My favourite ship? It’s 400 years old...
The farewell message from the guide was pretty standard. ‘Please check you have all your belongings with you before leaving the coach, otherwise it might take some time to get them back.’ But then she added: ‘Maybe you should try eBay!’
I wasn’t expecting that kind of wry humour in Sweden’s capital, but Stockholm is full of surprises – one of my favourites is a tramcar with a café on board – and our guide had just taken us to what must been the city’s biggest-ever surprise.
Nearly 400 years ago the mighty warship Vasa sank just 15 minutes into her maiden voyage in full view of an astonished crowd watching from a hundred yards away. Now, after being hauled from the harbour mud and restored, she is housed in a museum built around her and she looks magnificent.
The richly-decorated battleship had set sail on calm Baltic seas with the ports open on her two gun decks, ready for the brass cannons to fire a salute. But she was topheavy and when a gust of wind caught her, water rushed into the lower deck and her naval career ended before it even started.
Today she towers above you on dry land as you enter her final resting place, her fine timbers gleaming under spotlights and on display all around are the everyday, and now poignant, belongings of a 17th Century ship’s crew. It is a time capsule like no other.
Seeing this example of a maritime blunder was, ironically, one of the highlights during a 14-day voyage along the Baltic. We faced none of the perils that befell the Vasa as we sailed past the hundreds of small islands that cluster around Stockholm and are served by their own post boats, school boats, shop boats and even a dentist’s boat. Our ship was the Pacific Princess, a beautiful and, by modern standards, small cruise ship, which my wife and I boarded in Dover – meaning no airport hassles. We parked our car on the quay and stepped on board while our luggage was whisked to the cabin.
It was the same in reverse at the end of a cruise that had taken us 3,100 miles to Copenhagen, Riga, Tallinn, St Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm and Amsterdam in unhurried luxury.
The Pacific Princess has a crew from 39 countries and 639 passengers. The head chef, Jeremy Snowden, began learning his trade in Yorkshire so his wide-ranging menus included traditional fare, which was much enjoyed – and not just by his countrymen.
My wife has to spend a lot of time in a wheelchair, so the elegant, specially adapted cabin was ideal. It also had the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in afloat and a good-sized balcony.
Throughout the cruise the crew could not have been more helpful and only the cobblestones of old Riga, Latvia’s historic capital, defeated us. They were big and roughly hewn on streets and pavements, so after 20 minutes we abandoned its medieval charms and headed back on board. Every port of call, apart from St Petersburg, was in the eurozone and in cities once considered cheap, such as Tallinn in Estonia, it was hard to find any bargains. The Pacific Princess spent two days in St Petersburg and no visa was needed because we went on tours organised by the ship. An early start meant arriving at the magnificent Hermitage museum – which includes the sumptuous Winter Palace – as the doors were opening, so we got up-close to the Leonardos, Rembrandts, Michelangelos and the other Old Masters and marvelled at the ornate splendour of the state rooms before the crowds arrived.
This was how Catherine the Great splashed her cash while her people went short, but what a legacy.
Back on board the Pacific Princess, I decided she is the perfect size. Big enough to provide all you need – fine dining rooms, goodsized theatre, sun deck, shops and even a casino – but small enough to have a feeling of intimacy. It’s a ship where it’s easy to make new friends and you can’t get lost.
The added bonus was she could navigate the Kiel Canal, the 98km of freshwater passageway between the Baltic and the North Sea. Large cruise ships can’t get under the bridges, but the Pacific Princess provided that rarest of on-board experiences – looking from your balcony at fields of grazing sheep and cows.
THE SHIP IS SMALL ENOUGH TO HAVE A FEELING OF INTIMACY