Gems of Travel from the Baltic to the North Atlantic

By George Perkins

An account of a 2010 journey by Holland America cruise ship to the Baltic and North Atlantic with shore excursions in England, Denmark, Estonia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Holland, East Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, and Guernsey. Many colored photographs by th authors are included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: George Perkins
• Release date: Oct 24, 2010
• ISBN: 9781301275809

George Perkins

Ann Arbor writer, scholar, world traveler. My wife, Barbara Perkins, and I have sold over a million copies of our books, which include THE AMERICAN TRADITION IN LITERATURE and THE READER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. We have recently turned to Lulu for publishing quality paperbacks. These may be found at: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/GANDBPERKINS2 Highlight and click on the above address, or copy it and paste it into your browser. Books found there include CRUISING THE MEDITERRANEAN AND ATLANTIC (illustrated, color), AROUND THE WORLD ON THE QE2 (illustrated, black and white), THE MACHINE STOPS AGAIN (updating the classic E. M. Forster Science-Fiction story from 1909), and OUR WEDDING JOURNEY (a return to the far different world of 1965, when France, Italy. Switzerland, England, Scotland, and Wales could all be visited for very little money, lavishly illustrated with color photos taken at the time.

Book preview

GEMS OF TRAVEL FROM THE BALTIC TO THE NORTH ATLANTIC

George and Barbara Perkins

Published by FIRST ENCOUNTER BOOKS at Smashwords

Text and photographs copyright 2010 George and Barbara Perkins

www.georgeperkins.net

Cover: Water Park at Summer Palace of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg

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CONTENTS

Setting Out

England to Denmark

Warnemunde andGustrow East Germany

Tallinn, Estonia

St. Petersburg, Russia

Helsinki, Finland

Stockholm, Sweden

The Kiel Canal and Amsterdam

Lorient, France and the Carnac Megoliths

Bordeaux

La Coruña and Bilbao, Spain

St. Peter Port, Guernsey

Le Havre to Paris

Vlissingen, Netherlands

Zeebrugge, Belgium and the Chocolate Museum

London and Home

Afterthoughts

Books by George and Barbara Perkins

SETTING OUT

On June 25th, 2010, we began a cruise to places we hadn’t seen on our earlier QE2 World Cruise. The ship was the Prinsendam (Holland America). Stops would include Copenhagen, Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Lorient, Bordeaux, A Coruña, Bilbao, Le Havre, Vlissingen, Brussels, and London.

From Ann Arbor, we checked into our flight and got boarding passes on line, a procedure that made Detroit Metro much easier than usual. With a couple of hours to spare, we bought two Steig Larsson books, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire, in an airport shop that offered half your money back if you returned them there or in others of their chain of shops, a curious feature that we doubted any but the most frequent flyers ever took advantage of. We then relaxed in the Skyline Lounge until flight time, when we checked all our bags except our laptop computer, and settled in for a Business Class flight of about seven hours of comparative comfort. Seats were arranged in such a way that it was possible to spread them out as beds without affecting the spaces of seats behind and in front. And that was it, a quick and easy flight to Heathrow, where we cleared Customs quickly, met Holland America Representatives, and waited for the bus. Our driver chose to avoid the parking lot traffic that goes directly into and through London. Instead, he took the M25 south and east around the city, passed Gatwick Airport, and stopped for a rest break at RoadChef, a tea shop and souvenir facility that far outdid in every way the various rest areas of our English memories (it had been about a decade since we had last travelled in England). We moved on and found the ship docked at Tilbury on the Thames, 32 kilometers east of London. All told we had spent about fourteen hours in our journey, only half of it in our flight across the Atlantic.

And then we waited an hour or more to process the papers necessary for boarding. On board by noon, we found our stateroom not ready for occupancy, so lunched on a Reuben sandwich and tea in the Lido restaurant and waited an hour and a half to get into our cabin.

Our room was pleasant but small, with not much closet space. We stowed our bags under our king-sized bed. There was a small shower, but no tub. Cramped, yes, but the room opened onto a private balcony with two cushioned wicker chairs and a table, where we checked the scenery every morning and often leaned over the railing to observe the passing land and seascape. Inside as we sat on our small couch to read or to observe the ship’s news on the television, we found ourselves between mirrors that gave an impression of infinitely receding space to the person sitting directly between them.

We experienced problems with getting an expensive email connection, but it worked well when we succeeded. In many ways the ship is very impressive. There are large public areas, swooping curved stairways, chandeliers, and three pools. Friends who had traveled on Holland America had praised the food, and they were right, up to a point, but after a while the limited menus on the Prinsendam became tiresome. By the standard of the QE2, the only other cruise ship we were familiar with, both menus and service fell far short. Dining rooms of