Going Baltic on a warm-hearted Viking cruise
It’s not a question of what to do all day during the Viking Star Baltic cruise, finds Frank Barrett – it’s a matter of trying to fit it all in
Each evening on our Viking Sea cruise, the printed programme of the next day’s events, excursions and other useful information was left on the bed for pre-sleep perusal. For obvious reasons, this news-sheet was called Viking Daily.
In the heyday of the Vikings, when their longships were a terrifying sight, did Erick the Bloodaxe offer his own ‘Viking Daily’ schedule for the benefit of his on-board warriors? ‘9am: Looting. 10am: Pillaging. 11am: Improving our contact skills – do I really need to slaughter all the monks in a carnage of bloody slaying? Leif Longsword leads round-table discussion…’
Increasingly, however, the activity we have come to associate with ‘Viking’ is no longer Dark Age aggressive warfare but modern luxury cruising: intensive TV advertising, first for the much longer established Viking river cruises and more recently for the new ocean-going voyages, means that the word ‘Viking’ has come to have happy associations.
Approaching sea cruising from the perspective of river cruising – quite a different business – led Viking Cruises towards some innovations for their big ships. Their new breed of vessels feel less like chintzy hotels (the default design style of bigger cruise ships) and more like elegant urban members’ clubs. They also offer a free excursion for each port of call, usually a city tour.
Viking has also fashioned an equally smart response to the age-old question from cruising agnostics: ‘What do you do all day on a ship… isn’t it boring?’
On cruises these days, the problem is not a lack of things to do – the trouble is trying to fit it all in. For example, the likely highlight of my two-week Viking Star Baltic Cruise was going to be The Ultimate Panzer Drive excursion during the stop at Warnemunde on Germany’s Baltic coast.
On the itinerary, the stop is listed as ‘Berlin’ as all passengers can enjoy the free excursion to the German capital via a high-speed train which runs straight from a platform next to where the ship is moored.
However, my heart was set on visiting an eclectic museum an hour’s drive from Warnemunde where the star attraction was a ride on a German Panzer tank – the machine that in the Second World War put the ‘blitz’ into ‘blitzkrieg’.
The tank ride was to be followed by a sausage-and-beer lunch. I had the occasion clearly imagined in my head. After our barbecue lunch and a couple of steins of beer served by the museum’s owner, I would tell him that he had the wrong name for his attraction (drily titled Technik-Museum). ‘Frank, what do you suggest as a name?’ he would have enquired. ‘Let me see: armoured vehicles… nostalgia… what about Tanks For The Memory?’ Loud guffaws, much back-slapping, museum-owner would become my new best friend – how we would laugh when we remembered this first visit.
The best laid plans of mice and men. Two days before we docked at Warnemunde, a note was slipped under our cabin door announcing that the Panzer excursion was off due to lack of interest (damn you, free Berlin excursion!). Schweinhund, as they used to say in my beloved War Picture Library comic books.
The day wasn’t wasted. I discovered that Rostock, a 20-minute train ride from Warnemunde, had a Soviet-era prison that was turned into a fascinating museum following the fall of the Iron Curtain.
I visited on a Monday when the museum was officially closed, but the staff were happy to let me tag on to a school group. ‘Young people can’t believe that you could have been locked up here for four years for making a joke about the communist government,’ observed one staff member.
A couple of days earlier there were no jokes about communism on our trip to the famous Hermitage museum in St Petersburg (few people in the city seem to talk about life before Putin or, less surprisingly probably, life during Putin).
On the bus to the museum our little party was aware that this was no ordinary outing. Our guide Sonja left us under no illusion about the sort of challenge we were facing. The Hermitage is the Everest of museums; why would we seek to conquer it? Because it was there: three million objects and 14 miles of corridors. If you were to spend 30 seconds in front of every object it would take you – non-stop – 11 years.
‘Eleven years, give or take,’ said Sonja. ‘You would want to eat, probably. Perhaps sleep a little. So even longer than 11 years certainly.’ Our party of 22 eyed each other nervously. Eleven years? We were hoping to be back on the Viking Sea in three hours, in time for a light lunch (take my word for it, you never want to miss lunch).
We were at the Hermitage because we liked museums. But this was more than a saunter around a few interesting glass cases displaying the odd jewellery-encrusted goblet. What we were facing was nothing less than Extreme Museuming – an intellectual adventure sport: big paintings and hard yards. As soon
as we were across the threshold we could expect three hours of tough art – long queues and unpleasant pushing for space with other groups.
But our first job was to find the toilets. Russia, it has to be said, doesn’t really ‘do’ public toilets. It must be a throwback to the golden age of communism when the Russians were more worried about over-fulfilling their ball-bearing quota than wondering whether tourists were adequately provided with what Americans used to refer to as ‘comfort stations’. As a result, public toilets in St Petersburg are in short supply – few in number and poor in hygiene.
At the Hermitage, facilities were available at the start of the trek. Twenty-two of us went in search of relief; only 20 came back. The US Marines may operate a ‘no man left behind’ policy, but then they’ve probably never visited the Hermitage toilets.
Guide Sonja counted as we clicked through the entry turnstile and chewed her lip. Two had fallen at the first hurdle. A quick phone call ensured that the next Viking group would sweep up the missing, but it was a chastening moment. We bunched a little closer together as we set off in search of Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci and Josiah Wedgwood’s famous frog tea service.
A Guards officer asked to recall the experience of the evacuation from Dunkirk exclaimed: ‘My dear: The noise! The people!’ This will be my memory of the Hermitage. It was hard to believe that a place so big can get so crowded. Under special dispensation we entered an hour before official opening time, but within minutes the place had the feel of the first morning of the Harrods sale. People were actually fighting to get a closer look at Leonardo’s Madonna Litta (well worth the trouble).
Incredibly, 20 of us were counted out of the exit turnstile. If somebody had been left behind in one of the museum’s many rooms, it would be hard to imagine how you would ever find them again.
Part of the Hermitage includes the Winter Palace, famous as the place stormed by the Bolsheviks in 1917 when Lenin arrested the provisional government and seized control. The most amazing part of this achievement is that he was able to locate anybody in the labyrinthine maze of rooms. One can only suppose the provisional government was keen to be apprehended.
On the 14-day cruise, there is only one ‘sea day’ without a port visit. The itinerary features three overnight stops: in Stockholm at the start, one in St Petersburg near the beginning, and one in the Norwegian city of Bergen at the end. We also called at Helsinki, Tallinn, Gdansk, Copenhagen, Aalborg, Stavanger and Flam, where we took a fabulous train ride with stunning views of the fjord and waterfalls.
This Baltic trip was about as perfect as a cruise can be. Lovely visits ashore, glorious life on board where you are left almost entirely to your own devices. You have a choice of places to eat and choose the time and whether you want to dine in company or alone. There are entertainments, films under the stars and lots of live music. Heaven might be a little like this.
I’ll return – if only for the Panzer drive: the museum and I have unfinished business.
‘If you were to spend 30 seconds in front of each object it would take you – non-stop – 11 years’