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Links: to Copenhagen Baltic cruising :Day 1 - Copenhagen to Oslo Day 2 - Oslo Finale: Copenhagen encore
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Stockholm ,Sweden 12 June 2014, Thursday Last night was one of the "formal" nights on board the Royal Princess. This means that at all the restaurants and dining rooms, apart from the casual bistro on Level 16, passengers are asked to wear formal dress - that is, dinner jackets or at the very least suits for men, and evening dress for women. Obviously, we retreated to the bistro smorgasbord... No way was DB going to pack a suit for one night's entertainment, although I think we could have hired the appropriate clothes on board. The formal night idea didn't appeal to us in the slightest, but we took a look at what was going on there I think a good three quarters of passengers dressed up, but I have to say that not all the males looked impressed or comfortable in their rig outs. **** The port of Nynashamn is described as "Stockholm's gateway". If so, Stockholm has a long driveway through a big front yard. Other medium to large cruise ships can make their way through the Stockholm archipelago to berth in the centre of the city, but the Royal Princess has to put down her anchor in Nynashamn, an hour-long boat and bus trip from the capital. So, everyone who wanted to go ashore today, and I think that was most people, first of all had to be transferred to the ship's tenders. This is actually another use for the ship's lifeboats which are brought into use to transfer passengers from the ship to a jetty on dry land. |
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Passengers inside one the ship's tenders. They can hold 175 people, not very comfortably, but there was seating for all. |
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Unlike the first day in St Petersburg, today's operation went like clockwork. The big difference? The tours (and there were about 12 possible itineraries), were scheduled at staggered start times, so there was no bottleneck at the start point. Which, of course, highlights the problems that would occur if there was an emergency at sea, and all passengers were required to gather in the large theatre, for allocating to life boats. Utter pandemonium and panic would be the result. Today, that of course, didn't occur, so it was onto the dozens of coaches summoned to take us all to the capital, either on planned excursions, or for a "free day" which was the option we took. |
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Our few hours in Stockholm were spent wandering around the city's
Old Town.. Impressions? It's a big city, much bigger than
Copenhagen or Oslo, but probably second to St Petersburg (without
easy access to the internet, I can't check the actual numbers).
Like the other cities we've visited on this cruise, it's centered around the sea, and incorporates dozens of islands within the city boundaries. and hence, dozens of bridges across the narrow waterways |
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| Stockholmers appear to like
their churches with tall, that is very tall, spires or
steeples, reaching up to heaven.
This one at right belongs to St Clara's church, in the centre of town, another inner city church which had a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Unlike its counterpart in St Petersburg, where the adherents of the Orthodox religion always stand to pray (sometimes for hours on end), the church goers here are at liberty to sit, or kneel. |
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Clara's was advertising a lunch time music concert, but we thought
didn't have time to stay. We should have stayed, but this was at
the start of our walk and we weren't sure how time was going to
pan out. After all, we didn't want to miss the bus back to the
ship! At a few ports, some excursions have been a little late
back, and of course, the boat has always waited for these
organised expeditions, but today, we were on our own, so no
guarantees..
Stockholm's Old Town has more eating places per square metre than any other place I've been. The cafes here would be very dependent on tourists, and obviously do a booming trade when cruise ships are in town. We had lunch at one of them - and Italian pizzeria at which I unwisely had a glass of red wine. Wine at lunch is not something I normally do, and this time, it resulted in my falling asleep while sitting on the steps to the Opera House, waiting for our bus back to the ship. DB very kindly didn't take a photo of his wife dozing with her head on her knees. It was only one glass! |
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It's a large ship, but not as large as ours, and so it was allowed to berth right in the centre of town, along with a couple of others. We saw it from an unusual angle during our walk through the Old Town this afternoon (left). During the walk, we were entertained for a few minutes by a marching band, all wearing military white. We don't know if they were just there for the tourists to enjoy, or if there was a special occasion |
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Tomorrow is our last day on board the Royal Princess, and it will be spent at sea...I'm looking forward to doing not very much at all, apart from a wine tasting scheduled for lunch time, to be followed for me, by a pedicure. Ah, life is tough on the ocean wave. |
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We
appear to be travelling the Baltic in tandem with a couple of
other cruise ships - one of them very distinctive, a "party"
ship, aimed at younger passengers than our Royal Princess".
I call it a "party ship" because on its bow, it has a lurid
outline of a red mouth, flowing into streamers painted along the
side.