May 7, 2011
An English Potpourri-

The first paragraph is for the immediate family. If you are not immediate family you can go ahead and read the paragraph but you probably won't get it.

We were catching a bus in Knightsbridge this morning very near our first hotel. The Knightsbridge Green Hotel is still there but the rest of the area is very different. The Chicago Rib Shack is now on Kensington Rd. about 5 doors down from the hotel towards Brompton Rd. The wonderful sweater shop at the corner of Kensington and Brompton is still there but the outside is very different. All the buildings across the street from the hotel have been torn down and replaced by a posh residence hotel owned by the Mandarin Group. Good news: the Persian rug store is still having a going out of business sale! Really.

We were in Kensington this morning shopping for a curling iron, for Lynda, and dealing with a couple of cell phone issues. Most of our travel about London is done on buses. While the tube(the London subway system) is faster we see more from the bus. We have been through many new neighborhoods to us while also revisiting familiar old haunts. After shopping we returned to Notting Hill and had lunch at an Indian restaurant. Lynda had several vegetarian starters and Tim had a lovely chicken curry.

The highlight of the day was the Portobello Rd. street market which is held each Saturday. Portobello Rd., about 5 blocks from our apartment, is closed to vehicular traffic and block after block of stalls are set up selling all sorts of different wares. Starting at the south end of Portobello, the stalls all sell antiques. Many of these antiques would impress the Antique Roadshow crowd, most of the others not so much. After the antiques come the food stalls. Lots of fresh vegetables and several fresh fish stalls. There were also many stalls selling freshly made sandwiches. We stopped at one stall and bought a quice and a barok, a turkish sandwich made with phyllo dough stuffed with meat, for out dinner tonight in our apartment. We also bought a slice of apple cake that one of the other customers told was the best she eaten this side of Denmark. One stall was selling freshly made paella made on the spot in huge paella pans. It looked and smelled delicious. After the food stalls come the general merchandise stalls selling everything from t-shirts to CD's, most of it pretty cheap. One stall was doing a great business selling Royal Wedding souveniers. Think Christmas, family! It was very crowded with young and old alike and everyone, including us, was having a great time.

Another minor highlight was visiting the travel bookstore that Hugh Grant owned in the movie Notting Hill. It is actually a real book store in Notting Hill. Unfortunately, neither Hugh nor Julia Roberts were there today. Maybe they will be there next week.

We feel like the editors of National Enquirer as all of your enquirering minds have wanted pictures of our apartment. You have probably seen those already posted. Besides our apartment there is a picture of Little Venice. We will try to get pictures of the Portobello Rd. street market in our next posting.

After carefully rereading the instructions that came with the apartment, we have discovered that we can access the internet so, hopefully, postings will be made more often.

Tomorrow is a quiet day. After having our Sunday joint (roast dinner), we plan to go to St. Paul's Cathedral for the 4:00 Evensong service. We are doing this for two reasons: 1. To go to church, and 2. to avoid the 15 pound per person charge that is usually made to visist St. Paul's. We will make a healthy donation in the collection plate!

Ta for now.

English Potpourri

A Month in England

Thursday, May 5, 2011
Cheerio from London-
So far everything has gone perfectly, knock on wood. Our flight from Detroit to London was uneventful and actually arrived at Heathrow 30 minutes early. We did have a particularly long line at border control but when we came out of the arrival hall there was an announcement for “Passenger Crandall arriving from Detroit, please meet your driver at the Information Desk.” So we very quickly were whisked away to our apartment, arriving in Notting Hill about 9:00. It does not take long to inspect a three room apartment so by 10:00 Lynda was happily napping and Tim was exploring the area. We are located in a residential neighborhood so it is a bit of a walk to shops, restaurants, pubs, etc. The shops are interesting because they are locally owned, no chain stores to speak of. Portobello Road has an interesting blend of true antique stores as well as tourist dive souvenir stores. Any of you wanting commemorative gifts from Will and Kate’s wedding, get your orders in quickly! There is also an interesting blend of restaurants. Within several blocks are Italian, Indian Tandoori, Asian, Thai, and Mexican restaurants as well as a very nice selection of pubs. There were not many people on the street this morning when Tim did his walk about, but we just got back from lunch and grocery shopping and there were many more people out and about. We are anxious to see what it is like in the evening. The only negative so far is that the apartment does not have internet access. The pub we had lunch in was also supposed to be an internet café but we had no luck there either. In a little while we are going to get our London Transport cards and then take a bus ride. We will keep an eye out for internet café’s on our bus ride. We are both thrilled to be back in London and will fill you in on more of our adventures in a day or two.
Cheers!

Friday, May 6
We are sitting in the Café in St. Martins in the Fields, a famous church located in Trafalgar Square. The Café is actually in the crypt of the church. Madi would love it! We both had fish and chips. Lynda once again did not eat her mushy peas. Tim wonders why he is abused about not eating vegetables. It is a stunning day, temperature in the 70’s with abundant sun. Eat your hearts out. We spent the morning in Little Venice which is located in the Maida Vale section of London. It gets its name from the canals that run through the area. Lots of boats are permanently anchored in the canals as residences. We have some shopping to do this afternoon and hope to spend some time in the National Portrait Gallery. Tomorrow will be our first visit to the Portobello St. Market. We are looking forward to that. Just hope the heavy showers predicted for the weekend hold off.
More later.

Helsinki/Stockholm

Greetings- July 26, 2010

This will be our final blog posting. We leave the ship tomorrow morning (Monday) and fly home Tuesday. St. Petersburg had been a pretty intense and exciting three days so, unfortunately, Helsinki was a bit of a let down. Maybe it would be more accurate to say they we were not mentally prepared to enjoy all that Helsinki had to offer. Our ship was able to dock not more than a five minute walk from the part of Helsinki that we wanted to visit. The view from the top deck of our ship of Helsinki was another one of the many postcard views we have experienced on this trip. There was an open air market near our dock that catered to both tourists and locals. There were lots of booths with craft and souvenir items. Those of you still in our will may have something to look forward to. Fur seemed to predominate: mink, fox and reindeer. We did not buy any fur for two reasons: 1) it was very expensive and 2) Jilayne would have had a major hissy fit! Tim also passed up the opportunity to have a reindeer steak in one the restaurants for pretty much the same reasons plus not wanting to explain to his grandchildren that he had eaten Rudolph. There were also booths selling fresh fruit and vegetables as well as freshly caught fish. The fruit and veggies were gorgeous.

There was a lovely Lutheran Church that we wanted to visit but it was closed for a couple of weddings so we could not see the interior. Some of our fellow ship mates who were able to get inside said that it was very simple and beautiful inside, a very serene change from the ornateness of the Russian Orthodox churches we visited in St. Petersburg.

We also did some more geocaching and actually joined up with a couple from the Netherlands at one of the geocaching sites. Not only have we geocached in foreign countries but we have now geocached with foreigners. Lynda thinks that is pretty cool.

We had a very rough crossing from Helsinki to Stockholm. The roughest of the cruise. Tim handled the rough seas like the old salt that he has become. Unfortunately, we were awakened very early by a phone call from Jil informing us that Lynda’s father had fallen in his apartment and had broken his arm. She has reported to us that there is some evidence that he may have also had a heart attack but no confirmation of that. Tim talked to Jeff by cell phone and Jeff reports that Lynda’s dad is resting comfortably in the hospital and is complaining that he has created too much fuss for everyone. We all take this as a good sign. Lynda has basically crashed in our stateroom today (Sunday) while Tim went into Stockholm to e-mail Jil and Jeff and talk to Jeff on the phone. He also booked a hotel room for Monday night. He did report to Lynda that Stockholm is a beautiful city and will be fun to explore tomorrow.

Once we left the ship this morning we wandered around both the new and old parts of Stockholm. Stockholm is a very cosmopolitan city with lots of excellent shopping. We visited two large, local department stores and found many fascinating items in both. We have also noticed that Stockholm is a very expensive city. Either that or we are not doing the currency exchange properly!

While we were in old town we happened by the parliament building just as an English tour was about to start so we joined the tour. It was very interesting to hear our guide talk about how Sweden’s government operates and compare that with how the state and federal government in the states operate or don’t depending on your point of view. We also enjoyed our guides rather tongue in cheek comments about Swedish politics. We were also struck by the contemporary design of the parliament hall.

Lunch was a big deal because Tim actually had Swedish meatballs. He reports that they were excellent.

We are resting in our hotel room at this moment. The plan for the rest of the day is to do some geocaching and then find a place for dinner. Our plane leaves Stockholm tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. and we arrive in Detroit, after a layover in New York, at 6:45. It will be a long day but we are both anxious to get home after a month away.

As always we thank you for reading our blog. We hope it has been both informative as well as entertaining. We look forward to seeing you all soon.

Tim and Lynda

P.S. The reports from Jil and Jeff are that Lynda’s father is doing well. The doctors seem to have ruled out the possibility of a heart attack but he still faces a long process of rehab for his broken arm.

From Russia....with Love

Welcome back vicarious travelers-

We are just leaving the port of Tallinn, Estonia headed for St. Petersburg, Russia. We are afraid that as much as we looked forward to St. Petersburg, it is going to be somewhat of a disappointment. Russian visa requirements are such that we can only leave the ship on official cruise line sponsored tours. We have signed up for only two. The problem is that some of the tours we were interested in only do drive by’s of some of the sights, particularly cathedrals. So it looks like we may spend a lot of time on board looking over the railing at St. Petersburg. We will, of course, report more later.

As for Tallinn; like Riga, Latvia, Tallinn was a treasure that we thoroughly enjoyed. Tallinn is a considerably smaller city than Riga so it did not have quite the same touristy feel of Riga which means it was almost non existent. Like Riga, Tallinn also had an old and a new town with us spending most of our time in the old town. Because of its topography, Tallinn was a bit more picturesque than Riga. It was more hilly and the architecture was different. Again, like Riga, Tallinn was filled with many inviting restaurants and cafes. What we saw more of in Tallinn was art galleries featuring works by local artists. We really enjoyed visiting these galleries. We also visited a Russian Orthodox Church that was breathtaking in its beauty. It was not as large as some of the other notable cathedrals we have visited but it certainly rivaled them in beauty. We also had a successful day of geocaching. Even if we end up being disappointed with St. Petersburg we will be able to look back on Latvia and Estonia as being wonderful travel finds.

St. Petersburg has NOT been a disappointment. The first day was spent on the ship which was ok. Because we are so far north the sun does not set officially until 11:00 p.m. and rises at 5:00 a.m. One of our guides told us that this time of year is know as white night because it never really gets dark. Our body clocks are severely out of whack. After resting all day we spent the evening at the Palace of Catherine the Great. We were greeted by an 8 piece military band. After a tour of the palace that included the magnificent Amber Room (!) (see picture) we ended up in the Grand Hall where waiters waited with flutes of champagne for us. We were entertained by a string quartet that was considerably better than the one on board our ship. Next, Catherine and her husband, Peter the Second, welcomed us with a champagne toast. This was followed by dancing; entertainers not the guests. We were than escorted outside where we were met again by the military band which actually did some simple marching maneuvers. They did not hold a candle to the Spartan Marching Band. A horse drawn carriage came flying in carrying two people who ended up doing some more dancing. Finally, we went to dinner. It actually was great fun. We had hors deurves of caviar along with shots of vodka. After a nice salad that included excellent cold roast beef, and an interesting cold mushroom soup, we enjoyed a main coarse of salmon with a shredded carrot and turnip or parsnip accompaniment. We had unlimited amounts of red wine, which was very good, and vodka. During dinner we were entertained by traditional Russian folk singers. We returned to the ship at 11:00 with the sun still shining brightly. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

On our second day we did two excursions. In the morning we went to the Hermitage which is also the winter palace of the Tsars. The Hermitage contains one of the most important collections of art in Europe. There was a fine collection of Rembrandts as well as other Dutch and Flemish artists. The impressionist and post impressionist collection, which is our favorite, was not nearly as impressive. However, just seeing the many rooms of the palace was a treat in itself. The opulence of some of the rooms is beyond description. In the afternoon we visited three Russian Orthodox Churches: St. Isaacs, Our Lady of Kazan, and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. St. Isaacs and the Spilled Blood are no longer churches as such but are museums. Both were breathtakingly beautiful. The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (see pictures, outside and inside) was built at the end of the 19th century on the spot where Tsar Nicholas II was assassinated. Hence the name. We need to check with Tim’s sister-in-law to see if she is related at all to Our Lady of Kazan as Kazan is her maiden name. This is a working church. Other than the Icon Stand, Our Lady was not particularly attractive inside. The Icon Stand is probably what we would consider an alter. At Our Lady of Kazan it was extremely beautiful. The stand includes an icon of Lady Kazan. She is considered to have great powers for solving problems of people who pray to her. There was a long line of people waiting to pray before and kiss the icon of Lady Kazan.

St. Petersburg is an interesting city. The two most notable things about St. Petersburg is that 1) it is quiet and 2)much of it is very drab. As you would expect with a city of 4 million plus people, there is much traffic. However, you hardly ever hear car horns honking. It sounds more like downtown Mason than midtown Manhattan. As we were riding the bus out to Catherine’s Palace last night we had a hard time figuring out where the major shopping street was located. When our guide finally explained that we were on it we were surprised because there is no glitz or buzz to the street. Even today when we drove down a street that actually had a Gucci store, it was a very plain and ordinary looking street. Interestingly and probably what you would expect, our Russian guides seemed to be very proud of how cosmopolitan St. Petersburg is, particularly in comparison to Moscow they said. The “drab” parts of St. Petersburg are off-set by the pastel paint colors of many of the buildings and the enameled onion dome cathedrals and gilt painting on some buildings. The Stalin-era apartment buildings are awful but there are still some spectacular Georgian and Baroque buildings that almost make “drab” the wrong impression.

On Friday, our third day in St. Petersburg, we took a bus out in the country to Peterhof, the summer palace of Peter the Great. (see picture of us in front of the Palace) This palace was occupied by the Nazi’s during WW II and they pretty much destroyed it as they were retreating from St. Petersburg, Leningrad during the war. What we saw was a complete rebuilding of the palace. Unfortunately, we were unable to take any pictures inside the palace and neither of us is a talented enough writer to adequately describe what we saw. It was stunningly beautiful but that doesn’t really do it justice. We also really enjoyed walking through the gardens around the palace. These were the first large scale gardens we have seen on our trip and they were lovely. There were many fountains mixed in with the ornate gardens, more Italian than English.

Because we could only leave the ship on officially sponsored tours we are pretty tired because we don’t do tours well. No stops for a drink which is more the pity. However, we both agree that St. Petersburg would be a very difficult city for us to visit as independent travelers. Language would not be problem but most of the signage is in Russian only, meaning we would have no clue as to what the sign said. We have thoroughly enjoyed St. Petersburg and, despite our fatigue, are glad we went on the tours that we finally chose. Tomorrow we are in Helsinki and hope to find a wifi café so that we can post this blog entry. We will also include pictures.

Tim and Lynda

Greetings from The Baltic region of Europe-

As we have mentioned, internet café’s have been difficult to find and we refuse to pay the exorbitant rates for internet on board our ship so we are going to do daily entries and then when we finally find an internet café, we will post our blog.

Copenhagen was different. From on board our ship the view of Copenhagen was quite beautiful. But when we took a local bus to the city center Copenhagen seemed less so. Our first stop was the City Hall. There was some very impressive art work and murals on the walls inside the City Hall. We also discovered a small entrance away from the main entrance that announced that it was an entrance for weddings only. There were several small wedding parties hanging around outside the entrance waiting to go in. Don’t know what they were waiting for. Maybe just working up the courage to go in! Next we went to the Dansk Design Center. The Design Center had a small museum that showed the history of Danish Design from the 1950’s to the present. There were also two floors with displays of products that Danish designers are working on now. We have always liked the simple, clean, contemporary lines of Danish design so we really enjoyed this stop. From the Dansk Design Center we walked along a pedestrian only street of shops. It is advertised as the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe. We would be hard pressed to argue. We found a very eclectic mix of shops from high end luxury shops to trashy tourist shops to punk/Goth shops for young people. As you can imagine, the people watching was incredible. We stopped for lunch at a little hole in the wall creperie. We each had a ham and cheese crepe. Not sure if this is a traditional Danish lunch but it was delicious. The only real disappointment in Copenhagen was the absence of “the little mermaid”. The Little Mermaid is a statue on the harbor erected in honor of the Hans Christian Andersen story of the little mermaid. We had both been looking forward to seeing it. Unfortunately, the little mermaid is in China for some special expo. Could have been worse. The statue could have been covered by scaffolding!

We’ve not talked much about the cruise ship. We have been surprised at the number of people on board that have told us they have been on multiple Oceania cruises. We are beginning to understand why. The food has been better overall than any of our other cruises. We have also been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the entertainment. The other night we heard a soprano who did a combination of Broadway show tunes and opera. Her opera was better than her broadway but it was still quite good until she missed the last note of “Tonight” from “West Side Story” In Tim’s mind this was unforgivable. Lynda was one of the stars of the next night’s entertainment. It was magician/mentalist who several people told us was very good. We got to the show early so we could get “front row seats” (said ala Bob Uecker). Mio, the magician came to our table before the show and asked Lynda to answer the four questions on the sheet he gave her, not show it to anyone, including Tim, and than fold the sheet and put it in her pocket. The questions were: your favorite food, your favorite place to visit, your favorite sporting activity, and your favorite form of entertainment. During the show Mio called Lynda on stage and explained to the audience what he had done and than proceeded to guess correctly all four answers. Tim was only able to come up with three! He guessed lobster, England and bridge as her favorite sporting activity and reading as her favorite form of entertainment. He was correct on Lobster, England and bridge, although Lynda had that listed as entertainment. Lynda claimed, and the mentalist guessed, that her favorite sporting activity was tailgating at football games. Amazing! (The mentalist, not Lynda liking tailgating.) The third night of entertainment we have gone to was a Frank Sinatra style vocalist who was excellent. He was accompanied by a live band!! There has also been a string quartet performing at various times throughout the day. The only problem we have had on board is with housekeeping. In Bruges we bought vodka and gin to have in our stateroom. It has taken us a while to convince housekeeping to have a fresh bucket of ice for us at 4:00 for our “cocktail hour”. We think we finally have the problem solved.

On Sunday we were in Visby, Sweden, the largest city on the island of Gotland. It was another of the wonderful little “postcard” cities that you see in travel books,etc. We did some geocaching while we wander about the streets of Visby. Of particular note was a lovely little botanical garden. We also went in the local cathedral. The most interesting thing about this church was the large number of large, color photographs of unborn fetus’ displayed throughout the church. This led us to believe the church was catholic and they were in the middle of an anti-abortion campaign.

Visby is the only port of call on our cruise where we did not dock at a pier but took tenders, actually the life boats for the ship, to the port. We had an interesting encounter with one of our ship mates on the way back to the ship. While talking with him he asked us where we were from. When we answered Michigan he immediately said “Go Blue!” Tim, without skipping a beat or physical violence, responded “Go Green” All that was needed at that point was for Madison to be present to chime in with “Go White!” It turns out that the passenger, Bill Cohen, was the announcer for the Michigan Marching Band in 1964. Tim and Bill had quite a discussion about the legendary Director of Bands at Michigan, Dr. William D. Revelli, (Bill Cohen called him Bill, Tim called him Dr. Revelli!) and the superior quality of the bands under Dr. Revelli’s direction. Tim then asked Bill if he was the immediate predecessor of Carl Grapentine, the legendary and present announcer for the Michigan Marching Band. This, of course, led to a thorough discussion of Carl Grapentine. The discussion closed with Bill Cohen announcing that he was a much better voice of the Michigan Marching Band than Carl Grapentine who has been doing it for over 40 years. When we returned to our stateroom, Tim observed that Bill Cohen is a classic example of a Michigan arrogant ass!

Riga, Latvia was a wonderful surprise. We both agree it has probably been our favorite port so far. The city is a blend of old world charm and innovative contemporary architecture. There were many quaint little shops and interesting restaurants. We went into one particular store that featured traditional Latvian clothing and artifacts. As in all European cities, the people watching is excellent. Tim would like to point out to the male chauvinist pigs reading the blog that the women of Riga are quite impressive. The highlight of the day was over an hour spent in the Museum of Latvian Occupation. This museum recounted the occupation by first, the Soviet Union, and than Germany during WW II followed again by the Soviet Union after the war. It is a history that is similar to the Jewish Holocaust in that the Soviets exiled a significant portion of the Latvian population to Russia and the Germans exterminated a large portion of the Latvian Jewish community. Needless to say, it was very quiet in the museum. Riga, Latvia is definitely a place we would come back to. We only had about 6 hours in Riga and there was much we wanted to see that we did not have time for.

We’ve just come from high tea - a nice shipboard tradition. Thinking of having a night in tonight - room service for dinner and a DVD movie. This is our 8th night aboard and we have another 6 to go before a night in Stockholm before flying home. A good time for a quiet evening “at home”.

Cheers

Lynda and Tim

Belgium/Netherlands/Germany

Guten Tag, Thursday, July 15, 2010

As I write this blog posting we are cruising through the Kiel Canal. The Kiel Canal cuts through northern Germany, connecting the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is 61 miles long, and is the busiest artificial canal in the world. The alternative route would be to sail around the Jutland Peninsula (Denmark) but by taking the canal a ship saves 1 and a half days of sail time. We had never heard of it before this cruise. At any rate it is not very wide and we see people walking along the canal waving to us. The countryside is beautiful with picturesque villages and farms along the way. We pass many boats going in the opposite direction.

We boarded our ship, the Regatta, Monday about 1:30 and are having a wonderful time. All of Monday was spent in port at Dover. We only had a 60 mile trip the first night to Zeebrugge so the ship did not leave port until 10:00. We spent Monday eating, unpacking, eating, exploring the ship, eating, reading and eating. Much like Madison was required by law to drool all over the displays of chocolate in Harrods, we too are required by law to be gluttens on this cruise. The food has been excellent. A few highlights: Lynda had a whole lobster as well as a filet mignon one evening. Tim tried sushi for the first time in his life with the aid of a couple from Los Angeles that we dined with who were experienced in eating sushi. Who knows what culinary treats await us!

Tuesday we took a taxi into Brugges, Belgium. It is a charming little town with lovely gingerbread type buildings and many canals. In fact, it seems so much like a fairy tale scene that it doesn’t really feel like a real town. We visited a beautiful church that has a Michelangelo Madonna and Child that is strikingly different from the Pieta in St. Peter’s in Rome. It is said to be the only one of Michelangelo’s sculpture’s moved from Italy during his lifetime.

During the evening on Monday as we cruised from Zeebrugge toward Amsterdam, we were surprised to see several windmill farms in the middle of the North Sea. Each farm was a group of 40 to 50 windmills. Most fascinating was the fact that none of the vanes on these windmills were actually turning.

We have both been to Amsterdam before so we didn’t do any sightseeing to speak of. You can only visit the red light district so many times! We did spend the afternoon with Dan Trout. Dan is a very good friend of Jilayne’s from high school and college. He was also a former student of Tim’s. We visited the flower market and had lunch with Dan and than went back to his apartment where he was gracious enough to let us use his computer. We have discovered that internet time on our ship is very expensive so we are going to be depending on finding Internet Cafes at each of our ports of call in order to post our blogs and check e-mail. Needless to say, the area around Dan’s apartment was much nicer than the tourist areas in the very center of Amsterdam.

Today the entire day is being spent cruising. We are really enjoying having nothing to do. We took in a cooking demonstration this morning by the ship’s chef. (Anyone want to join us for terrine of foie gras and porcini mushrooms followed by lamb chops and polenta?) Lynda is playing bridge this afternoon and Tim hopes the opening round of the British Open will be on the TV in our stateroom. An aside to Madison - our state room is bigger than our hotel room in London! We presume there will be a sumptuous meal this evening. Tomorrow we will be docked at Warnemunde, Germany. Our original plan had been to take a cruise sponsored tour into Berlin. However, the three hour bus ride each way to Berlin has changed our mind. We will undoubtedly explore Warnemunde and hopefully find an internet café so that we can post this blog.

Auf Weidersehen!

Tim and Lynda


Wandermunde and Rostock addendum - July 16, 2010

Just got back from Rostock and we were unable to find a wifi to post our blog. So we will update you about today’s doings and hope to find someplace tomorrow in Copenhagen where we can post.

Our ship docked in Wandermunde, a popular seaside resort on the Baltic Sea in the North of Germany. We took a train into Rostock, about 20 minutes away by train. Rostock was a major center both economically and politically 600 years ago. Rostockers claim that the University of Rostock is the oldest university in Germany. From the train station we took a tram/trolley to the Neuer Market. It was a pretty plaza with a fresh fruit and meat market taking place in the middle. We walked down a lovely little pedestrian street towards the University. We did a little shopping along the way and enjoyed the city. It was nice to see shops that were basically locally owned or at least local German chains. We saw only a few of the ubiquitous stores that we see all across Europe. Found a nice restaurant for lunch where Tim enjoyed Weiner schnitzel. The highlight of Rostock was the Lutheran Basilica. Overall the church was not as ornate as the catholic cathedrals in Paris and Rome, but maybe a bit more than English churches. It was built in 1230 and miraculously survived the allied bombing during WW II. There was an amazing clock that was built in 1463 that not only showed the time but the day, month and year. And, it had a feature that showed the date that Easter would occur all the way through 2017. Now you may be thinking “big whoop, 2017” but think about it. The people back in 1463 probably were pretty astounded that the clock showed the date for Easter for the next 600 years. After leaving the church we got on a tram/trolley and rode around for a while just looking at the different neighborhoods of Rostock. Sound familiar Madison? We are now safely back aboard the Regatta relaxing.

It will be exciting to see what tomorrow brings in Copenhagen.

Tim and Lynda