Fourteen Day Cruise on Holland America's Eurodam

We've recently completed a 14 day cruise on the Eurodam to Copehagen, Denmark; Warnemunde, Germany; Talinn, Estonia; St. Petersburg, Russia; Helsinki, Finland; Stockholm, Sweden; Kiel, Germany; Oslo, Norway; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Dover, England. It was a great itinerary, on a beautiful ship.

The Eurodam was just about one year old when we boarded the ship on June 22, 2009. It still looked brand new. We highly recommend the ship.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Copehagen is a beautiful, exceptionally clean city. Our first impression of the city was that it seemed almost everyone rode a bicycle. After two days exploring the city, that first impression still holds. It is a particularly pedestrian / cycle - friendly place.

The highlights for us were the changing of the guard at Amalienborg Palace, Tivoli Gardens and the docks at Nyhavn.

Warnemunde, Germany

Warnemunde was intended to be a jumping-off point for full day excursions to Berlin.  We decided early on that a 14 hour day with a big tour group was just not for us. We teamed up with another couple from the Eurodam to rent a car and take a more leisurely itinerary.

Our trip took us to Bad Doberan, where we caught the Molli Train to Kühlungsborn. This proved to be a delightful trip - a historic steam engine train that travels right through the middle of Bad Doberan. The big surprise to me though was the Cathedral, or Bad Doberaner Münster. This brick gothic masterpiece amazed me.

After lunch in Wismar, our trip concluded in Schwerin, where we visited the "castle", and contemplated walking the national horticultural exhibit adjacent to it before deciding it was just way too much walking. Our afternoon in Schwering was

Talinn, Estonia

I'll confess I had not even HEARD of Tallinn prior to our cruise. However, having done a bit of research on it, and having researched a walking tour, I had high expectations.  Tallinn did not disappoint us in the least.

We took a ship's tour of the city proper, and outlying areas. Although the sites were mildly interesting, clearly the "featured attraction" is the medieval walled city, a UNESCO World Heritage site. In many ways, strangely, the city reminded me of the island of Rhodes, which was constructed by the Knights Hospitaller, and modeled after European mediaval cities.

The main benefit of the tour was that it let us out in the upper town, letting us explore there before walking down into the lower town and back to the ship. All parts of the city were fascinating, and the city had a very active street life, especially around the city hall plaza. Of course, most pedestrians were other cruise ship passengers - there were lots of photographers photographing each other.

St. Petersburg, Russia

Our two days in St. Petersburg were clearly the highlight of our cruise. We had developed a custom tour itinerary with Anastasia Travel Company, and others at Cruise Critic signed on with us. Our group ended up at 11, which proved to be a very nice, workable size. Irina, our tour guide, and Andrew, our driver, were both wonderful to work with.

There were too many individual high points to list here. We toured both St. Catherine's Palace, and Peterhof Palace - most tours only do one - and I would not have missed either one. The grounds at Peterhof also are not to be missed.

St. Isaac's Cathedral was awe-inspiring. It's interior decoration of mosaics, malachite and lapis lazuli, and the soaring dome were breath-taking. As impressive as it was, I almost forgot to mention it because of the overwhelming memory of another church...

The Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood was visually overwhelming. The entire interior is covered in mosaics, in an absolutely amazing array of colors.

The Hermitage Museum probably rose to the top of the sights we saw though - both from an architectural standpoint and from the amazing collection of art in its galleries. Partially housed in the old Winter Palce, many of the galleries are spectacular on their own. When you add the Rembrants, the Impressionist masterpieces, and the entire gallery full of Picassos, it clearly rivaled the Louvre for us in terms of "sensory overload".

Kiel (Lubeck)

The port of Kiel itself held little interest to us, so we again team up with another couple to rent a car. We had read about Unesco World Heritage site of Lubeck, and hoped to see both it and Hamburg in the short time we had in port in Kiel.

Lubeck turned out to be much more interesting, and larger, than we had thought. Pretty quickly we abandoned thoughts of also doing Hamburg. We didn't have throngs of sighteeers to contend with - most people we encountered were residents. At every turn we found something of interest, and the four churches we toured each had their own interesting stories.

Oslo

From the amount of excitement generated in Oslo by the arrival of the Eurodam, it seems clear that ships of that size rarely visit. Local residents lined the street, which was not "on the beaten path", for both our arrival and our sailing.

On the surface, Oslo seemed to not have many points of interest for us. We had not booked a shore excursion there for that reason. However, we ended up really enjoying our day there - one of the warmest on recored for them.

Our first order of business was to take a ferry to the Viking Museum. Several intact Viking ships, buried in piece with important local chieftans, were the focal point of the Museum. The surprising thing for us though was to see the intricate decoration on items like a sled. I would never have thought Vikings would bother with aesthetics!

We next took a tram to the Vigeland Sculpture Park. The park features 212 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland, on an 80 acre site.

We took the tram back downtown and enjoyed a walking tour where we saw the Royal Palace, enjoyed the pedestrian street and explored the Akershus Fortress, perched high above our cruise ship dock.

Oslo has a small town feel when compared to other Scandinavian capitals, but we found plenty there to do.

Stockholm

We slept in on the morning the Eurodam cruised through the Stockholm Archipelago in its approach to Stockholm itself. After hearing from several passengers what we had missed, we were sure to be on deck when we cruised out that evening. The Archipelago was spectacular.

We also enjoyed the Stadshuse, or City Hall, site of the Nobel Prize award ceremonies. Its architectural style defies description. The Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace provided another special sight.

The highlight of Stockholm for us, though, was the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a warship lauched in 1628 from Stockholm. Built top heavy and without enough ballast, it immediately capsized and rest on the sea bed until 1961, when it was raised largely intact. The Vasa Museum was built to house the warship in 1987.

Helsinki, Finland

As an architect, it was eye-opening to be in a city that takes design seriously. In our one day touring the city and surrounding countryside, it was clear that people actually KNEW the names of the architects of their major buidings. Some of that could have been that we took an architectural tour of the city, but then again, EVERY tour bus in the city visited the Temppeliaukio Kirkko. Commonly known as the Rock Church, it was designed by architect brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen and completed in 1969. They chose a rocky outcrop rising about 40 feet above street level, and blasted out the walls from the inside:

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/finland/helsinki-rock-church-temppeliaukio

It is really a beautiful building, but I can only think of a handful of modern buildings in the world that would be such a source of pride for a city.

Amsterdam

I had high expectations for Amsterdam. Perhaps it was tourism "burnout" after 12 days of cruising and touring, or perhaps the fact that we are visiting on a sleepy Sunday, but the city didn't didn't really overwhelm us.

Our day in Amsterdam started out with a ship's driving tour of the city, with a featured stop at the Van Gogh Museum. The museum turned out to be the highlight of our day. There are so many amazing Van Goghs in this one place, and the museum does a great job of explaining the life of this tortured artist.

After the tour ended though, we wanted to see more of the cty. Although I had printed out a walking tour of the city, I actually forgot that I had done so, and instead we walked from the dock to the central train station where we booked a "hop on / hop off" canal tour. We quickly realized just how dirty the canals are, and really how littered the city as a whole was - especially in comparison to the pristine Scandinavian cities we had visited.

Dover

We disembarked in Dover, and my only impressions of the port were based on our early morning sighting of the "white cliffs of Dover", and our berthing at the Port of Dover. Based on the size of the facilities, clearly not many passenger ships dock there. It still was a nice "English-speaking" way to end our vacation, though