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Baltic Cruise and Sweden Visit—July/August 2018
Jim and Andrea Siscel
Slide Show of Photos with captions at end of trip information
 
         Andrea and Jim Siscel took a Viking Ocean Cruise of the Baltic Sea and then spent a week in Sweden visiting Andrea’s Swedish cousins during July and August.  We left Seattle on July 27th and returned on August 18th.  We flew from Seattle to Amsterdam and on to Bergen, Norway arriving the following day, July 19th. We boarded the Viking Star, a small cruise ship carrying 900 passengers.  The next day we visited a Norwegian small farm where the owner showed us around.  He raises sheep and has two Norwegian horses. As in the U. S., farmers in Norway have a second job because their farms are so small.  His second job is teaching people how to become bakers.  We sampled some of his baked goods along with coffee and hot chocolate for Jim after the farm tour.  That afternoon we had a bus tour of Bergen, finishing up in the old Hanseatic League area of the harbor.  Many of the cities we visited on the cruise were part of the Hanseatic League, a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Northwestern and Central Europe. It flourished from the 1100s to around 1450.
         Our next stop was Eidfjord, Norway, where the ship went to the end of the fjord before stopping for the day.  What beautiful country we sailed through.  At Eidfjord we took a bus ride to the Viking Village of Gudvangen.  We went down Norway’s steepest road with 13 hairpin bends to get to the village. Here people are living the lifestyles of the Viking era, including living through the winter in wooden buildings with no insulation.  The inhabitants are practicing the handicrafts that the Vikings did.  We had a lunch of Viking type food before returning to the ship.  We saw two beautiful waterfalls and a suspension bridge that came out of a tunnel and went back in another tunnel on the opposite side.  That tunnel had a round-about in it.  We found out that the North Sea oil wells money was used to improve the infrastructure of Norway.  They drilled many tunnels, one 29 Km long, we went through on that was 7.7 Km long.
         Day 3 was a visit to Stavanger, Norway.  We took a walk through the Old Town where we saw what are considered the best kept wooden houses in Northern Europe.  At the Oil Museum we learned about the North Sea oil producing area. 
         On to Alborg, Denmark, located in northern Denmark.  We visited the Alborg Castle and had some more Viking experiences and food before walking through the Old Town, a common experience on this trip.
         Copenhagen, Denmark, was next where we saw The Little Mermaidstatue as we drove to the small seaside town of Dragor on the island of Amager.  This was another trading center of the Hanseatic merchants. This was a charming small town with thatched and slate roofs.  The Danish pastry we sampled, Jim ate an extra piece, reminded us of Larsen’s Bakery in Ballard.
         The ship docked in Warnemunde, Germany for Berlin. Having visited Berlin two years ago the 2 1/2 hour train ride going and coming back to Berlin did not sound very enjoyable.  About two-thirds of the ship’s passengers went to Berlin and they were very, very tired after their 12+ hour day.  We went to Rostock, for a walking tour.  The highlight was an astronomical clock build in 1472.
         Gdansk, Poland was a highlight for both of us. We had a guided tour through the European Solidarity Center, which celebrated the history of Solidarity and the opposition, which led to the democratic transforma-tion of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.  On to Old Town and some sauerkraut perogies.  Then a sight-seeing trip back to our ship on a replica pirate ship, of which we were not impressed.  Following Gdansk we had a day at sea.
         Tallinn, Estonia, a walking tour in the morning through upper and lower Old Town, with more cobblestones.  We sure wish they had developed concrete or asphalt many years ago. The afternoon was a blast as we joined an actor who entertained us with a perspective of Estonian life in Soviet days. We sampled Vodka, Estonian pigs in a blanket, and the local cola.  One sip of it was enough, Jim would have preferred more vodka.
         St. Petersburg, Russia for two days.  We had visited St. Petersburg five years ago, so took it easy this time.  The first morning we took a bus tour driving by most of the places that we had seen before. We had a stop at one of St. Petersburg’s toilet locations in blue buses.  The second day in the afternoon we visited Yusupov Palace, owned by one of Imperial Russia’s wealthiest families.  The palace’s importance in history is that on December 1916, Felix Yusupov, worried that the mystic Rasputin wielded too much influence over Tsar Nicholas II, lured him to a palace room and killed him.  This event helped start the Russian Revolution.
         A bus tour of Helsinki, Finland took us to visit Sibelius Park to view the sculpture commemorating Jean Sibelius, Finland’s greatest composer.  We visited colorful Market Square and the many stalls with Finnish handicrafts.  
         On Friday, August 10th we arrived in Stockholm, Sweden where we left the ship a day early having seen the Stockholm sights five years ago.  We rented a car and drove to central Sweden where we visited with several of Andrea’s Swedish cousins.  Saturday, we drove to Grangarde and on to Nusnas where the wooden Swedish Dala horses have been carved and painted since 1922.  Andrea purchased several of them.  Cousin Jan asked if Jim was interested in seeing some older U. S. cars. We had seen several as we were driving on the highways.  Well, it seems that Swedish males are very interested in U. S. cars from the 40s to the 60s.  So, we drove on to Alvdalen to see many cruise down the street.  They were from show car condition to what Jim calls rust bucket condition. 
         Monday, we returned to Filipstad close to where Andrea’s grandmother emigrated from.  We took some pictures of the iron mill in Brattfors where we think Andrea’s great grandfather worked.  We stayed at a hotel where our room in a separate building looked out on a beautiful lake.  After visiting with several cousins in this area we returned to Stockholm.  We stayed one night in Stockholm and took a boat tour of the islands where Stockholm is located.  Next out to the airport for a one-night stay.  Up early the next morning and headed back to Seattle.  23 ½ hours later we went to bed at home.
         Jim took over 2,400 photos, deleted that number down to 1054, of which you can view 92.