Tallinn

This town was an stunning experience! Really beautyful! And it reminded us much more to scandinavian towns than to russian ones, as we had expected. It is all well preserved in the old town, they have nice shops and restaurants, it is all referring very much to the middle ages and the hanseatic history. We got an good overview of the town, but most guests had the feeling, that they could easily spend some more days here.

St. Petersburg

As this town is for sure one of the highlights of this cruise, we stayed two full days here. Today most people went on excursions through the city, looking at the battleship aurora, famous cathedrals or visiting the large gallery of the ermitage with great collections of european art. It was very warm today, just sunshine and T-shirt-weather. This days gave us some good insight in russian live of today. It is surprising to see, how fast things can change. After they had been forgotten for 70 years, the czars are now back in the minds and you can buy colourful books about them at every corner. And I still wonder what deeds they have done ...

St. Petersburg

In the early morning we passed the old fortress of Kronstadt, once protecting the naval base of St. Petersburg. At 8:30 we reached the mouth of the Newa-river and went to our mouring in the heart of town. Great to have such a small ship! So it were just 100 meters to the famous winterpalace. But anyway, no one could leave without a very expensive visa, just for excursions it was allowed. So everybody went with the busses, most to Catherines palace, which showed the wealth of one of the richest families in the world. Compared to the average living conditions it seems no wonder that the octoberrevolution put an end to that!

Helsinki

One capital follows the other: today its Helsinki. A lot of people went on excursion, but it was also great just to stroll through town, visit the Uspenski cathedral, look at the great old buildings, or visit the Ateneum art museum with a very interesting exhibition about the Kalevala, the finish national poem.

Empty streets on sunday ...

Stockholm

After a quiet night in the harbour we rise this morning in the heart of Stockholm, which we were already able to explore a bit yesterday afternoon. This morning offered more possibilities to get known with this city: in addition to the two excursions there are quite a lot museums and other sights awaiting visitors. Vasa Museum, Skansen, Art gallerys or just a walk through Gamla Stan. After lunch we left Stockholm and cruised once again through the archipelago.

Stockholm

In the morning we reached the outer part of the Stockholm archipelago, and had a wonderful 4-hours cruise through this lovely world of islands. And once again the weather was just great. Passing the old fortress of Vaxholm we slowly approached the city of Stockholm. We took our anchorage in the very heart of town, just at the waterfront of Gamla Stan, 2 minutes walk from the castle and in view to the major museums of the city. Great place to stay!

Rønne, Bornholm

After a cloudy, cold and wet day in the channel yesterday, we were surprised to open our eyes today on a completly sunny, warm and calm baltic sea. So we had the most beautyful weather to explore Rønne and other parts of Bornholm. Great start to our voyage!

Kiel-channel

We left Hamburg in the early morning and reached the lock for the channel at 8:00. On our way towards the baltic we had to cross Schleswig-Holstein on this world-most-frequented waterway. Slowly we travelled through the fields and enjoyed the views on settlement, bridges and passing ships.

Hamburg

In the morning we sailed up the Elbe-river, passing little villages, lighthouses and flowering orchards of apple-trees. In Hamburg this cruise came to an endand we took up new passengers for the baltic cruise.

Amsterdam

One more time in a big city far away from the coast ...
our guests walked through this lovely town with plenty of channels and bridges or went on long excursions to get a real glimpse of this land of windmills, cheese and tulips!

Antwerp

During the early morning hours we sailed up the river Schelde. We had to chase away a river-cruiser from our mooring, but than we were once more in the very heart of town, just a 5 min walk to the great cathedral and the famous old town-houses.
They have a marathon in the city today, so it is not so easy to cross every street as planned, but we had the honour to start the two major runs with our ships horn - so our purser Line let it yell loud through the city!

London one more day

We had our breakfast next to the Towerbridge and could enjoy real english weather in the morning: slightly pouring rain ...

But it cleared up again soon and we had sunshine when the bridge once again was opened for us: the pilot called the bridge and they immediatly stopped all traffic and a few moments later we passed by whilst hundreds of tourists enjoyed this spectacle and waved us farewell.

So we went down the river Thames passing noble, old fashioned Greenwich and the skyscraping glasstowers of new financial district before the Millenium Dome and the Thames barriers.

Now we are out on a very calm channel heading for Zeebrugge, where we will pick up our pilot after midnight.

Our mooring at the old warship HMS Belfast

Old and new side by side

London

We crossed the channel during the night and found ourselfes in the wide mouth of the river Thames at breakfasttime. Outside the windows we could see offshore-windparks and some strange, smaller tripod-structures wich were explained as old anti-aircraft or anti-missile fortifications from the second worldwar.

Slowly we went up the river and the shorelines came closer as we approached London. We passed the great post-modern-shaped and incredible expensive flood-barriers just outside the city and crossed the zero-latitude-line at the Greenwich observatory.

Finally we reached the famous Tower-bridge and it opened just for us, for we took our parking position on the other side of it, now lying side-by-side to the old warship HMS Belfast.

It is great to be so in the very heart of town with our Fram!

Everybody is out on deck to celebrate this unique moment!

Something you don`t see for often ...

Rouen

We had an early breakfast at 7:00 today, for the city-tours started at 8:00. First the busses took us to a hilltop aside the city to offer us a splendid view over the town and towards our tiny little ship. Than we walked through the very heart of the town with lots of very old framework-houses and a some unique gothik churches and the cathedral, of course. Finally we visited the old market-sqare, where Joan of Arc was burnt in 1431.

View of Rouen

The heart of the gothic cathedral