Tag Archives: Scandinavia

adventure, Champagne Bucket trips, Iceland, Nordic

Our first Icelandic adventure: How did we end up there? (part one)

Bill and I just got home from Iceland yesterday afternoon. I’ve been itching to write about our visit to the mysterious island nation for days now, but have held off on starting the series until we got home. Although I sometimes start writing before trips end, this time, this time I decided I needed to wait. I wanted to be near my desktop computer, where I have more tools to edit photos and make videos. I also find writing on the desktop much easier than writing on the laptop; that’s important, because I have a lot of ground to cover.

But, really, the main reason I waited was because we have been VERY busy. Seriously… it seems like we’ve been gone a month, even though our trip was only for about ten days. One of our drivers estimated we saw about 30 percent of Iceland on our trip. My guess is that we saw less than that, mainly because Bill and I are older and less willing to traipse through the wilderness. There’s a lot of wild country in Iceland, and the weather can be brutal, especially if you’re not adequately prepared.

I’m sorry to report, I was not quite ready for Iceland’s hostile climate. Bill had, at least, done some shopping on Bergfreunde.de for new shoes and a hat. Luckily, there are businesspeople in Iceland who anticipate tourists like me, and there are quite a few Icewear stores scattered about the more populated areas. When we stopped by Icewear, we saw many other people who were in the same situation we were… buying raincoats, shoes, beanies… and the smarter ones probably invested in waterproof pants. I sure wish I had!

Nevertheless, in spite of being somewhat underprepared, Bill and I managed to enjoy our visit unscathed. Neither of us got sick or injured. And… according to the pedometer app on my iPhone, we covered about 17 miles walking… which may not seem like a lot to younger, fitter people, but for a fatass housewife like me, it’s a pretty good deal. Especially when one considers the weather! It wasn’t super cold, but the rain and wind were incredible; I had never experienced anything like it before. I wasn’t prepared for that on this visit, but if we manage to go to Iceland again, I will definitely be more ready for it.

So how did we end up going to Iceland in the first place?

Bill and I have a ritual of choosing our vacations by luck. We used to be fans of Eurowings’ “blind booking” program, in which you book a flight somewhere, but don’t know where you’re going until after you’ve paid. We did that a few times when Eurowings was still called Germanwings. But then we later had more money, and less desire to fly places on the cheap. I’m sure my expanding ass had a lot to do with that. 😉

We also have two dogs who have to be accommodated by the local Hundpension, which makes it harder for us to be too spontaneous. When we still had our comparatively small beagles, Zane and Arran, it was sometimes easier to just take them with us when we went places. But now we have Noyzi, who takes up all the cargo space in the back of the Volvo. And we have Charlie, who is still kind of afraid of riding in the car. It’s better to board them when we go places.

We started planning trips with the same “surprise” idea of blind bookings, only instead of letting the airline decide, we let the champagne bucket choose. We put scraps of paper in the bucket and Bill picks one. If the selection is feasible for when we want to travel, we book it. At some point in the spring, he picked Iceland. We were delighted with that result, because Iceland was a place we both really wanted to visit before we shove off the mortal coil. Iceland isn’t cheap, so it’s good to go there when the cash flow is good… and it’s also potentially physically challenging, so it’s best to visit when one has the stamina and ability to get around somewhat easily.

I did have some worries about the weather, even though we were technically visiting in the summer… but then I saw memes like the one below…

Don’t let that “green land” fool you… Bring a jacket!

I got fooled into thinking Iceland is more temperate than it is. I mean, it is temperate, considering where it’s located, but it’s certainly not temperate like Germany is. When we left Germany, it was hot as the dickens! The funny thing is, when Bill went to Reykjavik in 2009, it was around the time of my June birthday. He brought me a wool scarf and a CD of Icelandic folk tunes sung acapella by people with very ordinary voices. I was confused by the wool scarf in June… until now. 😉

Finding Iceland Luxury Tours…

So anyway, Bill picked Iceland out of the bucket, and the responsibility came down to me to plan the trip. I don’t know why I was inspired to hire a guide for our visit to Iceland. We’ve never done a private tour before, although we have done at least one group tour together (which I’m not very good at). I guess, somewhere in my brain, I realized that visiting rugged Iceland, with its unpredictable weather and rough roads, might go better if we had a local doing the driving. I wasn’t as wise about the weather in terms of dressing, but I did at least have enough common sense to look into finding us a guide/driver. Somehow, in the process of planning, I came across Iceland Luxury Tours.

I’m a big believer in reading reviews, although I do realize that a lot of people tend to write them when they’re either pissed off or very happy. I found many positive reviews of Iceland Luxury Tours on multiple sources, including Trip Advisor, which in my experience, often turns out to be the most accurate source of all. I review most of our travel experiences, and I try to be as honest as possible, even if I’ve had a mediocre time. I was impressed that Iceland Luxury Tours had many five star reviews and glowing comments, and only three four star ratings. It had not been rated lower by anyone. On Google, there were far fewer reviews, but the ones they had were all raving. So I asked Bill to contact them to see what they could do for us.

Bill sent an inquiry to Iceland Luxury Tours, and the owner, Sveinn Sigurður Kjartansson, was quick to respond. After Bill offered a budget, Sveinn proposed some itineraries. Then we tweaked the trip to suit our interests. For example, I am a big time horse lover. Iceland is famous for its Icelandic horses (and they are horses– not ponies). Sveinn added a visit to a horse farm to our trip. We like spas, so he added a visit to the Sky Lagoon. We’re not super fit or thrill seeking, so those kinds of activities were omitted. Later, when I realized that flying home on Friday, as we’d planned, would be significantly more expensive, we added a day. Sveinn added activities for that extra day.

How much did it cost?

Well, folks… I’ll be honest. This was a very expensive trip. Iceland Luxury Tours planned everything for us, to include our luxury hotels, breakfasts, private tours/tickets to several attractions, transfers to and from the airport, transportation to the Sky Lagoon, and five full days with our guide, Ivar, and a very capable Toyota Land Cruiser. I think Bill said it all came to about $17,300 or so… And then I booked round trip Saga Class (business) tickets on Icelandair, which was well worth doing, but not a cheap endeavor. I think the tickets were about $2500 for the two of us, give or take $100. Fortunately, we had the money to cover it, and a new travel credit card from PenFed that offers generous travel benefits.

Now, I do realize we could have done this trip much more cheaply, even with a guide. We could have scaled down the budget significantly and still had a memorable experience. But these days, I like to travel in comfort. I’ve had my fill of traveling cheaply… and believe me, I’ve done plenty of that in my lifetime! Luckily, Bill doesn’t mind being more comfortable, and we currently have the means to travel that way.

Although we don’t usually spend that much on our trips, it did occur to me that last year, we spent a couple of weeks in Scandinavia and spent well over $20,000. That trip included about a week on our own in Norway, a week on the Regent Splendor, and then a couple of nights in Denmark. So, this trip to Iceland, which is probably going to be our one big vacation this year, isn’t that far out of line for us. But I do want to reiterate– you don’t have to spend that much yourself. You can do fewer days with a guide, concentrate in a smaller area, do group tours instead of private ones, eat cheaper food… and avoid drinking alcohol. 😉

I do recommend hiring a guide, though, especially if you want to go to any rugged parts of the country. There will be more on that in the coming posts. When I start sharing photos and videos, you’ll certainly see why!

So… now it’s time to write the story of our first trip to Iceland. I hope you’ll join me on this very bumpy but exhilarating ride!

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Champagne Bucket trips, Regent Seven Seas Cruise Lines

July 2… time to go HOME.

On the morning of July 2, it was time to start the process of ending our big trip of 2023. Again, I can’t say that I was sad about it. I love going on vacations. I enjoy traveling– seeing new things, buying new stuff, meeting people, eating different foods, and drinking different beverages… especially the adult varieties. But it all has to end eventually.

I missed Noyzi. I craved having access to my washing machine. I worried about the pile up of mail. I even had fond memories of my bed, which really needs a new mattress. And, even though not that many people want to read my blog posts about our travels, I was really itching to write and upload all of the photos I took over the two weeks we were gone. I prefer to write on my desktop computer, which is at home. So, home was where we needed to go.

Bill checked out of the hotel, while I went to the handy self check-in kiosk in the hotel lobby. I printed our luggage tags and boarding passes, and we made our way to the luggage drop off point, which was actually a pretty stout walk within the airport from the hotel. It was especially rigorous, since we had heavy bags. I was thanking God that I booked business class on the plane, because it got us into the short security line, and we were able to get through and into the SAS Lounge (which also serves Lufthansa passengers) in no time.

Glad Bill likes cheese!

The Copenhagen Airport has a pretty decent lounge, although I didn’t make full use of it. I just sat in a nice chair and drank sparkling water while we waited until it was time to make our way to our gate. Once we got there, we found it backed up with a lot of passengers and not enough seating. Typical! 😉

I was a little worried that maybe our plane would be like the one we flew out of Bergen on… two by two seating in a very narrow aircraft. But it was a nice spacious plane, with three seats per row. Since we were in business class, we had an empty middle seat, and we even got served “breakfast”… which was mostly stuff I don’t eat. But they did have warm croissants and orange juice, which was fine for me. I also appreciated the chocolate they gave us afterwards!

The flight was perfectly lovely, and we landed on time in Frankfurt. It took forever to get our bags, and I think we might have even been the only ones who checked baggage. We were the only ones we noticed from our flight waiting for bags, which took over a half hour to get to us. While we were waiting, we encountered more Americans. One was a woman who looked a little annoyed when I sat down in a chair near her luggage. She changed her tune when she started wondering aloud about transportation and Bill helpfully piped up with local insider info. She asked us where we were from, and we answered America… but now we live here in Germany, and boy has it changed us in profound ways.

I don’t know what the woman and her husband were here for. The way she was dressed and the amount of luggage she had suggested that maybe she was going to go on a Rhein cruise or something. But those usually start in Basel, Switzerland or Amsterdam, Netherlands. They do pass through the Rheingau, though, and I often watch them and think… maybe I’d book one of those if I didn’t live so close to so many of the stops!

We found the Volvo and drove home, quickly unpacked, and I started doing laundry. I turned on the robot mower to deal with the very high grass. I checked out our rain barrel, which was full of nasty critters I’ve been killing all week. And I’ve been writing on this blog for a solid eight days. I’ve still got some more to write about, but the actual blog series on our big Nordic trip is over now. I hope some of you enjoyed it.

For those who are curious… This trip ran us approximately $22,000. We don’t usually come close to spending that much on a vacation, and we spent more than we had to. This was not an economy trip, by any means. We were also gone for two weeks, traveling in style in a very expensive area of the world. So…

*Cruise was about $12,000 or so… Concierge E on Regent Seven Seas Splendor, which is a luxury class, all inclusive cruise ship.

*Business class plane tickets from Frankfurt to Oslo, Bergen to Stockholm, and Copenhagen to Frankfurt, probably about $2,000 or so.

*A compartment on the train to Bergen from Oslo, about $500

*Hotels for eight nights, about $2,000 or so. Those, we paid at the hotel, rather than ahead of time.

*Trip insurance for a year about $1,000 (covers all trips all year)

*Food, booze, shopping, transportation, tickets to activities etc. about $4,500

I also haven’t factored in how much Noyzi’s boarding was. We had to prepay that in cash before we left.

If we’d wanted to, we could have pared down costs considerably. This summer, we really just wanted to enjoy ourselves. We definitely aren’t alone. Europe is teeming with people this year, and prices are pretty high. I’m happy to report that most of these costs were paid off before our trip started. We just need to work on paying off the stuff I didn’t pre-pay or pre-book.

It was a special pleasure to visit Finland and Latvia, two places I had never been to before, and learn about other places I’d never heard of, like Visby and Bornholm. It really was a good time, albeit very different from our usual road trips south!

So, that about does it for this series. I have to close now, as workmen have just shown up to replace the windows in my house. Hope to see some comments at some point!

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Champagne Bucket trips, trip planning

In case you needed a reminder… Scandinavia is EXPENSIVE.

The featured photo was taken on a day cruise we took in Oslo, Norway, back in 2009.

It’s not so often that I travel blog during the work week. We have the pandemic to thank for that, as it made taking normal trips a lot more difficult for the past couple of years. In 2023, things are pretty much back in full swing. I expect Europe will be, once again, teeming with people this summer. In fact, I expect there will be more people than ever.

A week ago, we did a champagne bucket draw, and Finland won. That meant planning a trip that included a stop in Finland. I marvel at the changes our plans have undergone within about ten days. We went from planning a Helsinki based trip that would include land based stops in the Baltic countries, to pulling the trigger on a luxury cruise, with a week in Norway beforehand.

When you see the words “luxury cruise” in my blog post, of course it goes without saying that this trip is going to be pricey. We are going to sail on Regent Seven Seas’ newest completed ship, Splendor, in June. An even newer ship, Grandeur, will be sailing this year, but I don’t think she’s had her maiden voyage yet. So, as of this writing, Splendor, which was built in 2020, is Regent’s newest. This will also be the newest ship we’ve ever sailed on, as we usually opt for either SeaDream or Hebridean Island Cruises, both of which offer luxury on much smaller and older vessels.

One of many Regent Splendor cruise ship tour videos on YouTube.

I chose this particular cruise on Regent mostly because of the itinerary, which includes a stop in Helsinki, as well as most of the Baltic locations we wanted to visit, along with a couple of other stops. It’s not our first Baltic cruise, though.

Our very first cruise was on Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas, back in 2009, and that was also a Baltic cruise. It was only four nights, and included stops in Tallin, Estonia and Copenhagen, Denmark, with embarkation in Oslo, Norway, and debarkation in Stockholm, Sweden. On that trip, we spent a couple of nights in Oslo, which we both really enjoyed. The cruise was loaded with Norwegians, and we found that we really enjoyed their joie de vivre. 😉 Later, we encountered a friendly bunch of them on our second SeaDream cruise and vowed we’d visit Norway again. So that’s why we’re doing a week in Norway, too… and staying longer, so we can see more of Norway than just the city of Oslo. Below are a few photos from our cruise from Norway to Sweden in 2009… As you can see, I need to take more photos of beautiful Norway, at the very least! That was before I had an iPhone.

When I saw Regent’s June 23 Stockholm to Copenhagen cruise, I knew it was a no brainer to book it, because I was finding it very difficult to plan a land based trip including Finland and the Baltics… And yes, before anyone comes at me, I know there’s a large body of water we’d have to cross to get to the Baltics. I was planning a few days in Finland, then a ferry ride to Tallin, where I naively thought we could arrange train travel or maybe rent a car or something… At this writing, a train route is being constructed to make that vision come to fruition in the future. As of now, though, it’s just not convenient. 😉 I also realized Bill wouldn’t want to be driving so much, and I wouldn’t want to be flying so much.

The cruise solution was simply more practical, and it was available during the time we wanted to travel. And– we had the money to pay for it, thanks to a big tax refund. Even better was the fact that the sailing I found was on sale… which was a damned good thing. In fact, I should have waited another week, because the price went down again, and it was quite a significant drop! Some people would probably tell me to cancel and rebook, but I’ve already had lots of words with my bank. Oh well… you win some, you lose some.

Anyway… last night, we were trying to decide how long we wanted to stay in the places we’re visiting before the cruise, and how we wanted to travel to them. It didn’t take us long to decide to visit Bergen, which is a very beautiful city on Norway’s west coast that offers enchanting scenery, fresh seafood, and lots to do. However, from Oslo, it takes seven hours to drive there or take the train. We could also fly; that takes just an hour. But if we fly, we’ll miss the incredibly beautiful scenery on the way, and have to deal with everything that flying entails nowadays.

I thought maybe we’d drive and stop somewhere on the way, maybe do some exploration. Unfortunately, renting a car in Norway, especially for a one way trip with drop off in another city, is VERY expensive. Gas and food are also very expensive in Norway, plus there are tolls on the road we’d be using.

The route from Oslo to Bergen is also rather devoid of places to stay. There are a lot of apartments to rent, and a few hotels that are either in the middle of nowhere or have dodgy reviews. I wouldn’t mind renting an apartment, but I’d hate to do that for just an overnight. Most of the ones I found were pretty bare bones, too. I did manage to find several hotels that allowed me to book now and pay later, and can be canceled up to the day of arrival. Clarion Hotels for the win! They even have a hotel out in the middle of nowhere that I considered booking, but then I thought again.

Finally, I think we decided we’d just take the train… which means we now have to decide if we want to leave at 8:23AM or 12:05PM. The later trip is notably less expensive, but slower. I suspect we’ll go for the morning time, so we can get to Bergen in the afternoon. If we wanted to spend another night in Oslo, we could get a really (relatively) cheap train fare… but then we’d be paying for another night in Oslo, which is legitimately a nice city, but one we’ve already seen. It’s not a super pretty town, either, although I do remember enjoying the day cruise we took on the Oslo Fjord in 2009.

So, once I found a hotel that offers parking, in case we drive after all, I went to book plane tickets. A flight from Bergen to Stockholm takes one hour and twenty minutes. I found seats on SAS– Scandinavian Airlines (although when I hear SAS, it reminds me of a cursed statistics program I had to use in grad school). I tried to book with my PenFed card, but for some reason, PenFed refuses to send texts with codes to overseas phone numbers, nor will they send the confirmation codes to emails. So that means I can’t authorize charges through their stupid two factor authentication program.

I went to USAA, which did successfully send me a text. But, even though I entered all of my information, gave them a fingerprint, and tried to authorize the charge, they still declined it and blocked my card. At 10PM, I was calling USAA– for the second time in a week– to ask them to unblock my card and authorize payment, so we can get from Bergen to Stockholm. The lady I spoke to last night was very nice and professional, unlike the other person I talked to a few days ago, who was quite rude to me.

We finally got the plane tickets sorted, and now we just have to confirm where we’ll be sleeping for our night in Stockholm. I had wanted to stay longer in Stockholm, since we never really got to see the city when we were there in 2009, but that would have meant arranging for another night there. Our night in Stockholm is already included in our cruise fare, so adding another would mean going to another hotel or paying more to Regent. I think we’d prefer another night in Bergen, anyway.

All that’s left to do now is buy train tickets, or arrange for a car to get us from Oslo to Bergen. I’ve even mostly paid off the credit card companies. I paid off the deposit and Lufthansa tickets last week, which I booked through PenFed. Then, this morning, I accidentally paid USAA for the rest of the cruise fare. I had only meant to send them $1000 today, but ended up requesting to pay the whole bill. Luckily, there was enough money to pay for it. Thanks again to Bill’s decision to pay taxes all year and get a refund, we had the cash available. Edited to add: I just got us our train tickets… good thing, too, because the seats were already sold out, and I had to get us a compartment for six people instead. That was another $500. At least it’s changeable and refundable.

Living in Germany sure has been good for us…

But dammit… the fares went down 2,000 euros this week!!!!

Oh well. We’re sure to have a great time. I look forward to blogging about it, and experiencing new places on a different cruise line. I’ll be surprised if I’ll want to give up small ship cruising for Regent permanently, but we’ll see. I suspect that if I ever spot a hot deal like the one they’re offering right now for our cruise, I’ll want to jump on it. Especially if we have the money!

If you’re curious about what we’re in for on our journey from Oslo to Bergen, have a look at a couple of videos… I think it will be unforgettable.

Let’s hope for sunny weather!
Looks good!

And yes, I know we don’t have to spend this much money to have a good time… but I have definitely done my fair share of cheap traveling. It’s nice to have an upgraded experience, and I’m grateful we have the opportunity. We never thought the day would come.

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Uncategorized

Volvo, Mark Knopfler, and East German adventures… part one

For the past week, Bill and I have been engaged in an epic road trip.  What started out as just plans for a long weekend in Leipzig over the Independence Day holiday, eventually turned into a car buying odyssey in Sweden, with stops in Copenhagen, Denmark and Rostock, Germany.  Our road trip will end on Sunday, but since this is going to be a long story with lots of pictures, I’ve decided to start writing about it today.

If you’ve been following my blogs, you may know that over the past couple of years, Bill and I have been attending a lot of concerts.  Although I really love music, it’s not that often that I go to concerts.  I don’t like crowds, spending lots of money for uncomfortable seats, or having people’s armpits in my face.  However, even though I don’t enjoy being in huge crowds, I also realize that a lot of my favorite musicians are getting old.  A few have already died before I ever got the chance to see them live.

I didn’t have a lot of money or generous boyfriends when I was younger and more tolerant of crowds, so I missed a lot of my best concert going years.  Likewise, for Bill, it’s only been recently that we’ve been able to afford to get tickets for good seats.  I don’t like paying a premium for seats in the nosebleed section.  I can just as easily listen to a live album at home.

In any case, 2018 and 2019 have been unusually active concert going years for us.  Since a year ago, we’ve seen The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Roger Hodgson (of Supertramp), Scottish Music Parade, The Irish Folk Music Festival, Elton John, The Eagles, and tonight, Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits).  In 2017, we saw Sting, and in 2016, we saw Van Morrison…  or, at least I think it was 2016.  I can’t keep the dates straight anymore.  In 2015, we saw Diana Krall, and in 2009, we saw Lyle Lovett.

I like going to concerts in Europe.  People tend to be more considerate here, for the most part.  Also, they don’t seem to have as many rules.  At American concerts, it costs an arm and a leg to buy a beer.  People lose their shit and have less regard for people around them.  Although I may be proven wrong tonight, I’ve found that people aren’t like that so much on this side of the pond.

I bought the tickets for Mark Knopfler last fall, as we were preparing to leave the Stuttgart area.  I decided to get them for the Leipzig show, even though Knopfler is playing in Mannheim tomorrow, and Mannheim is much closer to where we live now.  I chose Leipzig because I’d been wanting to visit there.  Also, the date for Knopfler’s show in Leipzig seemed to make better use of the long weekend.  Originally, I had just planned for a three night break.  I was excited about this show, especially, because I’ve been wanting to see Mark Knopfler for years.  I missed him when he came to Germany in 2015.  His music means a lot to me for a lot of reasons.

Bill booked our dogs at the Tierpension Birkenhof in Darmstadt, and I got us a nice room at the Grand Hotel Steigenberger, which is one of Leipzig’s nicest hotels.  Had we not been able to book the dogs, we planned to find a self catering place where they could hang out while we went to the show.  Fortunately, the dog sitting situation is less severe in Wiesbaden than it is in Stuttgart.  We had no issues getting them a place at their new boarding facility.

For months, we waited for our trip to Leipzig, planning for just the three nights.  Then, in the spring, Bill decided he was ready to get a new car.  Our thirteen year old Toyota RAV 4, which was an excellent vehicle that served us very well in many countries, was beginning to need costly repairs.  It was time for a new car.  Bill wanted a luxury SUV.

In late April, we visited Capitol Motors Volvo in Kaiserslautern, as well as the BMW dealership, to see what kind of wheels we were going to buy.  Volvo won, so we ordered a beautiful 2020 XC 60 SUV in denim blue.  It’s a T6 Inscription, which is the top of the line trim.  Our dealer told us the car would be ready to pick up on July 1st.  Realizing that it had been way too long since our last proper vacation, I proposed to Bill the idea of flying to Gothenburg, Sweden, picking up the car at the factory, then driving it back to Germany.

Some readers may be aware that U.S. based Volvo dealers offer a great program for people who want to fly to Sweden, pick up their new cars, enjoy a European vacation, then fly home and have the car shipped to them.  Well…  over here in Europe, Volvo buyers, even through military sales, don’t get the same love.  If you are reading this from the United States and are thinking of having a Volvo sponsored European vacation, I recommend that you read this guy’s blog about it.  It’s not that I don’t want you to read my account, too.  It’s just that because we purchased our car in Germany, our experience was somewhat different.  However, we did get a very nice military discount.  I think Bill said we got our new Volvo for about $8,000 less than we would have paid if we hadn’t bought from military sales.

Since the car was going to be ready so close to when our Leipzig concert was planned, I proposed turning our car delivery into an epic trip.  Since Volvo was not going to be paying for our flight to Sweden and would only put us up for one night in a Gothenburg hotel, we decided to just come up to Sweden on our own, spend two nights in Gothenburg’s best five star spa hotel, pick up the car, and make our way to Leipzig.  I did some research and determined our itinerary.

We’d spend two nights in Sweden, since our only other visit there was at the end of a four night Baltic cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas.  We ended in Stockholm, and Bill had to fly right back to Germany to go to a meeting in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.  Consequently, we really didn’t see more than the port and the airport in Sweden.  I wanted to do better than that in Gothenburg, which is on the west coast of the country.

Next, we’d spent a night in Copenhagen.  We were able to see Copenhagen on that same Baltic cruise.  I would have liked to have done more than one night there, but we had to make our travel plans fit so that we’d be in Leipzig by July 4th.  After Copenhagen, we’d take the ferry across the Baltic Sea to Rostock.  I had wanted to visit a former East German prison museum there.  Since it looked like a cool town near the beach, we’d stay two nights in Rostock.  Then, we’d make our way to Leipzig for the three nights I planned there months prior to our decision to buy the car.

It’s all worked out seamlessly, so far.

As usual, I’m going to write a blow by blow account of this adventure and will include lots of pictures and TMI commentary.  I hope you’ll follow along, if I manage to capture your interest.  Otherwise, this will just serve as a diary of one of our more interesting trips as a married couple.

Somewhere over Gothenburg, just as we’re about to land…

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