An overlooked ferry port

Tuesday – 18 June 2013 – Helsingborg, Sweden

I visited Helsingborg about 20 years ago just long enough to run from the slightly delayed train from Stockholm to board the ferry to Denmark. So I didn't get to see this quite lovely town until this morning's half day port call. And we were no longer in Germany.

We arrived before 8 am adjacent to the very busy Helsingborg ferry docks for our cruise's only stop in Sweden. The view from Silver Cloud of the town square was promising although the tourist information didn't really list a bunch of "must sees". It was kind of fun to see Kronborg Castle in Denmark across the Oresund Strait. Kronborg is the setting for Hamlet, of course, and a tourist destination right up there with visits to the buildings in Cleveland used to film Jean Shepherd's, "A Christmas Story", or for that matter Mork and Mindy's house in Boulder. But the view from Helsingborg was quite nice. As it happens, Helsingborg has a nice castle of its own. So there!

On the way to check out the 7-11 store at the railway station—where else—we observed a peasant on a bicycle and bunches of little kids in safely gear being led to look at Silver Cloud. We later found out that cruise ship calls are quite rare in Helsingborg, and our visit was highlighted in the local newspaper. I was amazed. There still are newspapers?

Another bombed to smithereens but restored Hanseatic League town and an octogenarian beach resort

Monday – 18 June 2013 – Warnemunde Port and Rostock, Germany

The most important city/state in the Medieval Hanseatic League was Rostock in modern Northern what used to be East Germany. In the 15^th and 16^th Centuries, traders in Northern Europe controlled many areas. It was not good to mess with these characters, but they sure built pretty houses.

Upon docking in the seaside resort of Warnemunde, Barbara and I hot footed it the 100 feet or so to the train station conveniently visible from our window on the ship. The S-Bahn commuter trains run every 20 minutes for the 20 minute ride to the downtown Rostock Central Railway Station. The 4.60 euro day pass also included the connecting tram line which we took to the stately University Square to "do" our own walking tour. So we paid about $10 total for the two of us and gloated at the Silversea shore excursion groups where each participant had put down $99. We kept coming across the group—their guides were using the same map—and might have heard the narration from their tours guides had we walked as slowly as they did.  But of course we had the brochure with the text. Boy, do we know how to do this sort of thing!

From Rostock's University Square we took pictures at the pretty nifty Town Hall. (Compare and contrast Boulder's square unadorned city building where there's homeless people lounging where the apparently forgotten front door should be).  We photographed the meticulously—hey, it's Germany—restored Hanseatic houses and visited the Medieval St. Mary's Church which has the highest ceiling I've seen and a very impressive Astronomical Clock. The clock is said to be operating continuously since the 1400s, but apparently not quite perfectly since it claimed that the current year was 1952. Also, the "perpetual clock" which originally started in 1489 or so had a revised start date of 1889 and perhaps more disquieting, an end date of 2017. The end of time? No matter, it was a very impressive accurate clock—the time appeared correct. Those Hanseatics must have anticipated Daylight Savings Time.

After what was a quite pleasant few mile walk around historical Rostock we returned to the ship via the efficient S-Bahn, had lunch, and then decided to explore Warnemunde where we had docked. I was surprised to see a modern and quite busy ocean front resort town, a very crowded beach (including an enterprising kite maker displaying his work), some whimsical park statues, and a very tacky snack bar. Just like similar places in the USA, but Barbara and I seemed to lower the average age of the beach goers by a good 10 to 15 years, and the few groups of teenagers around sat quietly on benches and tried to practice their English on us. Maybe a short visit isn't enough to truly understand a place.