We had decided we wanted to do a "different" type of trip before we got too old. As pensioners it took us a long time to save - and a lot of perusing of the travel section of the Sunday Times and Google to get the best deals.
We decided on a Baltic cruise. We flew to Hamburg and took a bus to Kiel, where we spent a night before boarding our ship the next day for the seven-night voyage.
Our ship called at Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tallinn and St Petersburg before returning to Kiel.A previous cruise years earlier had shown us that this is a cost-effective way of travelling to different countries. The ship takes care of accommodation and meals, and you do not have to unpack and pack at each stop.
Cruises offer some very good excursions at each stop, but these can be fairly expensive. As we were watching our pennies and wanted to get more of a general feel for the places we visited, we decided to do some free walking tours.
HOOFING IT
I did a great deal of research - this is not everyone's cup of tea, but as a pensioner I have time on my hands. I was able to find suitable free walking tours in all the cities we visited, conducted by local guides whose only income is the tips they get at the end of the tour.Most of the tours had between eight and 15 people, but one had nearly 40. And while free, some tours had to be booked online while others requested you be there 15 minutes before the designated start time.
Before we started each tour we looked for a tourist information centre to get a map showing places of interest. The guides took us to most of these places, filling us in with history, legends or amusing stories. They were always ready to answer questions, point out other interesting places en route or give advice on places to eat, stay or shop.
STILL WALKING
The tours usually lasted up to three hours and gave us the chance to learn a lot during the cruise stops, which were on average six hours long.
Be warned, though, we estimate we walked an average of 20km a day!
At first we thought we would use public transport to get from the port to the various city centres but decided to pay the extra and use the shuttle bus from the ship. This sometimes dropped us quite a long way from the tour meeting place.After the tour we walked some more, exploring further or returning to places we'd seen, before returning to the bus stop. All this walking made us feel justified in indulging in the food on the ship.
The last port of call was St Petersburg. As many nationalities need a visa to visit Russia, there were no shuttle buses; the cruise line expected most passengers to make use of their excursions, which are covered by a blanket visa.
TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE
Hooray for us - South Africans don't need a visa for Russia - and we booked our own tour.
Thanks to my homework we had very explicit directions to St Petersburg and the cost of transport to get there, including the number of the bus to catch, how frequently it ran and the number of stops to the Primorskaya metro station. There was also a picture of the KFC outside the metro as the Russian alphabet is so different.We rode the metro two stops to Gostiny Dvor/Nevsky Prospekt and found our way to the Winter Palace and Hermitage Museum to join the tour.
We had a lovely day in the city and learnt so much. Going back to the ship we retraced our steps, even seeing the same ticket collector on the bus who recognised us and gave us a thumbs up. It was quite an adventure - we felt like we had conquered Russia!
Finally it was back to Kiel, a night in Hamburg and then home. A wonderful trip all round.
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