TRIP JOURNAL: Nicole721 Get[s]away to the Baltics

[Nicole721]

From there, we walked to the Brandenburg Gate, one of the distinguished symbols of freedom and unity in Berlin. Victoria, the Goddess of Victory, stands prominently on the top of the gate – fitting in that when the Berlin Wall fell, the Brandenburg Gate became a symbol of victory for a newly unified Berlin. As we approached the gate, Heather pointed out a path of bricks laid into the ground – marking where the Berlin Wall once stood. She also pointed out where the outer wall stood and where the inner wall stood, and the “death strip” that ran between them. I was only four when the Berlin Wall fell so I don’t have any real connection to the memory, but my historical imagination was running strong as we crossed the street, walking along ground that has bore witness to so much, and has so much significance in the western world.

 

 

 

 

We crossed through the Brandenburg Gate, where we had five minutes to take pictures before meeting in front of the US Embassy building. More interesting to me than the US Embassy was the Hotel Adlon just beyond the embassy and the Academy of Arts – preferred hotel of the rich and famous, and cemented in pop culture history as the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his son Blanket off the balcony.

 

 

Our next stop was at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial was inaugurated to mark the 60-year anniversary of the end of World War II, and is comprised of a series of concrete columns lined up in tight, neat rows, the heights of the columns shifting up and down, but not in any distinguishable pattern. Heather told us that everyone has a different interpretation of what the memorial represents, and that she wouldn’t tell us until later on so that we could interpret it in the moment on our own. Before we split off, she dropped this factoid: there have been numerous controversies around the memorial, but the biggest one involves the manufacturer of a special anti-graffiti paint that coats the concrete slabs of the memorial. As construction of the memorial was underway, it was uncovered that this company once owned another company that manufactured gas used in the gas chambers of the **** concentration camp. In some measure of restitution, the company decided they would donate any paint needed for the upkeep and maintenance of this memorial. That’s some pretty heavy stuff.

 

 

Our group came back together after walking through the memorial, and Heather asked us what we thought it symbolized. Everyone had a different idea, and not having a clear answer was slightly unsettling – but I think that’s probably part of the point.

 

[Nicole721]

We had a short walk to our next stop, the site of Hitler’s Bunker. The bunker served as home and headquarters to Hilter and the Reich Chancellery, and was the site where Hitler and his wife committed suicide as his power drew to a close. The Soviets blew up the bunker in the years following the war as they tried to erase any signs of **** Germany, but the final vestiges of it weren’t gone until the late 1980s. Nowadays, you could walk or drive past it and completely miss it, and that was by design – residential condos were built on the grounds and a parking lot now sits on the site where the bunker once stood. It’s as if it never existed, which is exactly what was intended in building over it. In the mid-2000’s, an infographic was put up depicting what the land once looked like, but other than that, any and all signs of Hilter and the bunker have been destroyed and removed.

 

 

 

Norbert picked us up at the bunker site and drove us to the restaurant where we’d be having lunch, a place called Deponie, which Heather said was one of her favorites. Deponie was underneath some train tracks and had a familiar, dive bar kind of vibe that reminded me of some of the German restaurants we’ve visited up in Milwaukee. Heather had passed around a menu earlier while we were on the bus so she could put our orders in ahead of time and have the food ready for us. An entire room of the restaurant had been reserved for our small group and we sat at tables that had baskets of soft, crusty bread already waiting, as a parade of servers began doling out German delicacies. Most of the group ordered the currywurst, a local delicacy, but Mom and I both opted for the bratwurst plate (€9.50), which came out piping hot, served with boiled potatoes and sauerkraut. Stephanie still wasn’t feeling great, so she just ordered a slice of Apple Strudel (€4.50). The bratwurst was seriously amazing (which was totally expected given that we were in Germany and brats are kind of their thing, but to be fair, we have some great brats just across the state border in Wisconsin!) and the bite I snuck of Stephanie’s strudel was pretty tasty, too.

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

Once we were satiated off German sausage and pickled cabbage, we set out to burn it all off with a walking tour of Museum Island. On the way, we walked through the Mitte district and past the residence of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. Apparently, while she has an official residence within the German Chancellery, she chooses to live in a condominium in an inconspicuous building that would give no tells to the power of the office held by one of its residents if not for the two policemen that stand guard outside.

 

 

We continued our walk along the Spree river to Museum Island, which isn’t actually it’s own island, but rather a cluster of museums on the tip of Spree Island. Five museums call the island home: the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Neues Museum, the Altes Museum, the Bode Museum and the Pergamon Museum. We didn’t get to go inside any of the museums, but we did stop a nifty little tactile model of the museum campus while Heather told us about the different works and artifacts on display within each museum.

 

 

The next stop on our walking tour of Museum Island was the Berliner Dom, or the Berlin Cathedral. The cathedral dates back to the mid-1450s, but it’s taken different designs, styles and affiliations across the centuries. Heather pulled out her binder of photos to show us the before and after pictures from World War II, when a bomb was dropped through the dome. It took more than 30 years before the dome was reconstructed, but it stands in its beautiful glory today. We didn’t have a chance to go inside and just admired the cathedral from the outside, but we weren’t alone – on such a beautiful spring day, many of the locals were enjoying the warm weather with a good book or a game of Frisbee.

 

 

Our tour continued on towards Unter den Linden, a boulevard that joins many of the landmarks of Berlin. The street is named after the dense lime trees that line the sidewalks and runs from the Brandenburg Gate all the way to the City Palace. Our first stop along Unter den Linden was the Zeughaus, or the old arsenal building, which was built in the late 1600s and is the oldest landmark building on the street. Oh, and it’s a nice shade of millennial pink. You can’t miss it.

 

[Nicole721]

Heather stopped us in a shady spot under the trees to pull out her binder again and show us pictures of the next landmark, the Neue Wache (or the New Guardhouse). Heather wasn’t sure how close we could get to the building, so she wanted to show us a picture of a famous sculpture that sits at the front of the building, Kollwitz’s Mother with her Dead Son, which serves as a memorial to the victims of war. The Neue Wache was closed as we walked by, but we got a quick glimpse of the statue through the iron gate.

 

 

 

 

Just a few blocks down, we made another stop, this time outside the gates of Humboldt University, where Heather wanted to show us not a list of distinguished alumnae and professors (not that the list isn’t notable because Albert Einstein, Karl Marx and more than 40 Nobel Prize winners are on it!), but to urge us to look down at the ground and the tiles that line the entrance to the main gate. The tiles each memorialized a person who died in the Holocaust, and Heather was quick to point out that the tiles pointedly did not mention the date of their death, but rather the date they were murdered, and how the verbiage was an intentional political statement.

 

 

[Nicole721]

We continued on to Bebelplatz, the most beautiful square in Berlin, but more notably, the site where on an evening in 1933, more than 20,000 books by authors who did not uphold **** ideologies were burned by the German Student Union. The Memorial to the **** Book Burnings was one of my favorite sites in Berlin: a glass window in the ground, looking down on an empty room with white walls and large empty bookcases – with enough space to hold the 20,000 books that were destroyed. On a clear day, the bright rays of the sun make it hard to see, so many people will pour water on top of the glass to get a better view.

 

 

 

Norbert pulled the bus around and drove us to our next stop: the Gendarmenmarkt, another gorgeous square in Berlin, and home to the identical French and German cathedrals (as Heather told it, the French cathedral was there first and the German cathedral was built because the Germans wanted an equally gorgeous cathedral).

 

 

We had already done and seen so much in Berlin, but we still had two major sites left: the Topografie des Terrors and Checkpoint Charlie. Checkpoint Charlie was a crossing point from West Berlin into East Berlin during the Cold War. Disappointingly, we didn’t get the chance to get off the bus at Checkpoint Charlie – we’d have to settle for driving through it.

 

[Nicole721]

The last stop on our tour was at the Topografie des Terrors, an indoor/outdoor museum where a portion of the Berlin Wall still stands. Heather led us in, gave us a quick overview and then set us free for a little free time to explore the wall, the outdoor museum or use the facilities at the indoor museum. We started with a walk along the remnants of the wall and quickly made our way over to the outdoor museum, which features excavated portions of the Gestapo headquarters.

 

 

 

 

After our 20 minute stop at the Topografie des Terrors, we said our goodbyes to Heather, as she would be staying behind in Berlin as we began our drive back to Warnemünde with Norbert.

 

 

The three hour drive back passed almost as quickly as the ride there – mostly because we all slept for most of the ride. We stopped about halfway back at another gas station to stretch and stock up on some snacks and finally made it back to Warnemünde just after 8:30 pm ahead of our 10:00 pm back onboard time. We passed quickly through the terminal, where servers were waiting with trays of water, iced tea and hot chocolate to hydrate us while we waited in line to re-board.

[Nicole721]

We dropped our bags back at the room and freshened up quickly before heading down to the Tropicana for dinner. The Getaway has three main dining rooms (Savor, Taste and the Tropicana), all of which have the same menus. The Tropicana is the largest of the three, with a cool 1920s speakeasy vibe and live music. Live music is underrated these days on cruise ships, isn’t it? We really loved it. It helped distract us from the slow service we received, but to be fair, the dining room was packed with most tours coming in towards the tail end of dinner hours. We had different experiences with our meals: I enjoyed mine, but I ordered some of the rotating items. Stephanie thought everything was bland, but she mainly ordered from the always available items.

 

 

Bread Basket

 

Loaded Corn on the Cob

 

French Onion Soup

 

Boston and Red Leaf Lettuce Salad

 

Mozzarella and Plum Tomatoes

[Nicole721]

Rotisserie Chicken

 

Grilled New York Strip Steak

 

Baby Back Pork Ribs and Southern-Fried Chicken

 

We skipped dessert because dinner service took nearly two hours, opting to head back to our balcony for sailaway. I don’t know if it was a holiday in Warnemünde, or if they had a special celebration to mark the Getaway’s first visit to the port, but there were dozens of people gathered at the dock to see us off and even fireworks (which we couldn’t see because they were on the other side of the ship!).

 

 

 

Once we were out in open waters, we headed out again to walk around the ship. We were too tired to do much of anything so we just walked around, still trying to familiarize ourselves with the ship, before returning to the cabin and enjoying the warm night on our balcony.

[MaryBethV]

This is an amazing trip report! I love all the detail and gorgeous photos. :)

[jentravels408]

Following. Thank you so much for the report and photos. This is a cruise that I want to take next year!

[retiring soon]

Hi all!

 

Nicole ~thank you for your kind words.

 

It's great seeing Berlin through your eyes as I didn't go there since my DH is German so I've been to Berlin a couple of times, once in 1968, the other 1999, 10 years after the Wall came down.

 

I want to mention for those with a Baltic cruise in their plans that Warnemunde itself is a lovely place with a beautiful beach. I took the "Friends of Dave" tour which went to 3 old former East German towns, one of which had one of those tactile models of the Town for the artist's blind daughter. There was also a lovely castle at Schwerin & some of those little memorial stones to people killed in the War at another place. The architecture in the cities is lovely.

Our guide told us they have fireworks once a month in Warnemunde so you hit it right. When we sailed away lots of people were on the shore waving with their phones lit up & music played, songs like "Time to Say Goodbye", "Sailing". It was lovely.

 

That Canary Islands/Morocco cruise is a good one. I did it 2 Christmases ago on NCL Epic & really liked it. It's always nice to see places like Barcelona etc decorated for the holidays.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your trip.

 

~ Jo ~ :)

[Nicole721]

This is an amazing trip report! I love all the detail and gorgeous photos. :)

 

So glad you are enjoying it!

 

Following. Thank you so much for the report and photos. This is a cruise that I want to take next year!

 

Thanks for following along! :)

[Nicole721]

Hi all!

 

Nicole ~thank you for your kind words.

 

It's great seeing Berlin through your eyes as I didn't go there since my DH is German so I've been to Berlin a couple of times, once in 1968, the other 1999, 10 years after the Wall came down.

 

I want to mention for those with a Baltic cruise in their plans that Warnemunde itself is a lovely place with a beautiful beach. I took the "Friends of Dave" tour which went to 3 old former East German towns, one of which had one of those tactile models of the Town for the artist's blind daughter. There was also a lovely castle at Schwerin & some of those little memorial stones to people killed in the War at another place. The architecture in the cities is lovely.

Our guide told us they have fireworks once a month in Warnemunde so you hit it right. When we sailed away lots of people were on the shore waving with their phones lit up & music played, songs like "Time to Say Goodbye", "Sailing". It was lovely.

 

That Canary Islands/Morocco cruise is a good one. I did it 2 Christmases ago on NCL Epic & really liked it. It's always nice to see places like Barcelona etc decorated for the holidays.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your trip.

 

~ Jo ~ :)

 

I wish we had some time to walk around Warnemunde -- it seemed really lovely from the ship!

[Nicole721]

Day 7: Sea Day

 

We have sea day routines down pat when we’re sailing through warm waters. Most of our days look the same, and we’re okay with that. But even though our Norwegian Getaway was leaving a warm port was sailing towards another warm port, the waters in between were downright frigid, vacillating between the upper 40s and 50s all day.

 

It was too cold to swim or lay out, and too warm to stay in the room and sleep all day. It was an in between we weren’t familiar with, on a ship we were still trying to figure out. But that in and of itself was kind of exciting to me. Being on this ship where everything was different made cruising feel new to me again, like I was experiencing it all for the first time.

 

Our morning started up at the crowded Garden Café for breakfast. The choices were endless, but I settled on a made to order omelet, and I was pretty sure I could eat at the Garden Café for every morning of our nine-day voyage and still not get around to trying everything.

 

 

After breakfast, we wandered around the ship to see what we could find. There were activities planned, sure, but not many for Stephanie or I’s age group and most of the ones that did had an extra fee attached. So we wandered. We went into the shop to look around and we showed Mom the Waterfront. We watched a fruit and vegetable carving demo in the lobby and then we walked around some more, ending up in the shops to browse some of the Russian souvenirs they were putting on display ahead of our stop in St. Petersburg.

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

Since we only had two sea days, we wanted to try lunch in the dining room at least once, so we lunched at Savor. And I have to say, though small, Savor is a beautiful dining space with a ton of ambient sunlight. And the lunch fare was really good, too -- a comprehensive menu of options that were solid from top to bottom (at least, from what we tried!).

 

 

Spinach Caesar

 

Hummus & Peperonata

 

Vietnamese Chicken Pho

 

Chicken Nachos

[Nicole721]

Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf

 

Philly Cheesesteak

 

Chocolate Ice Cream

 

Key Lime Parfait

 

Fresh Fruit

[Nicole721]

After lunch, we headed back to the room only to find that it still hadn’t been serviced yet, and we had put on the Service Room light over four hours prior. All we really wanted to do was sit on the balcony and nap, so we switched the light from Service Room to Do Not Disturb. Was it the most exciting sea day ever? Not in the slightest. But ahead of us was a free day in Tallinn, followed by a grueling two day, one night tour of St. Petersburg that would span two full days and a full evening, and I knew I'd enjoy everything all the more if I were as rested as possible.

 

(And, you know, it was my vacation and few things say vacation to me like day naps)

 

I woke up just in time to shower and get ready for formal night. Well, kind of formal night. Norwegian’s Freestyle mentality meant that even though they planned two special Norwegian Night Out nights during our voyage, there was no actual dress code. It was a get dressed up if you want to kind of thing, which is basically the same as any other night, but I suppose this was the night to get really dressed up – you know – but only if you wanted to. My workplace has no dress code, which means I roll into work in oversized tunics, leggings and a top knot at least four days a week, so these cruises are, like, my chance to put on something that didn't make me look like I was on my way to yoga. We weren’t sure how dressy the rest of our fellow travelers would get and it really ran the gamut. It felt like most people didn’t get dressed up, and those who did wore simple dresses, nicer jeans or a little more flash.

 

 

We had 7:30 pm reservations to Burn the Floor, which meant a late dinner. Since we had an earlier lunch, we made a stop at the Garden Café before the show for a snack: made to order crepes. Nutella and cherry compote for me, Nutella and bananas for Stephanie and just Nutella for Mom. Best cruise snack ever? It’s definitely up there.

 

 

Unlike Carnival, you do need to make reservations for your shows ahead of time on Norwegian. Well, you don’t have to, but you should: if you don’t, you have to wait in a standby line that only lets in ten minutes before the show (and yes, they scan your card on your way in!). The theater was packed with no more than a handful of open seats before the lights dimmed.

 

 

Burn the Floor is a musical that went to Broadway and the West End after Elton John caught a performance at his 50th birthday party, and the original cast featured most of the current Dancing with the Stars pros! The performance we saw was extraordinary, featuring two vocalists and a full dance troupe of partners from all over the world. Everything from the choreography to the sets and the costumes were on point. I wish I had a picture or two to share, but they were adamant about no pictures or video being taken: not only was an announcement made, but an usher patrolled the aisles during the show to flash his light at anyone who didn’t comply!

[Nicole721]

We anticipated a rush to the dining venues after the show, so we ducked out during the curtain call, making a beeline towards the deck 6 restaurants. Taste and Savor face each other and we decided to go to whichever was less crowded (Savor won). We had a short wait before we were seated and thankfully, both the food and the service were much better this evening. The only thing throwing me was that it was pushing 9:00 pm and the restaurant was fully lit with the sunshine from the port side windows! I swear, that daylight that persists through the late evening hours throws my internal clock more than the time difference itself.

 

Bread Basket

 

Spanish Chorizo Sausage and Fingerling Potato Salad

 

Fried Brie Wedges

 

Spinach and Beet Salad

 

Argentinian Skirt Steak Salad

 

Yankee Beef Pot Roast

[Nicole721]

We had a great view of the sunset from our dinner table, and it coincided perfectly with our dessert course, right around 10:00 pm. The only thing throwing me more than the eight-hour time difference was the late sunsets. With the late, post-show dinner and the late sunset, my body felt like it was 6:00 pm when it was nearing the late evening hours.

 

 

Warm Chocolate Lava Cake

 

Pistachio Ice Cream

 

Raspberry Truffle Cake

 

When we returned to the room, it was still bright out, and even later on, well past midnight, when everyone else was asleep (except for me, whose body was still convinced I was coasting through the early evening hours), it wasn’t fully dark outside. There was a late showing of Ferris Bueller on the big screen in the lobby at 11:15 pm, but we skipped it in favor of sitting on the balcony and marveling at the late night daylight. That pic below? Just before midnight. Thank goodness for curtains.

 

[Nicole721]

Day 8: Tallinn

 

You know those fairy tale towns that you see in animated Disney movies? The ones that are so perfect that they couldn’t be real, with narrow streets lined with tall, brick capped buildings and perfectly imperfect cobblestone streets? When I woke up, that was outside of my balcony window. Tallinn, it seems, is like one of those perfect fairy tale towns come to life. And it was just beyond our balcony window, waiting for us to explore it.

 

 

We docked in Estonia before I woke up, which admittedly, was a little late – we didn’t have an excursion booked for Tallinn since the city center was within walking distance of the ship. We woke up a little later, took our time getting ready and had a leisurely breakfast up at the Garden Café. Our plan was just to walk around and shop, take some pictures and maybe find a coffee shop. You know. Basically our usual.

 

Tallinn is so wonderful that I wish we got an earlier start. If you visit Tallinn, with or without a tour, get off the ship and give yourself as much time in port as possible, especially if you have as beautiful a day as we did, with pure sunshine and temps in the mid 70s.

 

((And to be fair, we were off the ship by 10:30 am, which is still early, but a little later by our standards!))

 

 

The only thing I knew was I wanted to visit Toompea Hill to see a lookout over Old Town that I’d seen on Instagram. We had a few options: we could walk, but that was a long straight shot uphill. We could take a taxi – there were plenty available at the pier. Or we could take the hop on hop off bus, and since that’s always the perennial favorite amongst our family (and because they offered a slight discount at €15 a person at the pier), we bought a ticket and hopped on. We booked our tickets to the CitySightseeing bus since they had the most lines, but if I had to do it again, I would have gone with the other bus company at the pier. Everyone books CitySightseeing because they’re in the most cities and the most well known, which also means they’re usually the most crowded.

 

 

We settled into our seats on the upper deck and I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day. It was the warmest day Tallinn had in months, and the warmest it would have for weeks, like some version of beautiful fate. We settled into our seats and plugged in our earplugs as the big red bus drove through the newer part of town en route to Old Town.

 

[Nicole721]

Tallinn is a fascinating city. The picturesque, grandiose Old Town lays clustered in its beautiful glory on one side, but on the other is this modern city, with shopping malls and skyscrapers. They sit next to each other in stark juxtaposition: modern technology hub next to medieval town. Fun fact from the Freestyle Daily: Tallinn is one of the top 10 digital cities in the world, with the highest number of startups per person in Europe. About a third of Estonia’s total population lives in Tallinn, at roughly 445,000 residents. For most of its history, the city was known as Reval, changing its name to Tallinn in 1918, but name change aside, it’s one of the oldest cities in Northern Europe. Our ride on the bus began in that newer part of town, as we drove past Viru Square, Freedom Square and the Song Festival Ground, where every five years, they hold the Estonian Song Festival, which is one of the largest choral events in the world. My favorite part of this part of town, though, was Tammsaare Park, a large park in the city center.

 

 

 

 

 

The bus drove along the park as it made it’s way up towards the upper part of Old Town, and we hopped off at Toompea Castle, right near Kiek in de Kök, an old artillery tower that, in German, translates not to the phonetic meaning, but “Peek into the kitchen.” Go figure.

 

 

[Nicole721]

We didn’t know entirely where we were going, but there were signs every few yards and we just kept walking towards the scenic overlooks, trying to keep in mind where the lower city was to guide us. On our way, we came across the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a church built during Russian rule on top of the hill where its cross would be seen from both land and sea (a sign of the success of the Russian Orthodox). It wasn’t as grand as the churches we would see in St. Petersburg, but it was fascinating to see this big structure in Russian style against the medieval backdrop of Old Town.

 

 

Even though we didn’t know where we were going, we had so much fun walking around, taking so much joy in turning corners and discovering the beauty that came into view with every new street. The buildings were so colorful and unique, and since we weren’t with any tour group, we were experiencing them on our own time, without a crowd of people around us.

 

 

 

 

We turned a random corner and suddenly the viewpoint I was looking for was right in front of us. Just like that. And it was spectacular. This birds-eye view is the best in the city, stretching out from the lower part of Old Town all the way out to the sea.

 

 

[Nicole721]

The bus stop wasn’t too far away, but we’d already come so far and enjoyed walking it so much that we decided to continue touring Old Town on foot. We stuck to the sidewalks as much as we could – most of the streets are the original cobblestones, which are uneven and difficult to walk on, even in good walking shoes. Not far from our lookout, we found Pikk Street, which Stephanie had came across in her research as the easiest incline to go from the lower Old Town to the upper, and if it was the easiest up, it had to be the easiest down. And it wasn’t difficult, really. You might have a bit of a challenge going in either direction if you’re not fully mobile, but if you stick to the paved sidewalk instead of the cobblestone street, it’s much easier. There was a violinist playing on the side of the street and it was something we found throughout the city: violinists and accordion players and all kinds of musicians just playing music.

 

 

 

We continued down Pikk Street, stopping in souvenir shops as we went and peeking down side streets to see what we’d find. We stopped in a grocery store to pick up some water bottles (€0.50 -- a steal given what we were paying in Copenhagen!) and really just enjoyed walking around. You don’t need a tour to see Tallinn. In fact, I think I’d have enjoyed it a bit less if I had been with a tour. Having the complete flexibility and freedom to explore Old Town was perfect for us. I wouldn’t have changed a single thing.

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

There was loud music and chatter coming down one of the side streets, so we turned and found ourselves in this wide open square that was lined with cafes and shops. We weren’t hungry, but we can always go for some coffee. We walked around perusing our choices, settling on Kehrwieder, a small café that was full service outside, but counter service inside and boasted a top TripAdvisor rating on their signage, as well as the fact that they roasted their own beans and made their own chocolate. Sold, sold, sold. We opted to go casual and grab our coffee on our own inside instead of the full service patio and the inside of the café was so cool. It was this dark cave of sorts, with mismatched couches and décor, a robust coffee menu and a display case full of treats that made our mouths water. And the coffee? Just as good as that TripAdvisor sign said it would be.