ms Zuiderdam

I didn’t plan on becoming a cruise aficionado…..  but did one from Vancouver to Alaska a few years ago, because it was the only way I could get in to see Glacier Bay.  It turned out to be a very pleasant experience – and the Holland America Line is obviously geared towards an older (i.e., more sedate) crowd.  A look at their brochure back then offered yet another tantalizing sailing – a Baltic trip on the ms Zuiderdam, leaving from Copenhagen, stopping at a number of capitals & interest points within the region (including two days in St. Petersburg), before a return to that Danish port city.

I’ve posted about Copenhagen below, & St. Petersburg above – and will spare you a detailed, city-by-city travelogue.  But just a couple of points:  They developed Skype in Tallinn, Estonia….  making my Copenhagen stay much less expensive this time (see posting below)!  Our new ERE Director at SAIS in DC, Johannes Urpelainen, hails from Finland….  and he beat me to Helsinki this summer by just a few weeks.

Sibelius memorial in Helsinki

The Sibelius monument there is an abstract piece of art, and was quite controversial when initially installed.  The Berlin visit brought memories of traveling through what was then West Germany as a young teenager, and seeing convoy after convoy of American troops still stationed there.  The Berlin Wall continues to play a key role in defining the city (at sites such as Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall Memorial, and city locales where Germany’s own historical Topography of Terror was equally evident).

Berlin Wall