Baltic Cruise - Warnemunde, Germany - August 10, 2019

 Interesting Facts:

• Warnemunde is located on the Baltic Sea and is a popular cruise port.
• If you look at it on the map it is to the south of Copenhagen and in the northern part of Germany.
• The town was founded around the year 1200 and has about 8400 residents.
• It was traditionally a fishing village.

This stop for most people was about going to Berlin. We decided not to do the journey to Berlin and visit Berlin on another trip in the future. The bus ride from the ship to Berlin was three hours each way, and it just felt like too long of a day, and we wouldn’t get to see as much as we wanted. I feel like you need to devote at least a few days, not a few hours, to Berlin.

Therefore, we decided to stay in the town of Warnemunde, where the ship docked. This is how the port looks from the ship:

The town was PACKED with people today. When I say packed, imagine you are standing in a slow-moving line most of the time you are walking in the main parts of town. It is a German resort town in the height of summer AND there appeared to be a tall ship festival going on.

**Side note: After we exited the cruise terminal we saw a bus that said “Panoramic Rundefahrt”. This caused endless giggles (for days after actually). The seven year old boy part of me just finds it hilarious how much the German language uses the word “fahrt”. Einfahrt… Ausfahrt… and my current favourite… Panoramic Rundefahrt! Upon further investigation this translates to panoramic ride... or panoramic round trip... it's obviously better when you say it in German (and is a good name to call someone that is annoying you ;) )

We started with a walk through the town which was very cute and seemed to be focused on cafes and shopping (as you would expect in a resort town). I've included a few photos to show you how the town looks.

We found my house!

There are some very beautiful houses in this town!

We walked all the way through the town until we got to Stephen Jantzen park which housed a cemetery. We are big fans of cemeteries (weird, I know) so spent some time looking at the headstones.

I was on the lookout for our surnames because of our German heritage, but the closest I found here was a “Voss”.

After the cemetery we headed down to the beach which was surprisingly large. We thought this would be a good opportunity to dip our feet in the Baltic Sea. It was cold as expected, but honestly not as cold as I thought. It is definitely colder in the Pacific Ocean at home where we live!

We enjoyed a nice long walk down the beach and then headed back to the ship. 

We passed by a very cute lighthouse, which you could go up if you wanted, and a bandstand in the square, which I’m guessing was special for the tall ship festival.

We  returned to the ship and found a great spot on the eighth floor with comfy sofas on the outside deck where we could sit and watch the ocean… or on this particular day the tall ships sailing by.

Our next day was a sea day. I don't have much to report from this day as we mostly lazed around and ate food (that's what you're supposed to do on cruises!), but we did happen across the "fruit carving" demonstration and wanted to show you the results. I told the Handsome Man that he needs to really up his game when he prepares my recess snacks from now on 😉 My particular favourite were the eggplant penguins!

Next stop, St. Petersburg, Russia! Of all of our stops this summer, St. Petersburg was the most amazing and a definite highlight. We have so much to tell you about it that I'm going to have to split it into two separate blogs. Stay tuned!