Hi, everyone!
The places I’ve visited in the Baltic so far have histories going back at least 1000 years. The ones I’ve visited in the past couple of days have been fought over by forces from the east and west, often Germans and Russians. During World War II, their buildings were bombed and destroyed. After World War II, all were under Soviet influence until the 1990s. The surviving grand buildings from earlier times weren’t taken care of. The bombed out buildings needed to be rebuilt. Much of what Grandma and Grandpa and I have been seeing is being repaired or is a new building that looks like an old one.
On Saturday, the MS Marina docked in Warnemunde, Germany. We took a bus tour to Schwerin, a town that is going to be named a World Heritage Site soon. Parts of the castle there are being restored as a museum to the way they looked in their best days. Other parts of the castle are being used as modern goverment offices. Our visit to the museum part started in a room that still needs work. What looks like marble on the walls is actually hand-painted plaster! Repairing water damage on those walls takes special skills and a lot of patience!
Back when there was a noble family living in the castle, the children lived on the first floor, the women lived on the second floor, and the men lived on the third floor. The restored rooms are mostly on the men’s and women’s floors. They are very fancy! The wooden floors have designs worked into them and the ceilings are ornamented. Our guide told us all the ornaments are actually made out of paper pulp and painted!
I was happy to see a model of the castle. That helped me understand how sections had been added over time by generations of the noble family.
As we were leaving the inside of the castle, we passed one of the rooms used for the modern government. It didn’t look like the rest at all! Then we took a boat ride in the lake that surrounds the castle. That gave me good views of the outside!
After that, we walked around in the Old Town part of Schwerin. Some of the alleys are very narrow! The oldest house is more than 300 years old! In the main town square, there was a singalong going on. Our guide told us about Richard the Lion, a conqueror who made everybody follow his religion and did cruel things. There’s a statue about him, but it mostly shows how much he was hated. I was sorry people thought that was how lions behaved! I liked another statue much better and made friends there.
It was starting to rain in Schwerin as we were leaving, but it was dry in Warnemunde when we got back to the ship. I’m always happy when we get back from a tour in time for tea! There was a pretty sunset, too! The Marina set sail for our next port after dark.
On Sunday morning, I woke up back in Denmark! We were docked on Bornholm Island. The day started cold and rainy, but we started our bus tour around the island anyway! Our first stop was the round church in Osterlars. It was built around 1160 A.D. Our guide said there are only eleven similar churches in all of Europe, and four of them are on Bornholm Island. Denmark was one of the last countries where pagan religions were replaced by Christian ones. Our guide showed us a stone that had a Christian cross surrounded by pagan runes.
It was still raining when we got to the fishing village of Gudhjem, but we walked around the town, anyway. My favorite store was the caramel shop! It was warm and dry inside, and I got a free sample!
By the time we got to Allinge, the rain had stopped. Allinge is one of the places on Bornholm where fish are still smoked. Everybody was served a smoked fish smoresbord as a snack! Grandma and I took a walk on the boardwalk across the stony shoreline. We made sure to get back on the tour bus on time!
Our last stop was at Hammershus, a big fortress built on the north tip of Bornholm Island. Nobody is quite sure when it was built, but it’s probably not quite as old as the round church we saw earlier. It started falling apart in the 1700s and was partially rebuilt about one hundred years ago. I liked the view from the visitors’ center observation deck! The valley next to it is very pretty, too!
Grandma and I took a walk partway up the hill to get a closer look at the fortress. There was a monument near the path, but all the writing was worn off. I wonder if it had some connection to the giant model of a woman’s skull in the visitor’s center!
On our way back to the ship, I saw lots of farm fields. Corn and canola for oil are Bornholm crops. Back at the ship, I saw pieces for wind turbines for an offshore wind farm. It’s very windy on Bornholm Island, so it’s a good place to make renewable power that way. Grandpa explained that the countries that used to invade Bornholm to control it now try to take control by being energy sources. A country that doesn’t have to depend on other countries for its energy is more likely to stay independent!
We got back to MS Marina in time for tea! Guess what? I helped Grandma find another piece on the art scavenger hunt!
Overnight, MS Marina sailed to Gdynia, Poland! We went to see the Old Town of Gdansk. Our guide showed us photos of the bombing damage from World War II and how it was repaired. Practically everything we saw was actually built after Grandma and Grandpa were born but is designed to look much older.
The Moltawa river divides the old city from the new city. I watched tourist boats turning around in the river. There’s a swinging pedestrian bridge that opens to let boats out on a regular schedule. We walked into the old city through the Green Gate. That opens onto the main plaza the stretches the length of the old city.
We visited St. Mary’s basilica — a big old Roman Catholic church. There’s an astronomical clock inside that shows the time and the phases of the moon! I liked the way the nave of the church was decorated!
Amber is a jewelry stone that is actually the hardened resin from ancient pine trees. All the Baltic countries have some that washes up on the coast, and there’s an amber mine, too! We stopped at a jewelry store to see how amber is polished into a pretty gem. Then we walked the rest of the way down the main plaza and left by the Golden Gate. That gate is still being repaired!
The prison tower is just outside the Golden Gate, so we walked through that, too. Some of the prisoners were kept outside! Our guide pointed out buildings that had the symbols of more than one of the invaders that controlled Gdansk in the past!
On our way back to MS Marina, we stopped to hear an organ concert at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Oliwa. The decorations in this church were a different style from St. Mary’s Basilica in Gdansk. I really liked the parts of the music where the big organ pipes made everything rattle a little bit!
Love,
Lion-san