Cruising to Gdansk and Klaipeda

Welcome back to my posts about our recent cruise to the Baltic. Once we left Zeebrugge we had two full days of sailing. The weather was good and we had extremely calm seas with lovely sunsets.
 

 

On the morning of Monday the 19th of May we sailed under the Oresund Bridge that links Copenhagen in Denmark with Malmo in Sweden. This was also the point where we changed from sailing in the North Sea to sailing in the Baltic Sea. The photos below were taken before 8 a.m. when we were out on deck having a bit of a stroll. It was a bit misty that morning. I suppose I should have known that we would be taking this route but I didn't so it was a surprise to see this massive bridge appear out of the mist. As we got closer, the captain made an announcement that we would be sailing under the bridge with something like 7m headroom to spare. Well I can assure you that at no time did it look like we could possibly get under that bridge. I was convinced that we were going to lose the ship's funnel or worse. Scroll through the photos (sorry - there's a lot of them!) to see the approach to the bridge; I just had to keep snapping to take my mind off the imminent disaster!! Of course we made it safely under the bridge and sailed happily into the Baltic Sea.

This is us safely out the other side!

We docked in Gdynia on Tuesday the 20th of May and took a coach trip to Gdansk. We have friends living in Gdansk so, as soon as we knew where the guide was going to leave us, we met up with them. It was great to have them show us round on such a lovely hot, sunny day. They were very surprised at how good the weather had turned out to be.

We met at the Green gate and walked about the city streets.

There were lots of stalls selling mostly amber. Apart from cafes most of the shops were also selling amber. The architecture is magnificent; look at the intricate paintings on each building.

We were taken especially to the Town Hall as this was were our friends were married 28 years ago. The Town Hall is the building with the clock tower. That tree in the foreground is hiding the statue of Neptune.

We were allowed to go inside this beautiful building as you can see from the next few photos.

 

 

Here's the husband and me on the steps of the Town Hall.

This great ship was sitting close to the cafe where we had coffee and lavender ice-cream. It is used for boat trips on the Motlawa River.

We only had time left to see the Golden Gate before leaving our friends and heading back on the coach to our ship.

It didn't take long for us to reach Klaipeda in Lithuania - we docked there the next day, the 21st of May. Our captain explained that this was the first time a ship from our cruise line had stopped in Klaipeda so it seemed to arouse some interest in the local people. We were greeted by a small band of musicians and dancers dressed in national costume.

We didn't do any of the organised tours in Klaipeda as it was just a short walk to the town. We were really impressed by how lovely the buildings were. Again there were canals with lovely bridges, a sailing ship, lots of statues and flowers. Have a quick look...

A lot of the buildings had comical statues on the roof. Here's just one example.

We walked along the side of one of the canals and, as you can see, we weren't far from the ship. Can you see it there in the background?

Further to the left of the that building on the left there was another canal with an intriguing figure climbing out of the water. He's a ghost!!

Here's a final photo of Klaipeda as we sailed out of the harbour. Look at that beach!! It stretched for miles on both sides of the harbour entrance.

That's a quick look at two of the places we visited and next time I'll be telling you about our two-day stop in St. Petersburg. Hope you come back for some more.

On a different topic; I took a quick nip out into the garden earlier today to pick some flowers. They're in a vase I bought in a pottery on Skye a few years ago which has sadly since closed. I love flowers - especially when they're in a nice vase.