July 26-31, 2024
At Southampton, we had to say good-bye to our friends Alyssa and Kelly, and walked with them to the train station, and then over to say hello to my sisters Suzan and Mary at their hotel! We chatted, grabbed some breakfast, then helped them get settled in on the ship before returning to the city.
We wandered the ld town of Southampton, a city known mainly as a transfer point – by train, cruise ship or ferry. It’s also close to Stonehenge (about a 30 minute train to Salisbury), but we had a few too many things going on to take the side journey.
Businesses and organizations painted lighthouses to raise money for charity – a couple of my favorites:
So with the sisters aboard, we sailed on to Bruges. John and I visited Bruges in 2021 in our “traveling during COVID” tour – exploring Europe as countries reopened ( https://let-me-show-you-the-world.com/traveling-in-the-time-of-covid-europe/ ).
Summer 2024 had many, many more tourists. For our day in port, we found a “food” oriented Guru walk – yes – samples of famous Belgian foods were included – starting with what we Americans mistakenly call “French” fries – they’re really from Belgium (aside – the story goes like this as per our guide: During WWI, American GI’s were in the trenches with some French speaking Belgian troops. The Belgian troops would cut potatoes into strips then put them in hot oil until crispy on the outside but soft in the middle. The Americans loved them and brought home what they called “French fries”. We promised our guide that We’d do our best to set the record straight.) We also learned they should be fried twice. An initial quick fry to seal in the juices, strained, dried, then refried.
Next up was the Belgian waffle. We went to a place that served them on sticks and coated them with all sorts of wonderful toppings (as simple as powdered sugar or cinnamon to as complicated as chocolate with mini M&Ms). Then onto the chocolates…
Each person on the tour got a small “praline” (in French, a praline is a chocolate confection with something in it – what we would refer to as a truffle). Whatever you call them – they were wonderful. We went to two different chocolate shops (which included a little time to shop). And then the last of the “food” tour – the beer. There are paid tours with beer and chocolate pairings. Too little time in port!
After a sea day, we arrived in Skagen, Denmark – where the North Sea meets the Baltic Sea. We took the shuttle into town, then another shuttle to the beach at Grenen (the northernmost tip of Denmark)- where we climbed aboard the Sandormen to the point where this occurs.
We returned to town for important things – Danish pastries! I unfortunately did not take a photo of the amazing pastry shop we found on the edge of the old town but suffice to say the quality of the reputation of the Danish bakery is well deserved. The town has some lovely sculpture as well.
We also found some reasonable shopping – I found a nice rain jacket at a very good price.
The next day we docked in Warnemunde, Germany – Mary and Suzan took the tour via train into Berlin (about 2 1/2 hours away) while John and I grabbed the local 30 minute train to Rostock- €11 roundtrip pp (you could also go by ferry – both the ferry terminal and train stations were within a few hundred feet of the Warnemunde dock and about 1/2 mile to old town Rostock). Rostock reconstructed their old town with 15th century architecture to reflect its history (most of the city was destroyed during WWII).
Then back to the pleasant beach town and dock city of Warnemunde. We lucked out with a clear, beautiful day in the upper 70’s – so the beaches were crowded.
With sisters back onboard, we set sail for Riga, Latvia, which will be included in my next post!