The End of Phase One

We are off the ship and in Hamburg, Germany.  Prior to arriving in Kiel on Monday, we had 2 ports of call.  The first was Szczecin, Poland.  The port had to be one of the ugliest we have ever been to, particularly the view from our veranda.  The view from the other side of the ship was much nicer.

I had previously scoped out a walking route around the city.  When we got off of the ship, we found that the walking path was conveniently marked with a red line on the sidewalk.  

Easy to follow, except for a couple of places where it disappeared due to construction.  But we managed to pick it up again.  The city had some good sights which I'll summarize through the photos.

Eventually, we arrived at the waterfront from which we could had continued the walk a bit further.  However, we had had enough, so we cut back into town to catch the shuttle bus back to the ship.

It was a nice long walk.  I should point out that we opted to skip yet another castle, shown in the photo below.

The highlight of the day was dinner where we were joined by 4 members of the entertainment team.  We really had come to know them well during our 7 weeks and really appreciated their talents and personalities.  It was a wonderful 3-1/2 hour dinner.  Of course, Laurentiu, the Restaurant Manager, had to do the photo bomb.

The next day we received this thank you note from the entire entertainment team.  Very touching.

Then Monday, the last full day of the cruise, we arrived in Kiel, Germany at about noon.  We saw a window where the rain had paused and went out to see the city.  This time, there was a blue line to follow.  It was a shorter walk through the main street of the city.  Not so interesting.  At least Linda was able to get some needed socks at TK Maxx (yes, it is TK Maxx in Europe).

The rest of the day was time for packing before one last dinner with Cruise Director Silas.

On Tuesday morning we took a prearranged taxi from Kiel to our hotel in Hamburg.  We'll be here for 4 nights before flying to Ljubljana, Slovenia.  

We have found dinners with the staff to be such good times.  I believe that they are well trained to follow Rule of Civility Number 62:

Speak not of doleful things in a time of mirth or at the table; speak not of melancholy things as death and wounds, and if others mention them change if you can the discourse.

Peace, blessings, and wonder,

Linda and Larry