Baltic Bliss

Many of the port destinations in the Baltic Cruising region are walkable cities. Pedestrian streets and parks allow visitors to escape traffic. Continue Reading »

The Baltic Cruising Region is rich with castles and royal palaces. Visitors can still see the changing of the guard in Copenhagen’s Amalienborg Palace, residence of Queen (changing of the guard daily at noon); and in Stockholm, where the main guard has been at Kungliga Slottet since 1523. Today, military units and bands from all over the Sweden participate.
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A Viking community once existed in the town that became Visby in 1203. The Swedish port is approached between two breakwaters. Cruise ships pass the ferry harbor and then the Inner Harbor, near the city center, as well as the town wall and its towers, old homes on a hillside, and the Cathedral of Visby. Ships dock within a few minutes walk of the city center.

Take your desktop globe for a spin or pull out your atlas and cast your eyes on Europe. Look north, not south, to find the cruising region known as the Baltics.

Even experienced travelers sometimes confuse the Baltic with the Balkans. The two regions could not be more different. The Balkans fought long and drawn-out wars for most of the 1990s, The Baltics, on the other hand, remained peaceful, stable, safe and clean — just as they are today.

One of the world’s most popular and fastest-growing cruise destinations, the Baltic cruising region refers to the Baltic Sea, which stretches from southern Denmark to near the Arctic Circle. Along its shores are some of the world’s most fabled cities — Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, to name a few. All share a common climate, with the cruise season running from May through September, and a common history.

Cruise passengers set foot in lands once inhabited by kings and queens (who still exist in some of the Baltic countries), of Viking warriors and German merchants, of Tsars and seafaring wanderers. In many cities visitors see reminders of a time long ago: medieval town walls, cobblestone streets, castles, palaces and museums that house age-old artifacts.

The past decades have brought great change in the Baltics. Former Soviet-bloc countries in the Baltic region now embrace cruise passengers, and even though English is typically spoken as a second language in many of the port destinations, cruise passengers will hear a variety of tongues spoken as they stroll city streets.

Copenhagen and Stockholm, the Baltic Cruising Region’s primary turnaround ports (where most cruises begin or end), not only are conveniently connected to the rest of the world but also conveniently connected between the airports and the city centers and cruise terminals. Infrastructure is among the best in the world, and Copenhagen boasts not only the world’s best airport (according to one survey of travelers) but also Europe’s cheapest and fastest airport-to-city-center connections.

You might say that with all that is has going for it, the Baltics were “tailor-made for cruises.” Cruise passengers certainly think so. Year after year, they return in record numbers to cruise one of the world’s greatest destinations.

Situated on Gotland, the Baltic Sea’s largest island, Visby (also called “The Town of Roses and Ruins”) has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995. An impressive stonewall surrounds the well preserved Medieval town.

Visby was for a long time the natural meeting point for sailors and merchants from all over the Baltic region. Today, visitors enjoy the majestic merchants houses from 17th and 18th century along with almost 200 stone buildings – some of them dating back from the 12th century. More than 2,000 people inhabit the old town, which offers a variety of shops, cafés and restaurants.

Excursions include Northern Gotland and its sea stacks (called Rauk); Lummelunda Caves; Roma Kings Manor and Monastery Ruin; Ljugarn classic village; Herrvik fishing port; and Hoburgsgubben (The Hoburg Man), a famous sea stack.

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.

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