Of Winds and Whispers.

Less than 48 hours now until we board the Whisper in Stockholm for back to back Baltic cruises.This will give us 5 days in St.Petersburg and we will end up in Southhampton.

Now as you are aware we don't just do cruises but the cruise is a part of a long journey.getting to Stockholm was via the USA where we spent 4 days sampling crab,mussels and lobster.Here are the first 2 meals.First Joe's Crab Shack Nyack,NY-

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The second night was a red Lobster in Hartford,CT-I had the new on me Bairdi crab and Rojaan the Maine seafood bake-

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Now on the first day of our trip Mr Google decided to cut my access to Picasaweb where all my pictures are.They are now all on Google pictures but you cant paste from there.So I had to learn Flickr.Of course the recccomended way of embedding photos from there doesn't work for me but I have devised a work round.Doesn't always work and certainly more time consuming but here we go!

Our next dinner was at Abbott's lobster pound Noack,CT.

We started off sharing 6 oysters-damn big ones according to the menu-

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We each had a lobster from the 2-2.5lb category.Mine was ~2lb,rojaan's ~ 2.5lb.

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We made a bit of a mess-

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Leisurely short drive from Groton to the Clinton Crossing outlets.Arrived at 1001-1 minute after opening.Not as many outlets here but 1 essential one to pick up supplies for our cruise-a huge bag of Lindt chocolate balls.Then set off down I-95 for Stamford but felt like a coffee and a snack so stopped at the next service area.A sign at Maccas caught our eye-

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It was pretty good but we wuz robbed.We decided to leave the Interstate and go the back roads and all the Maccas off I-95 had the lobster roll at $8.99!

For dinner I had picked Boothbay Lobster in the renovated Harbour Point area.Really was a trendy restaurant and we looked a little out of place especially when we ordered a bottle of wine and straight seafood.We both had a bowl of mussels with white wine,garlic and herbs and each a steamed lobster.A bit expensive but we both thought these were the best lobsters we had.Just cooked so juicy,sweet and fall out of the shell.

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The Harbour redevelopement looks good.A free trolley from downtown too-

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Next we have 5 nights in Stockholm.One of the highlights is the performance they put on with the changing of the guard.A short movie-

Will have to try later as the link is playing up.So a few still pictures instead-

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Thanks for posting Dr. Ron and sharing your delicious pictures....now, am severely pining for Lobster any way, especially would love a Lobster Roll. Fair Winds and Following seas for Rojaan and your Whisper Baltic voyages.

[YOUTUBE]f2yJQoGC3_4[/YOUTUBE]

It worked.Probably too many online last night.

Love your journey so far! Really glad you don't have gout! [emoji568][emoji256][emoji6]

Thanks for taking us with you Dr. Ron. Have a great trip.

Ah but I do have gout.Nothing like living dangerously!

But back to Stockholm.For the first 3 days funny cars parked outside the Sheraton-

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Then on Wednesday-

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The Superfast car club of Arabia.Having a run from Stockholm to Monaco.The best part was none of them could reverse park.

But then what was this car doing outside-

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The Good Ole General Lee.

The Old Town-Gamla Stan-

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Sunset from our window-

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Great posts! Keep them coming! :)

Ron! Great trip so far. You were within 2 hours of us when you were in Nyack. Too bad we missed you...there used to be a Joe's Crab Shack in our suburb, but it closed a few months back.

Hope you are having fun, and the rest of the cruise is great.

Good lobster fest so far, and you do make a great Viking!

Seafood extravaganza! Loving the review and pictures so far.

Thanks, drron, looking good.

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To continue the culinary theme in Stockholm we only had 1 true meal.We went into what is described as Stockholm's premier department store-NK.Hmmm.

On the top floor is a fine dining restaurant,a hot food cafeteria which has as mains Swedish meatballs and a day's special or a salad bar with 6 different salads.We went for the salads.Mrsdrron had the Thai beef salad,totally non spicy,and I had the shrimp and crayfish salad with a 69C egg.Tiny little shellfish but a really good salad and the egg was perfection-

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Wednesday and a late start.We decide on the Green/red hop on hop off bus and boat combo for 3 days-24 hour is 350 SEK,72 hour 450 SEK.The Red bus is 850 SEK for 72 hours.But if you only have a day the red bus is definitely a better option for reasons that will become apparent.We set off and get off at Skansen-basically a Swedish history theme park with a bit of a zoo.Would be great if you have young children though-180 SEK admission-$30.

So some of the buildings and animals-

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With one enclosure there was a sign saying they are part of the plan to save an endangered Swedish woodpecker.But only one with several poles that had obviously been pecked to death so the poor thing was continually flying from pole to pole-

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Mummy bear and 3 cubs.And for the cat lovers a lynx-

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The aptly named Eagle Owl-

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We bought some icecreams and sat and watched this girl band.No Abba.

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So back on the boat.Many old and elegant buildings and vessels around the harbour-

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Views of the Vassa and maritime museums from the boat-

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Now to Wednesday which started off very cold and overcast.We decided to do a loop on the hop on/off bus.It went out to the main cruise port as there were ships in-

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An interesting bar and restaurant-

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It took over 2 hours to do the loop.Traffic was heavy but there almost certainly more than that.When we got back to the start point everyone was told to get off the bus.There were already~ 100 waiting at the stop.3 busses at the first stop and another emty one on the other side of the road plus we passed another stopped and empty on the way around.Everyone was on their phones and the Senior company fellow almost came to blows with one of the workers.Finally the Senior fellow got on one of the busses and started it up telling people to get on.The worker got on and tried to close the doors.But after 5 or so minutes we got going-fortunately we got on that first bus as we were only going a couple of stops to the market-

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Back on the bus.The drivers were now possibly older than me.Just another 2 stops to connect to the boat.Our luck was in.A boat pulling in as we arrived at the dock.Just as well as the weather had turned nasty.Got off at the photographic museum.Interesting.First a fellow making a statement on how humans are ruining the world-

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Lots of photos of this woman-

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As we walked out of the Photographic museum the rain had eased and a boat was just arriving.The same happened at Gamla Stan when we transferred to the bus.As soon as we walked inside the Sheraton the heavens opened and the street outside becam a river.We were going to go out for dinner but they had a very nice shrimp and avocado salad and spring rolls out.Looking at the rain and the road we decided that was dinner.

Thursday and once again overcast,cold and raining as it was the mid point of their Summer Festival.Again older drivers and they made an announcement that due to traffic they were shortening the route.Naturally the stop we wanted was being bypassed so once again switched to the boat to go to the Moderna Museet.Another enjoyable visit.We decided to pay extra(the normal collection is free to visit) to see a retrospective of a Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.At least she is honest having booked herself into a psychiatric facility in 1977.It remains her home.Some of her art was familiar-

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She had a thing for pumpkins which was at first difficult to see-

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But with the right mirror-

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And something for those who think they have everything-

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