Today we went on an excursion to Bath, the town built around the only hot spring in Great Britain. To get there, we had to ride the underground to Paddington Station where we got a train to Bath Spa. The ride took two hours. I slept most of the way so I don’t remember much of it.

We started by going to the main attraction in Bath: the Roman Baths. Built by the Romans staring in AD 43, the site was forgotten and silt from the nearby river gradually covered the area after the fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman Baths were not discovered again until the late 1800’s. The hot springs didn’t cease to function and the area had a lot of activity in between those periods. Initially it was mainly poor people who used the waters for healing purposes, but then the Queen came and was healed of her rheumatism and suddenly, Bath was the place to be if you were anybody. An entire structure was built around the hot spring, but the Roman Baths were not discovered for another few hundred years. After it was discovered excavations commenced. The best preserved Roman ruins north of the Alps (or so claimed our the guide) were unearthed.

Today was our second day in London. We spent our morning at St. Paul’s Cathedral and went to the British Museum in the afternoon.

After a breakfast of bread, cheese, and prosciutto we went to Shepherd’s Bush station and caught the Central Line to St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was pretty obvious where to go from there since the dome of St. Paul’s loomed overhead. We started by using Rick Steve’s audio guide through the cathedral. We began at the entrance and proceeded down the knave (the place where you sit during services). Then we went around the Quire (the area where the choir sits) to the main altar. Behind the main altar is a memorial to the American soldiers who fought to defend Britain during WWII. We then came back around and went up the stairs into the dome itself. The first level is called the whispering gallery because you can whisper to the wall and someone all the way across the dome can hear you. It’s really cool. Then dad and I climbed up to the next level where there’s a good view of London. I climbed all the way to the top and there was an even more spectacular view. I could see all of the main sights of London. We then went back down and got the audio guides provided by the church. We listened to some of that commentary and then proceeded to the crypt. Many famous people were buried down there. The remains of Sir Christopher Wren, the builder of the cathedral, are down there along with memorials to many fallen soldiers and heroes of war.

Today was our first full day in London, England. We decided to start with a panoramic hop on-hop off bus tour. To get to the bus tour we had to go to Trafalgar Square to get tickets. We went to the Shepherd’s Bush metro/tube/underground station and bought passes. The man that assisted us was very helpful. To get into the subway, you have to touch your card on a sensor (I’m guessing it uses NFC) and a gate opens for you. We took the Central Line to Oxford Circus (which apparently doesn’t have anything to do with a circus) and then transferred to the Bakerloo line to Charing Cross. It was a neat experience, especially for a suburbs boy like me.

Today was entirely travel. We woke up early, ate breakfast, and headed out to the shuttle to the airport. We flew directly to London, Gatwick airport (not Heathrow). Then a driver who we had hired picked us up and took us an hour and a half to the apartment we had rented using HomeAway (which is like Airbnb). Our dad, who had flown in a few hours earlier, met us at the apartment. After leaving our stuff in the flat, we headed to the grocery store, Tesco, to get foodstuffs for our stay in London.

Today we were in Copenhagen, Denmark. This is our last port on the cruise. We fly out of Copenhagen to London tomorrow.

We began our day by doing a MeMover tour. MeMovers are kinda like a mobile elliptical, but not. I can’t really describe it, so I’ll post a picture that our guide took when we were parked in front of a water feature. Our guide had virtually perfect English and his son, Otto, who made the caboose of our caravan, had terrific English also.

Today we were in Fredericia (fred-er-esh-eeuh), Denmark. We got off the boat late because we didn’t have anything scheduled until the afternoon. When we did make it into town, we walked around for a little bit. It is a very nice town, but there isn’t much to see. There were a lot of pedestrian streets and I liked the water features along and in the street. We did manage to buy a new SIM card that will work in Denmark so we can call dad. We bought it from a Sri Lankan in Denmark.

Today we docked at the port in Warnemunde, Germany. We had to go out earlier than normal because 1) we docked earlier and 2) we drove into Berlin which is a 3.5 hr drive. We didn’t have much trouble finding our driver, and the ride into Berlin wasn’t very interesting. We stayed mostly on the autobahn, the (basically) no speed limit highways. The driver didn’t seem to be very experienced, but we didn’t die. He did drive us to the wrong spot in Berlin though. It was his second time in Berlin, so he didn’t know the city very well. Our guide had told the driving company to take us to a certain part of the Berlin Wall, but the company had told our driver the wrong place. It took half an hour or so to find the right spot.

Today we were at sea, only sailing. I really don’t want to write all about it, so I won’t. I will tell you that it was fun. Just combine what I’ve described to you about the last few evenings on the ship and add some swimming to that and you have a good idea of what happened today.

Today we were in Klaipeda, Lithuania. Unlike Tallinn and Riga, Klaipeda is not the capitol of Lithuania. The capitol, Vilnius is 300 km (186 mi) away and the second largest city is in between Vilnius and Klaipeda. Klaipeda is the industrial centre of Lithuania. The large number of container ships was an indicator of this economic status.

Klaipeda was historically German, specifically East Prussian. It was not until the Soviets came after WWII that it became part of Lithuania. All of the German population left Klaipeda (which was at that time known as Memelis) and the Soviets renamed the city to its current name. The Soviets then incorporated the city into Lithuania. During WWII, like all of the Baltic States, Germany invaded and occupied Lithuania. Then, the Soviets came back and reoccupied Lithuania.

Today we took it a little easier than the other days. We didn’t do any tour of the city, but we did ride the shuttle into Riga and walked around. The shuttle dropped us off at the main square called Town Hall Square. The architecture of Riga is a mix of old, Soviet, and modern and the buildings of Town Hall Square demonstrates that perfectly. There was an old structure, the House of the Blackheads, that was built in the 1300s, an ugly Soviet building that housed a museum, and just around the corner was a modern (post-Soviet) building. There is a statue in the middle of the square of a man holding a sword. In ancient times, the sword was used as the geographical centre of the city and all measurements were based off of that point. We then wandered to St. Paul’s church (I think it was Paul’s, it might have been Peter’s though, I can’t remember). It was like many other small town Germanic churches. We continued to wander through various streets and eventually made it to Dome Square named after the domed church which is the dominant landmark in the square. We walked around, took some pictures and ate some Latvian ice cream. Then we headed back to the Town Hall Square.