Since our flight back to London departs from Paris, we decided to visit Paris for a couple days before departing the continent. On our first full day in Paris, we visited the Musee de l’Armee (including Napoleon’s Tomb) before embarking on a nighttime bike tour. On the tour, I was tasked with being the trailing member of our bike team and to wear a reflective yellow jacket. Our tourmates referred to me as “our intrepid derrierre”.

On our last day in Paris, I woke up not feeling very well. We abandoned our plans to visit Versailles and instead ate a nice long lunch near Gare du Nord. We stopped by the Grande Epicerie de Paris and picked up some food for our friends and family back in the States.

After disembarking the ship and dropping off our bags, we visited the Thorvaldsen Museum, which contains an interesting collection of statues and modern art. Next, we visited Christiansborg Palace, where the queen receives guests, and Rosenborg Palace, where the Danish crown jewels are stored. After that, we took the Rick Steves’s walking tour through Copenhagen. Exhausted, we headed back to the hotel (Wake Up Copenhagen) where the desk clerk was surprised that we were repeat customers (who would want to stay here twice?).
The next day, we ate lunch at a relatively affordable vegetarian buffet called Riz Raz. The eggplant salad was quite delicious. And then we headed off to Paris.

In my opinion, Stockholm is the nicest capital city in Scandinavia. Stockholm consists of a collection of islands (archipelago). There was a convenient and affordable priced hop on hop off boat connecting many of the islands of interest to tourists (much better than a HOHO bus).

We started by wandering around the old town, admiring the narrow cobblestone streets and old churches. Next, we visited the Vasa Museum which contains the almost complete remains of the doomed warship Vasa which sunk 20-50 minutes into its journey from Stockholm to Poland. Because of the muddy floor of Stockholm Harbor, the ship was preserved for hundreds of years before it was salvaged and restored in the 20th century.

Since we left the Star late and it was departing early, we rushed back to the ship to head back to Copenhagen.

The Star’s next stop was Helsinki, Finland. It was raining when we got off the ship. Usually, we would have walked into town, but because of the rain, we took the Hop On Hop Off bus into town. After circling the city, we got off and took Rick Steves’s walking tour from the Harbor to the Church in the Rock, stopping by at the Stockmann’s department store to eat a sandwich. The Church in the Rock is about what it sounds like, a church built into an outcropping of rock.

(I don’t like HOHO buses and this was no exception. They are overpriced and come around too infrequently to be a good transit option)

On the ship, we signed up for the Chef’s Table, a once-per-cruise multi-course gastronomical delight for 14 passengers. This Chef’s Table was similar to the Holland America version with a few differences. There were fewer wine pairings (only 3) and the executive chef actually came to the table to talk to us. The following morning, the chef led us on an extensive galley tour where we saw many of the food production and storage areas. The galley tour was a highlight of the cruise and definitely justified the Chef’s Table’s hefty price tag.

Because of the quagmire that is the Russian tourist visa system for Americans, we took an overpriced but worthwhile two day guided bus tour around St. Petersburg. As the bus left the port, I was greeted by the communist-era concrete apartment complexes that I was expecting in Estonia. According to our tour guide, these now rent for top dollar.

The whirlwind tour took us to many of the major tourist sights of St. Petersburg. The first stop was the Hermitage museum. Because of all the tour groups, it was super crowded in the museum and we spent most of the time rushing from room to room to see a small painting of Di Vinci or a small statue by Michelangelo. We also visited the Church on Spilled Blood, which Valerie was really looking forward to seeing. The rest of the tour was a series of palaces (Catherine’s, Peterhof, Yusupov), boat rides, and hydrofoils. One of the recurring themes on the tour was that most of the historical places were destroyed (either by WWII or communists) and were rebuilt for cultural and touristic purposes. Sadly, due to a lack of funds, most of the reproductions are slightly lacking. For example, the amber room in Catherine’s Palace contains only one piece of amber. The rest are fake.

The Star’s next stop is Tallinn, Estonia. Before embarking on this journey, I didn’t do much research on Estonia and I didn’t know what to expect. Given its proximity to Russia and its former status as a soviet republic, I assumed that there would be a lot of concrete communist-era buildings and cheap prices. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the entire Old Town of Tallinn is a UNESCO world heritage site. Complete with cobblestone roads, city walls, and the among the lowest prices in the Baltic eurozone, Tallinn was a pleasure to visit.

We ate lunch at a medieval themed restaurant called Old Hansa. In a manner similar to a Rennaissance Faire, the waiters dressed up as medieval servants and served some approximation of medieval foods. I had a soup of wild boar and other meats. Valerie had the wild boar plate in gravy with pickles and saurkraut and a “cake” of cheese. We washed it down with a pint of honey beer (similar to mead, but not as good). The overpriced, but tasty meal came with a small complentary glass of schnapps.

The Star’s first stop was in Rostock, Germany. While many of our fellow cruisers opted to take a 3 hour bus ride to Berlin, we instead chose to take a 10 minute complimentary shuttle to nearby Warnemünde. There really isn’t much to do in Warnemünde. Despite this, three large cruise ships were docked here (Costa, Aida, and NCL).

We strolled along the harbor promenade where we bought a couple of fish sandwiches for Valerie and a pastry for me. (When will I learn that Germany pastries aren’t tasty!?!) We stopped and gazed at the beachgoers on the sandy beach. Unlike the sunbathers in Croatia and Slovenia, these vacationers were mostly fully clothed because of the cold temperature, gusty wind, and overcast sky.

After about 4 hours, we’d seen all of Warnemünde that we wanted to see and headed back to the ship for a nap followed by a sea day! I love sea days.

We flew from Budapest to Copenhagen, where we will be departing on a Baltic cruise aboard the Norwegian Star. Getting to Budapest Ferihegy terminal 2 was surprisingly easy. We hopped on the metro line 3 and then a public bus to the airport. Transferring was a breeze and the whole 1 hour trip only costs 360 forint per person (less than $2). However, the transit on the Copenhagen side was surprisingly slow. Due to some signaling problems near Copenhagen Central Station, the S-Train was delayed by almost half an hour.

We stayed the night in the relatively cheap (by Copenhagen standards) Wake Up Copenhagen hotel. The rooms are tiny, but the price is right, and it is conveniently located just blocks from the train station. The following morning we boarded the S-Train and headed to Nordhavn where our cruise ship awaited.

The Norwegian Star is an older ship than we usually sail on. So, why did we pick this ship? 1) It fit our schedule. 2) It does somewhere we haven’t been before. 3) It was really cheap. Upon boarding, we noticed that the crowd skewed much younger than Royal Caribbean or Holland America. The cruise staff seems to be trying to foster a fun and lively atmosphere, and it is admittedly more fun than RCL or HAL, but not as fun as Carnival.
On our first night, we ate dinner at the Cagney’s Steakhouse specialty restaurant. The food was only so-so and not worth the $30 per person surcharge. For those of you who are planning an NCL cruise, skip the steakhouse and save your money for something better like an excursion or a refreshing beverage.

My new favorite national park: Plitvice Lakes in Croatia
When we traveled to Plitvice Lakes, I didn’t know what to expect. Perhaps that is why I was so taken aback by the incredible beauty of the lakes and the ingenious design of the park. Plitvice Lakes is, by far, the best national park I have ever visited. The clear blue lakes and cascading waterfalls are made accessible to tourists via wooden bridges that hover just centimeters above the water. As visitors stroll along the path, the lake ebbs and flows beneath them and they are guided to the best view of each waterfall, even if the viewpoint happens to be in the middle of a lake. The entire experience is almost magical, although sadly not wheelchair accessible. I fear that such an awe-inspiring tourist path could never be built in the United States because environmentalists would not permit such incursions into the lakes and because lawyers would not permit a bridge without hand rails.

Unexpected rip-off: Great Synagogue in Budapest
I fully expected to get ripped off at least once in Budapest (probably by a taxi driver). I never expected that I would be ripped off by employees at the Great Synagogue in Budapest. As far as I can tell, the security guard and synagogue tour company were in cahoots to direct tourists to buy more expensive tickets with guided tours from the tour company rather than regular entrance tickets from a kiosk just beyond the security checkpoint. It is sad that these people would take advantage of tourists who want to learn about the history of the Holocaust in Budapest. It disrespects the memories of the victims who died and who are buried at the Synagogue.

Great place to spend a vacation on the beach: South Croatian Islands
On our second day in Split, we traveled to Bol, a resort town in South Croatia. What we discovered were the beautiful sand and/or pebble beaches of the South Croatian Islands. Relaxed, sufficiently developed, and full of tourists, the South Croatian Islands offer a relatively affordable place to spend a week on the beach (at least affordable to Europeans who don’t need to fly across a major ocean to get here). If I were a resident of Central or Eastern Europe, I’d spend my vacations here.

Budapest (roughly pronounced boo-duh-pesht) is the largest and capital city of Hungary with a population of about 2 million people. I don’t usually like big cities. Budapest is no exception. It reminds me a lot of New York (tall buildings, somewhat stinky, too hot in summer, cabbies trying to rip you off).

The 11 hour train ride to Budapest wasn’t a great introduction to the city. Shortly after reaching the Hungarian border, our nice air-conditioned Slovenian train couldn’t continue (possibly due to a train collision ahead). We got off, boarded a bus to the next station, and then got on a much less nice Hungarian train without air conditioning. Over the next 4 hours, we sweated our way toward Budapest in the 90+ degree train.

Once we reached the city, the apartment that Valerie found was actually quite nice (with air conditioning) and well located (near Oktogon). The next morning, we went out for lunch in Liszt Ferenc square. Thanks to the heads up from the owner of our apartment, we found that most places offer a lunch special (only advertised in Hungarian) that is substantially cheaper than anything on the menu (about $5 for a great two course meal). The food in Hungary is much tastier than Slovenian and Croatian food.

On our first tourist day in Budapest, we toured Pest, the eastern half of the city. We quickly saw the sights (Parliament, various squares, the Opera House, etc), picking up cold drinks along the way to survive the heat.

To start our second tourist day, we visited the Széchenyi Baths. The baths consist primarily of the indoor thermal baths and the outdoor swimming pools. Since Hungary is a country without a coast (not even a concrete one), the citizens flock to these giant pool complexes to spend a day relaxing at the “beach”. While it was certainly a very relaxing experience, the pools lack some of the important qualities of an actual beach such as a cool breeze, sand, or hammocks.

After the baths, we very quickly toured Buda, the west side of the city. However, Buda wasn’t as interesting as Pest, so we quickly gave up and headed back to the air-conditioned room.

I don’t plan to return to Budapest in the summer. It’s just too hot.