Scandinavia and Baltic Cruise 2026

Travel and Leisure

Part two of our European trip took us on a Princess cruise through the Scandinavian countries as well as stops at other Baltic countries. This won't be a review of the cruise (might do that later), but rather a photo memory-minder for me of where we went and what we did.

Malmö: While technically not part of our cruise itinerary, we had an extra day on the front end due to the rail issue in Hamburg, so we added on a night in Malmö (Sweden), only about a 1/2 hour train from Copenhagen airport. It has a charming old town area, with enough to see and do to fill a day. We stayed at the Hotel Mayfair Tunneln, which is one of the oldest buildings in town; the breakfast buffet is in the basement from the 1300s!

Copenhagen: Back across the Øresund bridge, we parked at the Hotel Bethel for three nights, right in the heart of the action in Nyhavn. I'm glad we stayed there for a while, because there is a lot to see and do in Copenhagen, but wow is it ever expensive! That's one of the primary reasons for doing a cruise in this region, as the Scandinavian countries have a very high cost of living. We met up with our other cruisers over the next two nights, enjoying cold beers on the canal and people-watching in Nyhavn. The Danish royalty participate in an annual event called the Royal Run, where they and over a hundred thousand of their countrymen run around town.

Visby: The "Medieval Gem of Gotland" as it is referred to by ChatGPT, was our first port of call after embarkation. I had done some research on this one, as Rick Steves had not described it in his guidebook. With dozens of ruined churches and a perimeter wall with guard tower and gates, it was easy to see why this was on our list of stops. We followed a rough loop around town to check out the most picturesque church ruins, towers and gates, and then had lunch on Stora Torget across from the ruins of St. Karins Church.

Stockholm: Another large city with a well preserved old town area, we were able to tour around with Rick Steves' walking tour, but still managed to get lost. After exploring historic Gamla Stan, we used our hop-on hop-off boat cruise to get over to the Vasa Museum, where the immaculately restored, 400-yr old ship was on display. It sank almost 400 years ago as it was on it's maiden voyage, due to poor design, and sat undisturbed on the harbour bottom for over 350 years. And yes, there was another marathon in taking place in town.

Helsinki: The weather for our only stop in Finland drew our Rick Steves walking tour to an early close (I've artificially brightened up the shots below). It is a big city, and doesn't have a charming old town area like almost every other port on our cruise. There is some neat architecture, and that's primarily what Rick's walk highlights, but we stopped and took refuge from the cold Baltic wind in a shopping mall.

Tallinn: Probably the most idyllic old town area of the cruise, Tallinn offered a blend of architecture, history and hilltop views. Located on the Gulf of Finland, its UNESCO-listed Old Town is famed for its intact medieval walls, cobblestone streets, and lively Town Hall Square. With plenty to see on our Rick Steves walk, it was one of the stops where we barely made it back to the ship in time for departure.

Riga: Not to be outdone by Tallinn, Riga had it's own charm, albeit on a bit more subdued level. Just when you thought you couldn't find a main town square more interesting than the last, we arrived in Rīgas Rātslaukums, with the House of the Blackheads' ornate façade overlooking it. The town was filled with neat old medieval streets and interesting sights that Rick steered us towards... until we got kicked out of the Russian Orthodox church for wearing shorts!

Gdańsk: When I used to think of Poland, I'd conjure up an image of boring, communist-era architecture and bland surroundings. Boy was I wrong! The Royal Way and "Long Market" were amazing, as were the adjacent streets and historical structures. We had lunch on the Esplanade, a bustling, pedestrian-only promenade stretching along the western shore of the Motława River. Despite being Corpus Christi Day (stat holiday) we barely had enough time to do the Rick Steves tour of the main sights before we to grab our train back to the ship's port in Gdynia.

Klaipėda: This small port city in Lithuania didn't have as much to see as other stops, but we still made the best of it, by using a ChatGPT walking tour to take us to the notable sights around town. As you can see, this was one of the stops where the ship docked within a few hundred metres of the town centre.  We split up from the girls who went on an excursion to the Curonian Spit National Park; Wayne and I enjoyed a cold Lithuanian beer on the Danė River promenade before heading back to the ship for ice cream.  

Oslo: After a day at sea, we arrived in our last big port city, our only one in Norway. This was another day where the girls went their own way; Wayne and I went to Akershus Fortress and the Resistance Museum there, followed by the Rick Steves walking tour of the Karl Johans Gate. There was a lot happening that day, as it was National Music Day and the Oslo Colour Festival; there were marching bands parading down the street and a lively area set up in the park adjacent to their Parliament. We also stopped at the 1930s City Hall, which was very interesting, with the huge murals inside the main hall and outside carvings. A cold Norwegian beer at Fridtjof Pub with Wayne, and then I was back to the ship to get my aching lower legs a much needed spa treatment!

Skagen: Our last port was certainly the least exciting of all our stops, as Skagen is simply a sleepy fishing town. We did what pretty much everyone else did, and rented bikes to ride out to the sandy point in Grenen, where the North sea meets the Baltic Sea. After a tractor ride out and back on the sandy beach (it's a long way, and not bike friendly), we rode back to the ship for the free lunch. Then we went back into town when the sun came out so that the girls could do some shopping on the cute main street that runs through Skagen.

We woke up in Copenhagen the next morning, and after some difficulty trying to get our Uber to the airport, were on our way home after two weeks in Germany and another two in Scandinavia and the Baltics.

Germany 2026

Travel and Leisure

We did a big trip recently, our longest European vacation by far. This is part 1, the two weeks we spent getting from Munich to Copenhagen. More of a memory trip for me when I am thinking, "where did we go in Germany again?", here's a brief photo essay on our itinerary.

Munich: First stop was Munich, not for any reason in particular, other than it's a big international destination with lots of flight options. It has a surprisingly historic old town, given the destruction that occurred in many/most large German cities during WWII. As we usually do, we don't plan a lot for our arrival day, and we used Munich as our decompression stop from the trans-Atlantic flight.

It was unseasonably cold there, and so we abbreviated the Rick Steves walking tour around the old town area. We did go to the Residenz, which is pretty cool and well preserved. The weather prevented us from enjoying some of the outdoor eating and drinking areas, like the Marienplatz market.

Füssen: This town was our second stop, as we wanted to visit the fairy tale castle of the Mad King Ludwig. What made this side-trip even more fun, was that our friends from Zurich came up for the day to visit with us and see the castles. We toured the inside of Hohenschwangau, as it was actually used and lived in, whereas the Neuschwanstein one was never finished, as Ludwig died before completion.

Nuremberg: The next stop took us to the "recreated" old town of Nuremberg. WWII destroyed about 90% of the Altstadt, but instead of re-building with new structures, they spent decades trying to preserve the medieval landmarks and buildings in the historic core. 

Rothenburg ob der Tauber: This "forgotten" medieval town, sat for centuries after economic challenges and the black plague ravaged the population. It was an easy day trip from Nuremberg, and is definitely a highlight of the Bavaria region.

Leipzig: Rather than taking another long train ride all the way to Berlin, we broke it up into two, and stopped overnight in Leipzig. Again, many sites had been restored in this city to original appearance after the war, and there was plenty of historic things to see. The Leipzig Forum of Contemporary History was excellent, and free as well. The Old Town Hall dates from the mid-16th century, and is now used as a museum and event space.

Potsdam: With so much to see and explore, we set up in an Airbnb for four nights in Berlin. But with weather and museum closure timing, it seemed like our first full day there was the best to do the day-trip to Potsdam. It's kind of like visiting Versailles from Paris; Potsdam is a brief, 30 minute train ride from Berlin. However, unlike Versailles, the palaces in Potsdam are spread apart, so we rented bikes to tour around the Potsdam sites and the old town area.

Berlin: While Christine had been to Berlin before, it was a long time ago, and she says that they didn't have the money to see and visit the places we went to. It's hard to sum up in a handful of pictures, but the Rick Steves walking tour did an excellent job of guiding us around town, and then we did our own tour of the Wall, and other sites that represented the division between Communist East Germany and the West. We also stayed in a great area of town called Prenzlauer Berg, which was great for restaurants and another Rick Steves walk.

Hamburg: We had put Hamburg on the list of places to go in Germany, as it was along train route required to get to Copenhagen. We booked an Airbnb here as well, knowing that we'd want to do one last load of laundry before getting to the ship in Copenhagen. We ended up picking one in a great neighbourhood, a short walk from the main train station. For touring, Rick Steves recommended doing the hop-on hop-off bus & harbour cruise combo, so that's what we did.

We had one glitch in our travel plans, as there was some sort of construction on the rail line we needed to get to Denmark on, and the alternative was a 6+ hour bus ride. So we pivoted to flying to Copenhagen instead, which made for a much easier day. 

Next up: Scandinavia and the Baltics!

Upcycling a safari shirt into... a duffel bag!

Retirement

Sun Microsystems UltraSPARC T1 chip

25 years ago, almost to the day, I put on a "product launch event" for an upcoming line of servers that were being released under the architecture codename "Serengeti". See, across the country, other offices were running coffee n' doughnut sessions for their customers, but this was a pretty big leap in tech for us. So my boss asked me to come up with something better, and so I decided upon a safari-themed afternoon party at a downtown pub; yep, the only region in the country to serve booze at a product launch. 

Yes, that is a real crocodile!

Anyhow, it was a major success. I had a friend who coordinated the live crocodile and snakes, along with a troupe of scantily clad dancers. Yes, dancers. All of the Sun Micro team wore safari shirts that someone bought at a local outdoor supplier, and I designed a pattern that was embroidered onto the back of the shirts. I bought some styrofoam pith helmets from the party store, and with some khaki shorts, it completed the look.

How to re-use these features?

Fast forward 25 years, and I noticed the shirt hanging in the back of the closet. With fond memories of the safari party, I couldn't bring myself to throw it out, but what to do with it? I had recently converted my PGA Tour ProAm caddy smock into a tote bag, so I had proven that I had some rudimentary sewing skills, but what could I make that would be different? After some Googling, I landed upon a duffel bag. I seemed to have enough material for a "personal item" sized one (would I ever use it travel?), so I set about unstitching the pockets and other features from the shirt. 

The donor bag stripped of the goods

The major thing that I didn't have, was a zipper. So one day when she was going to Value Village, I tagged along with her, and found a dusty gym bag with a suitable zipper that I could harvest from it. As a bonus, it had a shoulder strap and associated D-loops, as well as a hard plastic, removable bottom. I also salvaged the velcro wrap handle grip from it, and inner mesh pocket. All of that for only $6! Ok, so I had to go to the craft store to get some black bias tape to cover up the inside seams, as well as some matching thread for the safari shirt fabric. I happened to have a long piece of black nylon webbing to use for the handles too.

A peek inside

I won't go into the build here, but I did follow (somewhat) the process outlined on this website. I also consulted with ChatGPT extensively on what I could build into the bag, what to use as lining, and what extra features might make it unique. I have gone through at least 3 man purses (murses) in the course of our travels, and made note of the features that I liked and disliked. While a duffel bag might be too big for day touring, it might get used as my personal item along with my carry on piece. 

Despite some challenges with my sewing skills, and learning new things on the machine (e.g. buttons/button holes), I was able to put together what I had in mind. You can't see my mistakes, as the most important stitching is on the inside of the bag, which is now covered up by black bias tape. The double-layer construction gives the duffel bag just enough structure, but not so much that it looks stiff. At 15" x 11" x 5", it is definitely under the personal item size constraint for most airlines. Will it come with me on the next European trip? We'll see.