Cruising the Baltics on Costa Luminosa

The lovely city of Tallinn in Estonia

It must be the relief of being on the plane taking us for the long planned summer vacation that makes me doze off as soon as the plane starts to taxi. The mind ignores the call for drinks and food by the stewards and it also ignores the turbulent weather which tosses the plane around for good 15 minutes. The uncomfortable economy class seats makes the back stiff and the neck goes topsy turvy but I keep my eyes closed and try to keep the mind relaxed. The next 15 days will take all seven of us (My cousin Kunaal and my family normally travel together during summer vacations) to seven countries. The mind and body has to be fresh and kicking for what the next fortnight has to offer.

Arriving at Stockholm

Our group on the roads of Stockholm

Stockholm and its approach looks lovely from the skies. Our 7 day  Baltic Cruise starts from here. The embarkation time is after 1 PM. We have a lot of time to kill. The mind says that with so much luggage it is better to stay put at Arlanda Airport and keep having croissants and coffee.  The heart says that we are already in Scandinavia and time wasted is opportunity wasted. Opportunity to explore a new place. The heart wins. We board a nice bus which takes us to city centre. The place is very near the central station. We roam around the town on a crisp morning. Our suitcases wobble on cobbled lanes. We admire the candy shops and buy cakes and coffee. The legs and hands start to tire after a couple of hours. We see a few tents and activity a few hundred yards away and walk towards it hoping to find some place to sit and waste time. 

What a food feast !

International street market- the FOOD market !

What we actually stumble to is something called ‘International  street market- Geraud markets Scandinavia. ‘ It is actually an international food market which travels from city to city in Scandinavia and is hugely popular. Today was the first day of this market in Stockholm and the crowds were gorging on around 20 different kinds of international cuisine. The smell of food was too difficult to resist. The pork ribs, Kangaroo meat from Australia, Pastas, Thai cuisine, fish and chips ………all kind of food was being cooked right in front of us. I settled for German Bratwurst with chillis and then hailed the taxi to go to the port to board ‘Costa Luminosa.’

All Aboard

Our group aboard the ship

In 2012 Costa Concordia sank near Italy killing many people. The Costa Cruise Company has been able to put that nightmare behind and has many ships operating now. We chose Costa Luminosa as its dates suited our schedule for Baltic’s. The check in process was quite smooth and we had half a day on board that day as ship was scheduled to sail the next morning. We could have gone back to Stockholm city centre but all of us were in a mood to relax on the ship. We were all tired as we had been travelling the night before and then walking the streets of Stockholm in morning. On the 9th deck we were greeted by a hostess who took us around the spa of the ship. On the previous 2 occasions I have cruised on Carnival ships and Carnival is the parent company of Costa. The layout of Carnival ships and Costa was exactly the same. The main difference was that in none of the Carnival ships I had come across such a nice spa. 

The spa on board

There was a price to pay of course as there was a nominal price of Euro 110 for the duration of the cruise for use of spa. Kunaal and I got a discount of 20% by subscribing on the first day. Gym could be used by anyone but lovely facilities of sea facing Jacuzzi, steam, sauna, rest room and Japanese tea room were part of the spa which was open only to members. Each day we would go out for shore excursions and after walking for 10-12 km, this spa was something which actually refreshed me. This membership of spa was money well spent!

You could see the sea from the Jacuzzi

Sweet Japanese tea room

Sailing amongst natural beauty

Really loved these colorful houses as we sailed by them.

Day 2 was the day that ship sailed and we stood on the balcony seeing hundreds of small islands as ship maneuvered its way through them. We saw some lovely hamlets on the shore. Stockholm itself is a city which is built on 14 islands. The Stockholm archipelago extends around 60 km and we sailed next to that before we entered the Gulf of Finland. The views were lovely and there was smell of freshness. It was a day we explored the ship, spent time in the gym and spa and caught up with some reading. Thankfully we had a good time of 9.15 PM for dinner unlike the American ships where you were expected to be on dinner table at 7.45. By a matter of chance our table was next to the window and we could have lovely views from there. Being an Italian ship, each day they served us Italian food from some different district of Italy. We were served by Indian waiters so it was good fun as we shared jokes and talked in hindi. The food each day was delicious and different.

Our dining table - with a view !

Helsinki- the first shore excursion

The ship was docking at Helsinki on 3rd day morning. We had not booked any shore excursion. I had read that you could buy a ticket from the bus near the port for €8 per person and with this you could travel for full day on buses, trams, metros and even on ferry to world heritage site  Suomenlinna island. This is exactly what we did. The bus dropped us to Kampi which has a huge mall and shopping centre. We walked to the lovely Rock church nearby and spent some time here just sitting around and taking photographs.

The church hall is covered with a dome, lined with copper and supported on the rock walls by reinforced concrete beams. The interior walls are of rugged rock and rubble wall. Before noon, the sunlight spreads from the row of windows surrounding the roof periphery to the altar wall. Sitting inside the church was very soothing and Piano music was being played. 

The soothing Piano music at the Rock Church

We walked back towards Kampi shopping centre and from there towards the waterfront or the market square. We saw the University and a few more churches before walking down the Esplanade and coming to the main square called the senate square with statue of  Alexander II. From the market square we could see the city hall and the Royal Palace. If you look up you can see the most popular White Lutheran church. 

Walking is the best thing you can do at a new place. It gives you an idea about the people, the place and the culture. Even window shopping teaches you a lot about the place. Till now the weather had been cold and sunny but suddenly the clouds appeared. It became colder. As we boarded the HSL public ferry the drizzle started. As mentioned earlier, the price of HSL public ferry was included in the ticket we had purchased that morning. There are private ferries as well so it is important to go to the correct ferry station. In 15 minutes we were at the  Suomenlinna island but we could not move beyond the tourist information centre as it started to rain heavily.

Fresh strawberries and cherries at market square

Kunaal and I sat in the restaurant and had peanuts and draft Beer and kept a lookout on the weather conditions. The others were happy to get wi fi at the tourist centre and stayed occupied there. When it seemed that the rain will not relent, we gave up the idea of exploring the island and crossed back to Helsinki on the ferry. We will just have to read about the island to know what we missed. A tram from market square took us to the familiar Kampi where we had Chinese food at Empire Palace. The food was pretty decent. From there we took the bus back to the port as the schedule departure was 6 PM. In just half a day we had become quite pro at using public transportation at Helsinki.

Planning for St Petersburg over Glenlivet 12

We met up at the Atrium of the ship later in the evening before dinner for drinks.The musicians were playing some nice music and the place was buzzing with well dressed people who had come down for dinner . On a cruise ship people are very particular about what they wear for dinner and they want to be at their best. I was feeling fresh after spending an hour in the spa. We made friends with Christopher who happened to be manning the bar. Christopher was from Mumbai and he had a lot of stories to tell about cruise ships as he had been sailing for more than a decade. He suggested that we buy a bottle of Glenlivet 12 (instead of buying on per drink basis) as it would work out cheaper and on top of that he promised to get a further discount after speaking to superiors. He kept his promise the next day. Costa cruises allows no outside liquor and one has to buy drinks on the ship itself.  Whisky is not served in dining hall (only wine and beer in dining room) but if you have your own bottle bought from the ship you could carry it to dining hall as well. 

our evening time was spent here in the Atrium

The ship was docking at St Petersburg for 2 days the next morning. Russia always seems a faraway country as visas etc are still not easy to get. Having read many books about Russia and having studied its history, one actually didn't know what to expect from St Petersburg. There was some thrill in the expectations about visiting the city. All we knew was that we had to meet the agent after crossing the immigration counter next morning at 8.30 AM. The agent was suppose to arrange for visas and take us around. We had been assured by many people that visit to St Petersburg would be the highlight of our trip. We anxiously looked forward to explore this totally new world. 

Helsinki has statues, Museums, churches and a nice waterfront. 

------To be continued----