P.S. to yesterday. Had a short nap and then took a taxi to the first event. Lots of people and lots and lots of munzees, fun was had by all. Theo and Doris (from Berlin) dropped me off at my hotel and even though still light it was 10.30, so a late night.

Didn’t sleep terribly well, the room was quite warm, but couldn’t leave the window ajar as too many mossies! Breakfast was at 6 and got there about quarter past, only 2 people in the restaurant, so a nice quiet brekky.

Then I headed outside into the rain!!!!!! So different to yesterday, but the same as the day before, rather wet. I’m so pleased I got that waterproof case for my phone. Had a walk around, then back to my room to finish packing and check-out. I left my luggage for them to look after and grabbed another taxi. When I showed the driver the address, he said “Are you sure you want to go there, it’s in the  middle of the forest.” I assured him I did and off we went, he did give a gasp of surprise at the number of cars and people he found at the drop-off point!

Didn’t do much there as it was quite wet still, so they packed up the site early. Anni gave me a lifet back ot the last event place, which accidentally luckily was right opposite my hotel. This area of Denmark is touted as the wild part of the country. The event was held at a nature school in one of these wild areas. It was so nice wandering around it before the hordes arrived, lol. Watched swallows, listened to skylarks and told the very agitated pied wagtails that their babies were safe under the roof. It was fascinating watching them forage and return with grubs, and then disappear under the roof where you could hear the babies being fed.

I walked around for the better part of 4 hours and then headed back to the buildings. The rain had finally decided to stop so there was a bit of sun now and again.

After more socialising and winning a personal munzee, I headed back to the hotel to write up my day and collect my suitcase. Theo and Doris are picking me up around 7.30 and we are all going back to Aarhus. They based themselves in an apartment there and will also be heading to England for the events in Somerset.

Bumblebee and thistle Dog roses The harbour Large snail
Baby swallow feeding tree

Nanna, Lasse and the boys looked after me wonderfully well, they are all lovely.

Today the weather was so much better, blue sky and sunshine with just a few clouds dotted around. Nanna had to go to work today, so Lasse was pleased to have a long weekend! We popped into Ebeltoft to have a look at the frigate Jylland, the world’s longest wooden ship. We climbed aboard for the talk on the cannons and the ship in general and then went out to the pier to listen to a live demonstration. It was only a minimal amount of gunpowder, but it was very loud, would have been deafening with all of the cannons going at full strength.

The ship was a royal frigate, but we did wonder how it fitted 400+ crew, all the necessary weaponry, the coal for the steam engine, all the supplies and the royals themselves.

It was a great ship to explore, cannons still in place, furniture for the royals, enormous anchor chains, lots of other ship accoutrements all on display and a lot of them touchable. A wander through the indoor museum of ship models and then fish and chips for lunch.

We then continued our sunny journey to Grenå and found my hotel, and said our goodbyes. I’m going to see if I can get a nap in before finding my way to the first munzee event as didn’t get much sleep last night and feeling a bit headachy.

Oops, sorry I’m late, been playing Tantrix with Nanna!

Had a lovely day today. Even though the weather is awful. Nanna, the boys and I headed out across the bridge to Fyn and Svendborg Harbour to catch the ferry to Ærø. 75 minutes later we met Inge and Bodil in their harbour. They and the boys went home whilst Nanna drove me around to look at the lovely old houses, all the hollyhocks, the beach and a viewpoint. The later view was rather obscured by rain in the distance, but still all those tones of greys and white make the seascape interesting.

We had a longish lunch in Inge’s conservatory, which would have great views, lol. More chatting and then back to the ferry. Once back in Svendborg we then headed to Rantausmindevej to see Hans Henning, Linda and Jamie. We had afternoon tea, the buns were lovely, and Rasmus enjoyed the chocolate cake! Hans Henning showed us his workrooms. Wow, tools of every size and form all neatly stacked and racked, and the shelves of containers in the other workroom were fantastic, so well organised!!

From there we headed home where Lasse had prepared dinner for us.

It was a lovely day, so good to see so many family, the weather didn’t matter at all.

Oh by the way, my suitcase has finally turned up, yippee, only 2 long days without it!!!!!

Didn’t get to bed until 10.30 and it was still very light out.

I properly woke-up at 4.45 and so played and read for a while before getting up and doing emails, etc. Nanna and the 3 boys, Kasper, Laurids & Rasmus, all had a sleep-in. the 6 week school holiday break has just started, and Nanna has a couple of days off work. Fortnite is a video game that is very popular here, the 3 boys all play it as did Jesse’s 2 as well.

We had a trip to the Tirpitz Museum on the west coast of Jutland, a little north of Esbjerg. It was a 70 minute drive. Very interesting, it was set up around a WWII heavy artillery bunker that wasn’t actually ever used. The Museum part had a WWII section as well as a historical wing on life on the North Sea and a wing with lots of amber. There are lots of interactive experiences, movies and displays. Also a walk through the bunker itself. Very grim with all that grey concrete!

The weather has been very iffy, sunny, cold wind and rainy sessions!

I did get an email this morning that my suitcase was going to be delivered to Billund Airport and then brought here, but it still hasn’t appeared, and no one answers the phone.

Off to Ærø and Svendborg tomorrow.

View from Nanna’s kitchen Nanna and her boys25 kg of amber!!

PS to last night – had shrimp salad for dinner, very nice it was too.

Didn’t bother about sunrise, even though I wole up for it. Lots of cloud and rain. Had breakfast and packed and walked to the bus station fopr the airport bus. Luckily missed the rain, it started again as I got on the bus. 40 minutes later was at the airport. Sat around for a long time but better to be there than sitting in the hotel. The plane loading was a little late, due to take off at 15.35 rather than 15.20. However, Arlanda airport is developing itself and only one of the 3 runways was in use. Then they closed the runway we were heading for, so we kept on to the next one, and waited and waited and waited. Finally we took off, 75 minutes late, basically 15 minutes after we should have landed. Trouble with that was my next flight was 90 minutes away. Had to get from one end of Copenhagen airport to the other to get my flight. Was the last person to check-in and then had to wait for a bus to take 4 of us over to the plane. It was a rather small one but only took off 30 minutes late. However, wait for it, my suitcase didn’t make it! My first time with no luggage. Nanna was waiting for me which was great, so we filled in the forms and are hoping it will arrive tomorrow. I had taken my spare clothes and tablets out of my hand luggage…… won’t do that again, LOL. Got an emergency pack from the airport, but fingers crossed it appears soon.

Had a great drive home with Nanna, lots of chatting and enjoying the green countryside. No photos sorry!

P.S. to yesterday. I had dinner in the hotel café and it was empty, I don’t think anyone eats early here, lol. Anyway, I asked for something Swedish and had meatballs and mash with a lovely sauce and lingonberries and pickled cucumber as sides. It was yummy! Then I met up with 2 local munzee hunters for an hour of chat, then a reasonably early night. I’m getting quite used to falling asleep in daylight!

Awoke again in time for sunrise, sigh, but it was rather obscured by buildings. Downstairs for breakfast at 7 also yummy! Another Australian couple from the ship are staying here as well, so we chatted over breakfast. There is an airport bus that leaves Central Station just a couple of blocks from here., so will probably catch that, much cheaper than the taxi!

I headed out to the pedestrian mall, which I have been told several times, takes men 20 minutes to reach the end and women 6 hours as it’s all shops! It took me about 30 minutes as I munzeed on the way, no shopping, lol.

At the other end in Old Town, there was a Hop-On Hop-Off bus place, so I thought I’d give it a try and also paid for the boat version as well. 2 hours for the bus and an hour for the boat. I did 1.5 of the bus trip and then a couple of the boat trips and then finished off with the bus, getting off a few blocks from my hotel. Couple of interesting sights, a crane painted up as a giraffe and in town there was a building with an entire wall has been turned into a digital advertising space. You could see all the tiny digital blocks driving past.

I did think I was going to be in trouble as it started raining and this was the first day I had left my rain poncho behind (it was 30 degrees yesterday, everyone complaining about the heat). However, it didn’t rain much thankfully, and the boat had a roof if it had been wet then.

Check-out tomorrow and flying to Copenhagen & then Aarhus.

Well, back on dry land again! Once again not much of a sunrise, but I’ll have to find out why I could see the sunset last night and the sunrise this morning both from my balcony! Final breakfast and then to the packing. The ship moved to its embarkation pier and I trundled my case once again from one end of the ship to the other. Not easy on carpet, give me a nice pavement (but not cobblestones) anytime. I retrieved my power-board from security (not allowed to use them on the ship) and off the gangplank for the last time. There were already queues waiting to get on and we had only just started getting off!!

Found the taxi queue and had a quick drive in to Stockholm and the hotel. Very nice that it was a Sunday morning almost no traffic on the roads that time of day. Mind you is was still $66 and it is at least a 40 minute trip to the airport on Tuesday, so going to be way more!

As it was only just after 9, I left my bags with the hotel and then started walking. I needed 10 special munzees for the clan requirements that I hadn’t been able to get before I left. I had taken a picture of the route I was taking and made sure someone in the hotel knew where I was going!

4+ hours & 10 km later I got back to the hotel, mission accomplished and a few others found as well, lol. It was a great morning as there was very little traffic and no people, all sleeping in, lol. It was much busier after around 11. During the walk I met one of the local players and he and another are meeting me at the hotel this evening. Checked in and not sure if there’s something going on, but my room in the Scandic in Copenhagen was 226 of 230 so nearly at the end of building, this time I am at the end of the building on the top floor, miles of corridors, LOL. Will be interesting to see where I get at the Scandic in Aarhus.

Had a rest, showered, now blog writing and once all sorted am going to go down and have an early dinner of something Swedish I hope.

 State Library

Where the Nobel prizes are awarded each year

Only one more sleep aboard ship and then the next leg of the holiday starts. Not quite sure where the last few days have gone! Disembarkation has to be before 6 am or after 8 am as in-between the ship relocates to its home berth for the embarkation of new passengers. We are currently docked at the ferry terminal. Lots of truck trailers waiting to be moved on to them.

Sweden is comprised of 24,000 islands and I think I must have seen most of them coming in. I was up at3 for the 3.36 sunrise, which didn’t happen as way too much cloud. But the islands had started and they continued for the next 4 hours as we cruised on up to Stockholm. Would have been lovely to see if the sun had been out, lots of conifers and on the outlying islands an occasional house of 2. Closer in they became more built up and nearly every house has a flag pole.

Anyway, today’s tour was of the city and the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is an amazing ship considering it sank on its maiden voyage and then was left underwater for 333 years. After salvage she was continually sprayed, for 17 years, with polyethylene glycol to replace the water in the oak structure. Once the Vasa got to that point a building was erected around her and is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. It is temperature controlled and low lighted, but very interesting, there were 7,000 carvings on her. However, they haven’t yet worked out how to stop the slip, she is resting on, from disintegrating in the future, but are sure they will work it out before it does!

The weather was quite cold and dull when we started, but had blue skies and sunshine when we exited the Museum.

Did a little more driving and then back to the ship. As this is a new port the driver and guide weren’t sure which gate we had to go back through as all of them were labelled for ferries. We did get through eventually, but then had to drive around all the truck-trailers, which were waiting. Lunch, a read, blog writing and then dinner and bed. Not sure what time breakfast is on offer tomorrow, but I’ll do my packing while the ship is relocating!

 Sunrise, not. lol
The original stern and it’s reconstructed model

P.S. for last night. Went to the event, nothing special really, except the Captain didn’t attend because the weather wasn’t good. I did wake a few times and hear the hangers in the wardrobe knocking the insides, but it wasn’t much and someone this morning said it was a rough night, but I think they must have been on a different ship, lol.

So, back to today. Missed the sunrise as the time said 4.06 and it was up at least 5 minutes before that. I’ve been getting up to the deck at least 15 minutes beforehand, but dallied this morning!!

My tour was supposed to be at 8 but was delayed until 10, so had breakfast again up in the Diamond Club and another chat with the concierge. Got to the end of the pier early so did some people watching until the bus arrived. This was a Town & Country tour, so we went off to the country first to a working dairy farm and had a tasting of their cheeses, feta and yoghurt. All very nice. Watched a short video on how their cheese is made which was interesting, I don’t think I have seen the process before. Then we stopped of to walk through someone’s house, built in the 1960s. Several of us felt very uncomfortable doing so, we couldn’t work out why one would let umpteen strangers walk through every room in your house and then give them cake and refreshments in the garden!

The country part was lovely, lots of pine trees and forests as well as open fields. There are only 1.3 million people in the whole country!

Tallinn was originally made up of 2 towns, the upper New Town, comprising German winter houses and run by Germans and the lower, Old Town which was run by the town council. We had a walk through the oldest cathedral which is decorated with the coats of arms of all those married in it.

Saw the old city wall and its towers in some areas and lots of cobbled streets to walk along to get back to the bus and the ship. Lunch eaten at 3 pm, now blog time and we will be sailing for Stockholm soon.

P.P.S. to Russia. A couple who were in Russia 8 years ago were amazed at how much it had changed. Lots more signs with English as well as Russian, and the fact that people could go where they wanted. They said that no one had been allowed anywhere else but bus to museum or souvenir shop, straight back to bus. I must admit I was quite surprised on our walking tour when our guide said that if any of us got lost we would find the group at the Church on Spilled Blood.

No sunrise this morning, way too many clouds. Both the ships that were in the way yesterday had departed, which would have been good if the sun was visible, lol. (By 7.30 there were 2 more docked)

It rained most of the morning, but had stopped by lunchtime.

I had a simple continental breakfast up in the Diamond Club as I thought I should try it at least once. Once the 2 chatty Australians left I was all by myself in silence, it was lovely. Apart from the rooms there is piped music everywhere, even on deck, so it was great to have quiet. Had a chat with the concierge when he popped in and then back to my room. Had lunch and then headed out to the meeting point, once again on the other side of immigration.

This tour was of the Winter Palace and the Hermitage which is seamlessly joined to it. There are 10 buildings to the Hermitage throughout St Petersburg, 5 of them in this one spot. Catherine the Great bought 3 million pieces of art and then needed to house it all as a private collection. Nowadays, 5 million people visit annually. Our guide said it wasn’t too bad today, as we only had a 20 minute wait in the queue to get in and it wasn’t overly crowded. Well, I wouldn’t like to be there at all when it’s very crowded, today was bad enough, LOL. Everyone had said I had to visit it, but it wasn’t really my cup-of-tea, lol. I did like the ceilings and the enormous vases though, especially the malachite ones. We weren’t allowed to use a flash so the photos are a little dull.

Then back to the ship and more long queues as the gangplank was going up at 5.30 and it was 5.15 already. There’s an event on tonight for those who sail frequently, so might see if I can stay awake long enough to go to it, lol.

 As good as it got Catherine’s throne, made in England

Egyptian Room