Scandinavia

When we arrived at the ferry terminal we first picked-up the car and then drove to the check-in counter. Our boat hadn't arrived, on the contrary, there was even no sight of it. At 6:30 pm the check-in counter opened and the ship would sail at 8:10 pm, but at 6:10 pm there was no sight of our ship, the Amorella of the Viking Line. But a few minutes later we could see her coming and some time later it had docked. The check-in went rather quick, but after that we had to wait again before we could board the ship. There were five lines and we stood in the fourth lane. When finally the boarding started, first lane one went aboard and after that lane two etc. But when the boarding had to stop for some time, lanes one and two filled up again so they were allowed first to start boarding again. So we had to wait a very long time before we could go on board, so in the meantime we ate the bread we had bought this morning. But finally we were allowed to go and after we after having parked the car inside the ship we could start the search for our cabin.

It turned out that our cabin was at the bottom of the ship, even below the waterline, just in front of the engine room. We had booked the cheapest inside cabin available, Q class. A small compartment with two narrow bunk beds. So we had four beds for the three of us, there won't be another person. So even if you have a cabin that sleeps four, you only have to pay for three. After we had put our luggage in the cabin we went upstairs for the sailing. At 8:20 pm we set sail, we sailed for hours through the large archipel of Stockholm. This archipel has about 24,000 islands. Some of them very large, others very small, only a few square meters. A number of the islands are inhabitat, some even with only one house. After we had put Ciska to bed, at 10 pm, again very late for her, and waited for her to fall asleep, we went for a drink in of the bars on board. In the meantime it was about eleven and there was still some sunlight outside. Thats the advantage of an inside cabin, there are no windows through which the ever present light may enter the cabin.

Around midnight we went back to our cabin for a short sleep. At 5 am (Sweden time, 6 am Finland time, in Finland they're one hour ahead) we have to get up for breakfast. At 7:30 am we will arrive and by that time we have to be in our car to disembark. It was very noisy in our cabin, not the humming of the engine but a lot of other noises like the banging of metal chains etc. At 5 am the alarm went off. We were already awake, but Ciska slept through and she had trouble waking up. After packing our things we went to restaurant for breakfast. After that we went back to the cabin for our luggage and went to our car. Shortly after that we docked in Turku and another few minutes later we had Finnish soil under our feet. The first thing that happened after we had disembarked was that we were stopped by the police to check for alcohol. Everybody in a car is checked because a lot of Swedish and Finnish people on board drink a lot of cheap (tax-free) alcohol. Now we were in Turku and wanted to visit the castle and some other things, but at 8 o'clock in the morning there is not much to do for an average tourist. The Tourist Office opens at 8:30, so walked along the banks of the river. It looked like it was going to be a warm day again, at this early time of day it was already over 20 degrees (centigrade).