Cruise to Scandinavia May 2026

 Cruise of Celebrity Apex 14th May and returned to Israel on 31st  May 2026.

We flew El Al to Heathrow on 14th May and in London  It was 11.50 pm by the time we arrived at the Enios hotel in Southampton by special taxi. This hotel only has 12 rooms. 

The next day Astrid wanted to recover from the journey so I took a bus into the city and visited the art gallery which had some unique paintings by Gainsborough , van Dyke, Monet,   Giuseppe Arcimboldo who painted faces of Fruit. There were 2 artists on display that had been kindertrain survivors of WW2 Frank Auerbach and Ruth Borchard. Opposite the Civic centre is a park and statue to Isaac Watts the guy who wrote most of the English hymns we  sang at school.  I also had a chance to do some shopping for some items we needed.

Near our hotel was the corner tower that was part of the old city wall. This had been partially reconstructed even though it was  no longer connected to the city wall.  Across from our hotel window is the ferry to the Isle of Wight. The parking is full of cars , vans, busses and container trucks. I kept watching this and you see cars loading the top level on a ramp on the side till the lower level in level with the road. Then trucks enter the lower deck  the surrounded by cars, everyone is told where to park so that the ferry is balanced, Now you see them loading both levels with cars till the parking is empty.  Then the next lot of vehicles begin arrive and full  the parking. 

I went across to the terminal and found out that it  takes 2 car ferry boats working all the time and it takes an  hour to get to Cowers, Isle of Wight. There is a passenger ferry that only takes half an hour.

On the ship Celebrity, Apex is a newer class of ship and bigger so feels more stable than the previous ships we were on. It carries 3,000 passengers and a crew of 1500. We left our luggage in our  cabin and went straight to the buffet dining room for lunch. The following day was a sea day with lectures and entertainment.

We arrived  in Copenhagen, Denmark on day three. After lunch we went for a tour on a boat on the main canal which goes along the whole city and this includes every thing from the churches the cathedral, the old custom building, industry of the old brewery building, port warehouses , naval storage rooms, houses of naval workers that were all painted yellow.

Copenhagen does not allow old building to be demolished and we did not see high rise buildings, we also saw the little mermaid. Along the canal are boats that people live in but still have to pay rates and for water and electricity. living in these would not be pleasant in winter as the pipes freeze up. Dozens of low bridges and you have to be seated to get under them. It was a sunny afternoon and almost everyone was outside to get fresh air.  That night we had a Danish folk troop entertaining us, with piano , accordion and violin. some of the music sounded similar to English, Irish or Scots folk music. Not surprising as the British Isles were invaded  by Vikings, and England was ruled by Danes for almost 100 years.

Tuesday still in Copenhagen and our tour took us through the city, there is a large part of the port that is foreshore reclaimed from the sea. In Denmark you are warned not to step onto a bicycle path as the ride their bikes at crazy speeds. Their bikes are all European perhaps they do not allow Chinese bikes into the country. We did not see electric bikes or electric scooters in Denmark but did in Sweden. We drove into the  Drogen tunnel under the sea to an island, from here were drove onto Öresund Bridge  to Malmo , Sweden. This is both road and rail crossing completed in 2000. On the Danish side they did not want a bridge near their airport. In Malmo we visited the  old City square which is full of shops, coffee shops and restaurants. Surprisingly the old city streets are wide. This is part of  Sweden that was Danish territory till the Swedes won it back by waiting for a very cold winter that the sea had frozen and attacking Denmark by a charge across the ice.

We were taken to Lund  that is a university town with a cultural feeling instead of a business feeling  of Malmo. The Cathedral that was build Catholic is now Lutheran which is the most popular religion in all Scandinavia. Norway , Denmark and Sweden each have their own currency and don't use the Euro so it is easier to just use a credit card and most shops are cashless.

We arrived in Helsinki, Finland  after lunch, and our tour took us through the city which has an extensive tram system, some tracks run on the roads others have special lanes that don't interfere with the traffic. The country is all forest with thin tall birch and pine trees, the thicker trees have been cut down for timber. We reached the historical town of Porvoo where houses are all made of wood. In its day it was a major trading centre at the very innermost part of the Gulf of Finland where boats could reach. The Catholic Cathedral had become Lutheran and the icons were painted over. Above the podium were the Hebrew letters  יהוה .

Finland was part of Sweden for many years till in 1808 it was taken over by Russia under Alexander I but it was made into a Grand Duchy of Russia and left with its own culture. Here the warehouses  are now residential homes and a wealthy merchants home is now a museum.  In Helsinki we passed the statue of Carl Gustav Mannheim who led the Finns in the Winter war against the Soviets 1939-1940. He was later the 6th President of Finland. When Finland lost territory it had to find accommodation for 400,000 Finns who fled. Finland took independence from Russia in 1911 while Russia was involved in the Bolshevik Revolution.  We were all given coffee or tea (rooibos) and a Finnish cake that had a marzipan flavour.. This whole area is granite and the paving is made of granite squares and the soil is very black here.

Friday Tallinn, Estonia. Here the ground is chalk and you see thick forests of oak and pine trees. Historically Estonia made a living by selling salt. During the  Hanesatic era Tallinn was called the City of Salt.  When Estonia declared independence from the Soviets in 1991 she had no industry and went into High Tech. The only thing not done digitally is marriage! Estonia is#1 in High Tech we are #2 in the world so they say taking population into account. They have a population of 1.36 million and understand Finnish.  Tallinn residents can travel on public transport free but others have to pay.  There are a lot of electric scooters for hire but not that many bicycles as it it very hilly even though the highest point in Estonia is only 300 meters in the whole country. The city has an extensive tram system. We were taken to the Toompea Castle a fortress on the top of the hill where this Estonian Parliament building sits. Opposite this is the Russian Orthodox Church called the Alexander Nevsky because he was the one who defeated the western invasion of Russia. After the first independence 1918 they wanted to destroy this church  but it was an architectural gem and instead took the gold from the  roof.  Because different religions were forced on the Estonians they are the most secular country in Europe. 

We were taken to the  Gustav Ernesaks park where open air concerts are performed with a display of the great classical, jazz and pop musicians that have performed here.  Gustav Ernesaks  (1908-1993) composed the national anthem and there is a big statue of him seated.

We were shown a neighborhood of Soviet Era residential building which are considered comfortable and utilitarian despite having no architectural grace. 

Back on the ship we were only 9 for the Friday night service and it was led very well by a Canadian.

Before visiting Sweden  the lecture was on ABBA and how they wrote their music.

Saturday Stockholm Sweden. Here they say " Summer is the best day of the year" This was a full summer day and everyone was out on the streets in the sun many had their shirts off. Where ever you walked and the parks were crowded. Stockholm means log island as logs protected it from the water. We were taken for a tour of this city which is inland from the Baltic Sea. The fresh water mixes with the salt sea water so it has different plant life in the water.  Then there are locks to separate the Malaren lake which is used for drinking water, from sea water. The lock is also to stop flooding. We were taken to the city hall where you saw many couples with families dressed for weddings the bride and groom as this was Pentacost and it is the day that a lot of couples get married about 70 that day. Though they say most people get married in church.  We also saw the kings palace and parliament buildings.

In Sweden maternity leave is 15 months and a wife has to take 3 month the husband 3 months and the rest they can decide. In summer it is mostly the men who prefer summer and the women get winter??  We saw many men pushing prams. The city is built on granite hills so you don't see so many bikes, but it has many trams and train after train going through the station. The city is build on 14 island and there are a few  wooden houses but mostly modern buildings. The opera theatre we past is where the king gives the Nobel prize and there is also the house of the Nobel family.  Many old big chestnut trees were in bloom covered with white blossoms.  At the palace you could see the horse guards marching with a band. There is a ABBA museum that had a big crowd queueing to enter. Copper was mined in Sweden from the 10th Century till 1992. Copper slag powder is added to paint giving a yellow orange color to many of the older buildings.

The old city the architecture is more interesting. Swedish and Norwegian are similar languages but Danish sound is very different for the Swedes  to grasp and they speak to them more in English. We watched the ship leaving Stockholm and you go out a long way to get to the open sea along crevasses worn by  ice age glacial abrasion.

Gotland Sweden is the biggest island in the Baltic with 61,000 population and the only city is Visby  which has 25,000 residents.  This is a city with a high wall and fortress around it from the 12 Century  a sea wall was build in parts to stop the city flooding. Inside the wall are new modern houses. The bus driver looked as if he was over 80 and the guide was a teacher 75 years  had retired ago and spoke a perfect English. Visby had a jail for convicts from the mainland but this is now a hostel. There is the remnant of the gallows out in a field but the last person hung was in 1845.  The symbol of Gotland is a ram. Sheep were brought to Sweden by the Vikings from the Mediterranean. 

Gotland sheep both male and female have horns, and the island has 60,000 sheep as many as people. They grow potatoes and vegetables on Gotland as the climate is milder than the mainland. Electricity comes by under sea cable from mainland but they have their own solar panels and wind power. The island was a big base for Hanseatic traders and they had their own German church. We were taken to the botanical gardens that started as a hobby of the residents and it has a statue of Carl Linnaeus the physician and biologist who formalized the naming of animal and plants.

Most of the original wooden houses were burned down over the years, one house is shown how they covered the wood with tar that they found on the island to protect the wood from the elements. Gotland belonged to both the Hanseatic League and Denmark before it was returned permanently to Sweden in  in  1769. Sweden has the most islands of any country in the world followed by Norway and then Finland .

Tuesday 26th May Oslo, Norway. This is a city that has a very high congestion tax and so the roads are all open and very few cars in the city. The money gained from this subsidizes the public transport. Norway never had coal so only industrialized when hydroelectric electricity come about. The entire population of Norway is 5.6 million. Historically Norway was the country worst affected by the bubonic plague and 60% of the population died in 1349. As an agricultural country it had little land and many Norwegians emigrated to the US.  Only the Nobel prize for Peace is  determined in Oslo and presented at the town hall. Norway has oil and gas and does not allow too much money to enter her market as it would cause inflation so has a Wealth Fund worth $2.2 trillion.  All education is free and 99% of education is by government schools. In Oslo 50%  of the cars are electric, far more than other countries in Europe. All the city busses are electric  and there is far less pollution. Old people live in their own homes with a helper that visits twice a day. Only old  invalids go to old age homes and private ones are expensive.

We were taken to the Gustav Vigiland (1869–1943)Sculpture Park. He spent 20 years of  his life working on this park. This has over 200 figures all nude. You have a bridge with figures all contrasting, young, old, happy, sad.  Young boys are playing and young girls talking.  There is a massive fountain where 6 men hold up the bowl of the future. This was designed in 1907. "Nowadays it would have 2 men, 2 women and 2 mixed gender types" was the comment of the guide. Around the sculptures are of people from birth to love to death. There is an obelisk which when you get closer see that it is lots of people.  We then went to the Fram museum which is a whole ship of 800 tons. This was build for Fridijof Nansen to get to the north pole which he failed to do. Roald Amundsen however managed to get to the south pole first. This ship was designed so that ice would not crush it, but would push it upwards. After the successful expedition the ship was put on land and the museum was build around it.

Across the road is the museum containing the Kon-Tiki raft. Expedition by Thor Heyerdahl. The Kon-Tiki trip was done by 6 men but later they recognized that one wife helped organize the project.  He tried to prove that people with basic sea knowledge could move from South America to the Pacific Islands.  Later the Ra expedition left from  Morocco to Barbados in 57 days. However we know from linguistics and DNA today that the Pacific island people did not come from S. America but Polynesia.

Kristiansand , Norway  This is a city of 120,000 inhabitants and is partly on the sea. In 1890 many  of the houses were burned so after that it was decreed they had to build from stone. There are still some wooden houses but the stone houses from that time are very interesting. The main shopping road has been turned into a mall and many roads only have public transport.  We were taken to the coastal village of Hollen where all the houses are wooden and it is a  summer holiday place. The area is surrounded by trees and you see trees living on the granite rocks with very little soil.  They have a shallow lagoon here and in summer the water in it becomes warm and this attracts visitors.

We were taken to a preserved farm from 400 years ago, mostly log houses. Homes were higher than the barn or stable so that they were above the cattle. They also had an outdoor toilet and sauna. The sauna was lit on a Saturday and the whole family would go in it together and have a steam bath to be clean for  church on Sundays.  A museum had models of ships that called on trade or had run aground here.

I walked back through the city and you can see that half the cars have E on the number plate showing it is electric, I never saw any Chinese cars. Norway is connected to both Scotland and Germany by underwater cable and able to sell electricity to Europe and have plenty dams that act as power storage.

The entertainment was all at a very high level the  most outstanding was a ventriloquist  Gareth Oliver who got a volunteer, put a gadget on his mouth to make him look as if he is talking while the entertainer did  the talking and  his mouth actions of the person who  moved his hands to express what he appears to say.  The staff and crew on the ship gave a very high level of service and we notice that there are many South African , Zimbabweans and Kenyan's working as waiters, perhaps because the standard of their English is very good even better than many Philippinos. On this ship you could go to the buffet for meals, this is open around the clock but late at night the menu is limited.  There are 4 sit down restaurants which we preferred when you have time and you usually were able to chat to the  people next to you. Towards the end of the cruise we were sitting with a number of people we knew.

Friday we were up early and took the National Express coach to Heathrow to our hotel. That evening Evan Harris came all the way from central London  and we ate supper together.  He goes to the gym every day  and looks very trim. We were able to catch up with his news.

Saturday we wanted to spend the day in London but all the tube lines had been closed to Heathrow as the signal had to be repaired. So people were taking busses to Richmond to get the train. and so we did our shopping in Richmond. By the time we got back it was after 3 pm.  One is aware of the change in demography in this part of London with a lot of Arabic spoken.

Sunday 31st May we had to be up at 4 am. to get through security and passport control to get our El Al flight home at 8am.  We arrived home to a lot of traffic in Israel as the Haridim had blocked the main road through Bnei Brak protesting against the conscription to the army.