Baltic Cruise

July 13, 2015

Our Amazing Race: Germany and Poland

Our final cruise destination was Warnemunde, Germany. We actually left the cruise a day early because we didn’t want to go to the last stop, which was back to Copenhagen.

From Warnemunde, we took a train to the cute little town Rostock. This is exactly how I pictured Germany!

After exploring Rostock, we took a train to Sachsenhausen. This was a concentration camp during WWII. It was a very emotional couple of hours. Below are pictures from the camp.

From there we took a train to Berlin.

I had to get a pretzel since we were in Germany!

The Berlin Wall was very cool to see!

Checkpoint Charlie

Brandenburg Gate

The entire time we were in Berlin it was crazy! The European Soccer Finals, UEFA was going on while we were there and the entire city was in party mode!

On my birthday we went to Slubice, Poland for a couple of hours. It was an adorable little town.

Barcelona ended up wining the UEFA and that just happens to be our next stop!!!

July 12, 2015

Our Amazing Race: Russia and Estonia

The main reason we went on this cruise was because Judd has always wanted to go to Russia. Russia is the first country that we’ve traveled to that we needed a visa to enter. After much research, we found out that you can either go through the lengthy process of getting a visa or you can book a tour in which they will do the work to get a blanket Visa for you. I decided to book a tour, it was VERY expensive but it was worth not dealing with the hassle of dealing with the Russian government. The tour company we chose was T&J Travel, I was blown away at what a great job they did!

We spent 12 hours in St. Petersburg and loved it!

Our first stop was the Church of Savior on Spilled Blood. Judd and I also call this the “famous colorful ice cream church” (the top looks like soft served ice cream to us). 😉

Then we went to the Hermitage, one of the largest museums in the world!

Next we went to the beautiful Peteroff Palace!

The palace was breathtaking!

Walking through this fountain is supposed to bring us good luck! We got very wet, I’m hoping this makes all of our dreams come true!

Then we visited the gorgeous Catherine Palace.

The Catherine Palace is known for its Amber Room. I actually wasn’t supposed to take a picture, opps!

We finished the day by doing a little shopping. This shop was so fun!

Everyone told us we were crazy to visit Russia but we LOVED it!

The next day we visited Tallinn, Estonia.

Tallinn is a cute little city with lots of restaurants and shopping.

The Old Town is beautiful!

There were beautiful gardens everywhere!

Judd loved this little dungeon bar!

I love this guy!

This city was very pretty and reminded us a lot of Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Now on to Germany!!!

July 12, 2015

Our Amazing Race: Denmark, Cruise Embarkation, Sweden

From Iceland we flew to Copenhagen, Denmark. What a beautiful city!

We took a stroll through the GORGEOUS Nyhavn Harbor. This was absolutely breathtaking, so many colors and so much to look at.

We then continued our stroll down the main shopping district. There was always something to look at with all the shops, people, and entertainers.

One of my all-time favorite movies is The Little Mermaid. Copenhagen has a beautiful Little Mermaid Statue. I made Judd walk miles while carrying luggage to see this statue!

Beautiful government square with soldiers. This reminded me of London!

In Copenhagen we got on our cruise- Costa Favolosa . This is our second time on Costa Cruises. We’ve been pleased both times. The food is good, the ship is clean, and the staff is helpful.

My favorite things about Costa are the food and the places the cruise line goes! I LOVE how Europeans eat: Pastries and sandwiches galore for breakfast and a large cheese plate after dinner.

We want to see as much of the world as possible since we both have a crush on the world. 😉 Both times we chose this company because of the places the cruise stopped (actually that’s always why we select a cruise). The cruise itinerary is usually very busy with long days at each port, we love this!

Below was our itinerary:

However, nothing is perfect. Since this is an Italian cruise line,very few people on these cruises speak English. Our boat had 3,500 people and only 30 of these were Americans! We go on cruises for the destinations. If you love the cruise experience and love going to the shows/entertainment, this is not the cruise line for you because nothing is in English.

Our first stop on the cruise was Stockholm, Sweden. This city is expensive but GORGEOUS!

We walked through a farmers market. I love farmers market. I love the smell of the fresh fruit and veggies!

Beautiful views along the water

This is a government building that also looked like a castle

Royal Palace

We had a blast! We loved Copenhagen and Stockholm! Now on to Estonia and Russia!

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