Happy Anniversary – to us! 39 wonderful years. Today we arrived in Stockholm Sweden. When we got up we were still sailing through the archipelago of islands around Stockholm. It provides very scenic views as we sail slowly past the little cottages sprinkled on numerous islands. We learn later in the day that about half of them are summer cottages but the other half are lived in all year round. There is a year-round schedule of little boats that shuttle back and forth to connect people to Stockholm. While cruising, there were many seagulls flying around the ship looking for scraps – one passenger on a balcony below us started feeding them out of his hand (in flight) with pieces of bread. We were in line behind two other cruise ships coming into port, and there ... read more

As the old Danny Kaye song goes: “Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen, Friendly old girl of a town, 'Neath her tavern light On this merry night Let us clink and drink one down. To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen Salty old queen of the sea Once I sailed away But I'm home today Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen for me. “ Anyway, we’re here in wonderful Copenhagen today. We sailed in and docked about 8:00. One of the first things we noticed as we entered the port were a whole series of wind turbines standing out in the water – apparently generating electricity. We had had a good night’s sleep and we went up to the buffet for breakfast before docking. One of these days, we may try to sit-down breakfast, but this is easier and much ... read more

Today we docked in Zeebrugge, which is one of the ports in Belgium on the North Sea. The ship got here about 7:30 AM and our tour departed at 8:15. So before that we had to get up, dressed, and fed for the morning. We went up to the buffet in the Horizon Court and sampled some of their standard breakfast fare – omelet, baked apple, bacon, sausage, pastries, juice, tea and milk. Then we headed to the Explorer Lounge for a very short wait before they called our tour. There were multiple buses taking the same tour, so that shows us that the selection was popular. Certainly it sounded like the most interesting to our point of view. When boarding the bus they provided each person with 2 pieces of Belgian chocolate – VERY rich. ... read more

Hello again from London. Before we begin today’s descriptions, let us explain that there were no good photos from Kensington Palace because we could not use the flash inside. We got a couple outside pictures, but the ones inside weren’t very good – too dark. We got a better night’s sleep last night, but David still woke up for a couple of hours during the night. So we are still feeling a little remaining jet lag. We left a wake-up call and got started at 6:30 again this morning. Rather than have the hotel’s breakfast, we got ourselves packed and headed for the Underground. We caught “the tube” to Victoria Station (only 4 stops away on the District Line) – so it worked just fine. We needed to walk to the same Coach Station as the ... read more

Hello from London. We are here! We are happy to report there was not a single mechanical hick-up with our flight (unlike Elizabeth’s adventure). Anyway, we are here in London. The flight boarded and departed O’Hare on schedule last night. Our plane was pretty full but we didn’t have any problems with the seats or getting our carry-on luggage stowed – it was a fairly new American Airlines 777. However, anyone who thinks that jetting off to Europe sounds like a comfortable trip, well they probably are not thinking about flying Economy Class. We had two seats on the starboard side (one window and one aisle – as planned), but these seemed to be more narrow than in the past. The weather was pretty smooth much of the way, but somehow the pilot found bumps in ... read more