Our first stop was the capital of Finland, pronounced HELL-sink-EE.

​We began the day at the Hakaniemi Market Square
sampling the fresh produce and local food.

Planning a Trip? View our Helsinki Travel Guide

Scandinavia has always been high on my travel wish list, but the task of planning such a trip seemed overwhelming, not to mention expensive! After scanning the latest cruise offers I found two cruise itineraries that caught my eye: the Baltic Capitals and the Norwegian Fjords. Ultimately I decided that the Baltics would provide more variety and 'pins on the map' than the fjords of Norway.
If you still can't decide, then visit BOTH on a back-to-back cruise!

​​Our vacation time was limited to two weeks,  so I was thrilled to find a 7 Day Baltic Capitals cruise that began and ended in Stockholm. It gave us a few extra days to explore Stockholm, which many Copenhagen cruisers had later wished for. We also planned a quick stopover in Norway to take the famous Norway in a Nutshell tour before heading home. 

​Most Baltic cruises begin out of Copenhagen (Denmark) or Stockholm (Sweden) making a loop around the Baltic Sea and visiting ports such as:

• Copenhagen, Denmark)
• Frederica, Denmark
• Stockholm , Sweden
• Helsinki , Finland
• St. Petersburg. Russia
• Tallinn, Estonia
• Riga, Latvia
• Klaipeda, Lithuania
• Gdansk, Poland
• Kiel, Rostock, or Warnemunde (Berlin), Germany