulent palaces and walk along well-preserved medieval town walls.

For two weeks (a 10-night cruise combined with four nights in Copenhagen), we would live a fairy tale in these enchanting lands.

Our fairy tale began in Copenhagen, where we popped out the front door of our hotel (The Phoenix, near trendy Nyhavn) and smack into a procession of toy-soldier-like sentries making their way to the Royal Palace for the changing of the guard at noon. Here, I told my children, lives a real queen. They looked up at me with mouths agape. It was the first of many surprises for them during our blissful Baltic cruise.

As we stood on our balcony waiting for the sunset, Westerdam was charting a course for Tallinn, capital of Estonia. The Economist recently cited Estonia “as the biggest, most complicated, and most promising piece of the new Europe.”

I’m not sure what we expected of Tallinn, but we were awed by what we saw. Although the ancient architecture could have fooled us into thinking our ship had arrived in the Middle Ages, the exuberance of the local people and the bustle of tourist activity suggested that we had arrived on the threshold of the city’s epoch. And we probably had.

Although Soviet occupation ended in 1991, it was only in 2004 that Estonia — along with neighboring Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — joined the European Union. In 1154, an Arabian geographer marked Tallinn on the world map. The town quickly became an important trade town.

In Hanseatic times, luxury furs, wax and honey from Russia were delivered through Tallinn’s port, while salt from Portugal and woolen fabrics from England and Flanders came through on their eastward route.

Our ship approached a cityscape that might have been familiar to those seafarers of long ago: red-tiled rooftops, church spires and the onion domes of Russian Orthodox churches. We docked within walking distance of the Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. With its miles of winding cobblestone streets and quaint medieval houses, Tallinn is the best-preserved Old Town in Northern Europe.

We climbed the vertigo-inducing circular stairs at St. Olav’s church for a view that was worth the challenge. Only 50 miles across the sea (18 minutes by helicopter from city center to city center) we could see Helsinki. We would be there soon, after our next stop: Peter the Great’s city.

Unless you are booked on a cruise line shore excursion, you need a visa before leaving home to visit St. Petersburg. To clarify, cruise passengers who book cruise line shore excursions do not need visas. Everyone else does. Because of the visa requirement and the slow churn of Russian bureaucracy, prepare to stand in line when leaving the pier.

Two forlorn customs officials stamped passports for nearly 2,000 passengers disembarking our ship. We stood for nearly 45 minutes before it was our turn. The wait, of course, was worthwhile.

Founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and shortly thereafter becoming the capital of Russia, St. Petersburg accumulated all the grandeur of the Russian Imperial Court, and in two days, we saw quite a lot of it with our private car and guide. We began our tour at Peterhof palace, about an hour’s drive from the pier.

There, we wandered the formal gardens and grounds, with 62 cascading fountains and 142 water jets that shower gilded statues.

We were glad we had our camera — not only for the grounds but also for actors in period costumes who pose for photographs.

Tour guides recommend combining Peterhof with the lavishly baroque Catherine Palace, where the Amber Room opened in 2003. The 18th-century hall’s amber panels vanished in WWII and took decades to replicate using six tons of amber.

St. Petersburg’s museums are among the world’s most famous. The Hermitage boasts some 400 rooms containing more than 3 million exhibits Catherine began the collection in 1764 with only 225 pieces. “If you spent one second looking at each exhibit, you would spend seven years seeing it all,” our tour guide told us. “So we just do the masterpieces of the masterpieces: artworks by da Vinci, Michelangelo and Rembrant.”

Of course, you’ll want to walk inside several churches, the most interesting for us being the ornate neo-Byzantine Church on Spilled Blood, constructed on the very spot where tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881.

The next morning while walking around Helsinki, we were surprised to see a train marked “St. Petersburg.”

It’s an overnight trip by train between the two cities. Traveling in the other direction, Stockholm is an overnight ferry away, which is why Helsinki is a gate between East and West.

Finland’s capital city embodies much of the Finnish spirit but also is unlike any other Finnish city, because of the combined Swedish and Russian influences.

Founded in 1550 by Sweden’s King Gustav, Helsinki was developed as a harbor town to compete for Baltic trade with Tallinn. The Finnish capital developed around the port.

Situated in the city center, South Harbor is the cruise passenger traffic hub. Cruise ships dock within walking distance of the city center and Helsinki’s famous Kauppatori Market Square, a colorful way to begin exploration of Helsinki. We dined on fresh berries, tried on fur hats and browsed such specialties as reindeer and canned bear meat.

The largest cruise ships dock at Hernesaari in West Harbor, 10 minutes by shuttle bus to the city center. We walked to the city center, however, in 30 minutes.

Once there, we purchased a one-day City Card, which gave us free access to sights, museums and public transport, including the Tourist Tram 3T, which makes a 60-minute roundtrip from Market Square and passes most of the city’s “must-see” sights, including the Senate Square and its beautiful cathedral.

Helsinki is a pocket-size metropolis, so you can see a lot in a short time. Someone suggested we try “Nordic Walking.” We weren’t aware that people here walked any differently from us, but apparently those who do Nordic Walking do.

The activity developed because a ski pole manufacturer wanted to increase the market for its poles. Thus, ski poles were modified for walking. It’s easy going but takes coordination. Gripping the poles, you lightly push off with each step forward so that the activity provides a slight upper-body workout.

We pushed our poles around one of Helsinki’s most popular parks on paths skirting Toolonlahti Bay. It was certainly a memorable activity but one that takes practice, although you’re likely to be the only one practicing if you return home with Nordic Walking sticks.

For something more practical that we could return home with, we walked the Esplanade to find Helsinki’s best shopping. A typical souvenir: wooden butter knives. “Everyone in Finland uses them,” a Finnish friend told us before our trip. And so we purchased a couple to bring home.

With our City Card, we hopped the ferry to Suomenlinna Fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage Site founded in 1748 and built on six islands off the coast of Helsinki. Aside from the garrison and museums, we found charming cafes and cozy restaurants.

With too little time to see more of the “pocket-size” metropolis, we hopped the ferry back after only a couple of hours and boarded the Westerdam, departing for Stockholm.

A Swedish friend met us as we disembarked in Stockholm. She had come only to say hello and to share a taxi with us for the five-minute ride in to the city center where she would report for work.

On the way, she suggested that we begin our tour in Djurgarden, the lush island park that is home to the city’s most popular museums.

Because our kids were with us, our friend also suggested that we visit Junibacken, the Pippi Longstocking-inspired amusement and children’s museum. She said something in Swedish to the taxi driver and then to us,

“I’ll join you. I can be a little late for work.” And so we spent an hour enjoying childhood stories and exhibits, which we adults seemed to enjoy as much as the kids.

We stepped outside to a gorgeous summer day. Our friend looked at her watch, shrugged, and suggested we walk next door to the Vasa Museum, which houses a warship that in 1628 sank in the harbor on its maiden voyage and was brought up from the depths in 1961. We were awed by the scale of what we saw in the city’s most popular museum. We had expected a model, not the ship itself.

Afterward, our friend decided to push on a little longer before returning to work. After all, why report for work before lunch on such a beautiful day? She walked with us to Skansen, an open-air museum and exhibit that features five centuries of Swedish history.

We had an outdoor lunch, then boarded a ferry to make our way back to Gamla Stan, the city’s old town.
Founded in 1200, Sweden’s capital city boasts a wealth of cultural treasures, including medieval walking streets, magnificent cathedrals, parks, theaters and open-air and indoor markets. Proud of her city, our friend wanted us to see it all.

It was mid-afternoon when she finally called to tell her colleagues that she just wasn’t going to be able to make it in at all today. She was busy playing tourist: visiting souvenir shops, stopping for ice cream cones and sightseeing under sunny skies.

At the end of the day, we said goodbye to her. She nearly boarded the ship with us for the 50-mile journey along the beautiful archipelago of 24,000 islands. We wished she had.

Situated on the Baltic Sea’s largest island — with gorgeous fine sand beaches and a temperate climate — Visby and its environs are a playground for Scandinavians. Squint your eyes on a hot summer day and you could be in the Mediterranean.

Known as “The Town of Roses and Ruins,” Visby has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995. To see the sights, we tendered ashore and rented bikes near the tourist information center.

We pedaled along an impressive 3.4-mile stone wall that surrounds the well preserved and thoroughly charming old town. Along cobblestone streets, we rode past majestic merchants houses from 17th and 18th century and stone buildings – some of them dating back to the 12th century. We passed ruins and roses and discovered that the old town isn’t only historical. It is lively, with trendy shops, cafés and restaurants.

We were in no hurry to leave Visby, but our ship pulled anchor at 2 p.m. On the tender, another cruise passenger said what we were thinking as the island retreated into the distance. Visby and Tallinn had been her two favorite ports of call. Visby certainly represents the best of the Baltic — from the historical to the contemporary — contained in a compact city center on an island of spectacular beauty.

The city’s Mediterranean milieu combined with Swedish style makes for a match made in heaven.