Thursday, August 20, 2026
At Sea/Sapphire Princess
66F and partially cloudy
On this cruise, sea days are a time to catch one’s breath—and
the bonus last night was turning the clock back an hour—another extra hour of
sleep!
Today’s Meet and Greet (set up by Cruise Critic posters—CC is
a site where people who are going on the same cruise make connections, offer
advice, and learn about fellow cruisers) was important to me because I wanted
to confirm some private excursions that we have booked. I met several
fascinating people along the way, including “D” and “P” who lived in France for
12 years, “G” who set up the Sapphire Princess’s CC board for this cruise, and
several others—let’s hope we meet them again.
We had a wonderful opportunity to step into the 13th century and visit the world of Vikings and explorers like Thor Heyerdahl. We experienced cosmopolitan cities like Stockholm and Oslo, with more modern architecture. We contrasted that with the smaller towns that willingly exposed their Medieval roots, sometimes with a touch of Gothic, Baroque, Romanesque, and Renaissance. Everywhere we traveled the people were wonderful—tour guides, bus drivers, people on the streets, and shopkeepers.
Knowing the history of this part of the world and how they were affected by World Wars, Communism and Nazism made an impact on me. I keep going back to our tour guide in Lithuania who said, “Humanism and love came back to our country,” when they were liberated from the Soviet Union. That is such a powerful statement. All of the countries we visited so far on this cruise experienced severe conditions in the 20th century. I believe they showed us their humanism and love--we are grateful for the opportunity to visit these countries.
TK’s Takes: The sea was calm this morning, but this evening we are experiencing some robust rolls. He did not care for the Duck a l’Orange tonight at dinner. The blueberry cobbler was excellent.
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