Edinburgh

A whole day for the capital of Scotland. We are greeted by a lovely bagpiper in front of the vessel, bright sunshine and some strong wind. All set out to explore the very interesting town, and in fact, one day or a half is just not long enough. A guided bustrip shows you some of the highlights by driving through the town, but there is no time on the schedule to walk through the streets, enter a cafe or visit some of the museums or art-gallerys. But anyway, a stop was made for a visit of the world-famous castle on top of a hill in the very heart of town.

In the evening we had a special champagne-evening onboard the now permanently moored former royal yacht "Britannia". Even the captain and some officers joined us and were curious to look at this ship, wich was longer than our FRAM, but just built to serve one family ...

Northsea

We are directly heading for Edinburgh, and that means one full seaday between Germany and Scotland. Of course we use our time to inform the guests with our lectures about our destination. And besides Klaus Kiesewetter as naturalist we have some experts with us: Jürgen Worlitz for the royals and Bernie McGee for special whisky-tastings.

And the Expeditionleader is busy as usual and always in his office!

Hamburg

In the night we returned from Kiel and are now ready to take our new guests on a longer voyage: We have justs germans onboard, who are participating in Hurtigruten-Germanys 7. customers-event. We will travel to Scotland and the North-atlantic islands and end our trip in Reykjavik.

Kiel-channel

We have guests for one of the shortest FRAM-cruises ever: We depart in Hamburg at 23:30 during the harbour-birthday-celebrations and enter once again the channel to the Baltic sea in the morning to disembark our passengers at 15.00 the next day in Kiel. It is a quiet voyage through the Schleswig-Holstein countryside, with bright yellow fields of rape and fresh green trees on the hillsides along our route.

Seaday

Today we are heading back to germany, it is the plan to enter the Kiel-channel around midnight. So we had a lot of lectures during the day, the bar served waffles in the afternoon and the fabulous crewshow puts an funny end to this cruise.

Visby

The last port on our great baltic cruise. And a town, very much known for its great history in hanseatic times, known for its countless church-ruins, known for its well preserved city-wall, and known for its many roses in summer - but we are to early for that. But anyway, it was a very nice town, small enough to explore it by foot. It was still good weather, but a cold wind was blowing. The streets offered hundreds of great motives, as we explored on our photo-expedition with the ships photographer and some guests. Also this - as yesterday - a place to return to.

Streets of Visby

Sheeps crossing the streets

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.