Day 12 of our Baltic Cities cruise. Unexpectedly Aarhus

Well, yesterday we were supposed to be in Nynashamm, but we didn't make it.  The captain came on the tannoy system at about 10.30 on Monday night to tell us the weather was too bad and we wouldn't get into port.  So that's the second time we've come this way and that's happened - Nynashamm doesn't seem to want us to visit does it?




So we waited until yesterday lunchtime to find out where we were going, and the Captain announced "Aarhus" in Denmark. Every time I hear the name, I want to break out into the Madness song "Our house..... in the middle of the street..."

The write up of the city sort of gave us the impression that it's a new modern hip and happening place, and once we'd got off the ship (sporting my new woolly hat with giant pom pom), and had a look around, we realised we were exactly right.

We found the cathedral - which is the longest one in the world I think.  Very impressive.

It's a lovely place, with plenty of opportunities to part with your money.  It seemed full of designer shops and wares to us.  Very nice, but way out of our price range to be honest.   I think I remember our tour guide in Copenhagen explaining that VAT here is at 25% - whatever the reason, Denmark is an expensive country.

We did find the Modern Art Museum, but (perhaps down to bad maths), didn't think it worth spending the money for the short time we had, so we sat and enjoyed a cup of tea and a cookie instead.



Other highlights of the day included this awesome sculpture.  It has three joints and moves in the wind.  You could watch it for hours.



We also had a look around the small viking museum near the cathedral.  For such a small place, it was interesting, and we even learnt a few things.

And then it was back to the ship at the end of our last port for afternoon tea (we had missed lunch, and I don't count the giant cookies in the art museum as a substitute).  It is formal night tonight.  It's not compulsory, but Peter and I do make an effort.  I let him off black tie though, and he wore his blue suit and his sheep tie.  (I must take a photo of it sometime).

There was a little bit of drama in the evening as one of the passengers became quite ill and had to be airlifted off the ship.  The noise of the helicopter above the rear deck was interesting.  I was torn because I wanted to go and watch the airlift, but then felt that I would be intruding on the privacy of the guy who was ill.  (I wouldn't want everyone watching if I was in that situation).  We didn't stand and watch, we chose to eat dinner with the noise of the rotors going on for what seemed to be a very long time behind us.

Tomorrow is a sea day.  Peter will be running his two classes and then there will be a exhibition on deck 9 outside Sinatra's Bar.  Everyone has seemed to really enjoy his classes, which is good.

I've enjoyed this cruise.  The ship seems to handle the bad weather better than the others I've been on, perhaps because it is quite a lot bigger.  I really like the spaciousness of the ship and the food has been pretty good.  The deck space is good as is the lounge space and the ship has never felt crowded or been subjected to any real queuing.  The Magellan does not have all the facilities of some of the bigger ships (climbing walls, wave machines, multiple restaurants etc), but it does what it does very well.  I'll be very glad to come back next October when we are due to join it for a Fjords cruise.

So that's it for the Baltic.  Next we are due a bit of a climate change as we head for Sri Lanka and India in November.  So that'll be the next series of blog entries then.............

Tuesday 4th October - Copenhagen

So - Copenhagen today. We are tour escorting in the morning - Copenhagen Walk and Cruise, but we don't have to be on the pier until 9.15, so it wasn't too early a start.

Peter and I did a lot of walking last time we visited, so we've already seen many of the sights we were shown on tour.  But with the guide explaining everything via our little audio boxes (each person is given a little reciever and a set of ear phones and the guide can talk to us via a little radion microphone), at least we had a better idea of what we were looking at.

This carved stone can be found on the sea front.  It depicts a group of Danish explorers who all died on a trip to Greenland.  On the back of the stone the last entry of the diary of the last explorer is carved.

This tower belongs to an old church.  The church was closed and subsequently turned into a fire station in the 1900s.  The tower was used as a lookout, and fire engines could be shown which direction they needed to take to reach a fire with a flame in the window.

Our tour included a coffee and a danish pastry before we were to all to climb aboard one of the boats for a 50 minute ride through the city's canals.  Unfortunately, one of the passengers in my group became ill, so I had to return with her in a taxi to the ship and miss the ride.

Peter came back a little later, saying the canal boat road wasn't that special anyway (bless him), and we went out again after lunch, mostly to see a few things at our own pace, tour groups can be hurried sometimes.

Our favourite is the fountain depicting the goddess Gefjun who was promised the land she could plough in a night, so she turned her four sons into bulls to assist her in the task.   The detail of the fountain is awesome, I've mentioned the "steam" coming out of the bulls noses before.

The Gefion Fountain

I also wanted to have a proper look at a sculpture I'd seen on our tour in the morning

and we were  looking for some ibruprofen, as I was having a bit of a problem with my knee.  We failed to find the ibrufen, but we did walk back following the fort wall and stumble across this war memorial.

The most poignant thing about it was that on the section showing the list on names of those that had died, space had been deliberately left for more.

The ship sailed at 5 o'clock, and we enjoyed the usual routine of dinner in the Bistro followed by the show. Tonight we were entertained by The Stage Door Jonnies, a couple of ladies who were well into their pension years but who had us in tears of laughter. We look forward to seeing them again.

So that was Copenhagen.  Tomorrow we are in Warnemunde, we are on the "Molli and the Minster" tour in the afternoon, so we get a lie in and the chance for a walk around the town in the morning.  I enjoyed our last visit, so I'm looking forward to seeing the place again in the morning.

And Finally. No trip to Copenhagen can be complete without a picture of the Little Mermaid.

Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen

Sadly, it's only a half day in Copenhagen. The ship parked up just after 12 am.  We stood on deck, taking in the busy-ness of the area around us.   Not what I expected to be honest, and we hadn't really thought about the weather either.  We'd come with plenty of warm clothes, but not waterproofs or a brolly.  We stood on deck and realised just how cold and wet the day was, so we got the coats and gloves out.  The ship was cleared by customs just after 12.30, and Peter and I were wrapped up and on the pier heading towards The Little Mermaid by 1 o'clock. 

When I'd looked up "What to do in Copenhagen", there was just so much.   I spent ages trying to work out where to go and if we could walk from the ship.  In fact, I even worked out a circular route for us to walk.  Well........  My planning wasn't a complete waste of time, as we did manage to cover the first few stops of the walk, but we kept going off route to see stuff and in the end just didn't have time for the places I'd planned.  Despite the weather, we got to see loads. Here are the pictures.

How can you go to Copenhagen and not see The Little Mermaid.  Iconic and very lovely, she was gifted to the city by the owner of the Carlsberg Brewery.

There were loads of bronzes and sculptures around the city, but this one on the Langelinie Alle caught our attention as we tried to work it out.  The marble plinth the angel is stood on is carved with the names of hundreds of ships.  We worked out this is a rather poignant memorial to those that have died at sea. 

The Kastellat is not listed as a tourist site, it is definitely worth a walk through.  It's a working fort, with the Danish military still resident there.  But it is also a historical site - a star shaped fortification, surrounded by a moat and containing the red and yellow buildings of the original garrison.

Within the Kastellat boundary we came across this glorious little windmill.   It turns out we'd fallen doubly lucky because it was open for just a few days - Fri, Sat and Sun in October and November.  We got to have a look inside.

Everything is made of wood.  The cogs, poles and gears, the walls and ceilings, and even the lovely little black tiles on outside - all made of wood.  Lovely.

The Kastellat is a wonderful place to walk on a sunny day.  Shame we were only getting a very wet one.

Just out of the Kastellat, we turned left to have a look at the fantastic Gefion Fountain.  Photo's cannot do this fountain justice.

It has been designed so well that you can even see the hot breath streaming out of the bulls noses.

From the fountain we headed for the Amalienborg Palace.  Basically what you get to see is a square surrounded by the Palace buildings.  There is a museum, but we had much more to see, so we left it for today.  But we couldn't resist going inside Frederics Church, also known as the Marble Church. It's massive dome beckoned and we had to go see.

Next it was a quick look at Nyhavn, an area famed for its restaurants and bars.  The drizzle  that had persisted for the last hour had increase to rain and we were getting drenched.  It took the shine out of the place a little, and we hurried on.

From Nyhavn we headed to Christianborg Palace, which is still in use by the Danish Royal Family.  I had wanted to see the ruins beneath and the tower, but we were rapidly running out of time, and we had to queue to get through security.  Security?  Really?  Yep! They made us take off our very wet coats and have our bags scanned as we walked through airport type scanners before we could get in the lift to go to the top of the tower.  It's free though, and you get a wonderful view of the city which must look brilliant at night.

We didn't get to see the Palace ruins, but we did very quickly have a look in the very pretty Christianborg Chapel, used by the royals for everything from christenings to lying in state, before deciding that it was time to turn and head back. 

At last the rain eased off as we hurried along, and the wind picked up nicely to dry our soaking clothes, so by the time we walked up the ramp onto the Marco Polo, we were only very wet, rather than completely sodden.

All in all though, a really good afternoon. We have tired legs and feet to prove it. Tomorrow is Warnemunde, Germany and whole lot more ground to wear our legs out on. Awesome.