| Tallinn, Estonia | Gdynia, Poland |
|
|
In Transit, June 3
| Saturday we went from Poland to Oslo. We left Poland about 7PM after a very full day and arrived Oslo at 7:00 AM a day later. Most of the trip was spent doing fun stuff like laundry, most of the rest was getting a break from touring so hard. The highlight of the trip was going under the bridge from one part of Denmark to the other. This bridge is the second longest bridge in the world. As you pass under, it looks like we are going to hit, but in fact, the boat clears by 40'. |  |
Oslo June 4
| Oslo is at the end of a long fjord. We picked up the pilot about
3AM and didn't dock till 7:00. This picture is just before we got to
the dock, so you can also see that it is very beautiful.
Being our last stop, the tour director wanted to remind everybody that OSLO is an acronym for Our Ship Leaves On-time. |
 |
 |
At 8:00, they stacked us on busses (for the next to the last time) and took us to a downtown park. It has this beautiful fountain in it and a bunch of sculptures about the cycle of life. Apparently the sculpture was not much of a communicator and although he had a family, this park was his legacy instead of his family. |
| The center of the park is a bridge with several sculptures on it conveying life as the artist saw it. The view from the side of the bridge is breath taking, the pictures below are a sampling of his sculptures (note, he didn't know how to sculpt clothes (apparently) so these are X-rated sculptures). |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The center the park is a fountain surrounded by sculptures. These
are all related starting from childhood, going through establishing a
family, ending with confusion about the family relationships and then
repeating. As you can see, the fountain itself is also
gorgeous.
Oh, the ground in the foreground used to be a rose bed. Last winter the killing frost arrived before the snow, so they lost all 6000 plants. They are replanting, but complaining (as you might expect) about the cost. |
| Michael will remember also the ski jump. Our reaction was more
"I don't want to be that high, to say nothing about coming down and
flying off the end."
This was supposed to be a shopping stop also, but being WhitSunday (Monday), one of the shops was closed and the other was lightly staffed, so when you put 8-12 busses of people there, the wait was ridiculous. We ended up leaving 30 minutes late, and many people just bailed out of the lines. |
 |
 |
Our final stop was an open air museum that had old buildings (kind of a Norwegian Sturbridge Village). This church dates from the 1200s and was of a classic style. Note that in addition to the cross over the doors, they had some of their ancient symbols to scare away the evil spirits, so at this point, they kind of believed in both religions. |
| At 1:00 we left for Copenhagen. Not being in a rush to pack, we went to the front observation deck to watch the scenery go by. In spite of the close quarters of the harbor, the pilot took us out without assistance. It's really neat to see him juggle the rear engines and the bow thrusters and just move the boat sideways away from the pier. |  |
 |
About an hour from Oslo, we passed these narrow straits. The island on the right contained a naval fortress and in early 1940, they sunk a German boat carrying a group planning to overturn the Norwegian government (by killing the Royal family mostly). Somehow the navy learned of their plans, and used guns they bought from Germany in 1910 to sink the boat. The boat is still sitting on the bottom (just to the left of the island at this point) as we could tell from oil slicks on the water. |
| Tallinn, Estonia | Gdynia, Poland |
|
|