All ABoard!

The Cruise left on a Saturday afternoon giving us a bit more time to explore Malmo.  Of course we didn't get up at the crack of dawn and missed the hotel breakfast but that's okay-sleeping on this vacation didn't last long. 

Here I am in front of our Sweden Hotel, Elite.

 

The Hotel is the white building in this tightly packed group of buildings. 

 

Across the street from our hotel, there were beautiful flower gardens and some vegetable, fruit, and flower vendors.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, the flowers on this trip were beautiful and I wish we had the kind of flower stands here in Florida that we saw all over! 

 

After a few pictures, we headed out for some caffeine and breakfast!  I guess you could call out breakfast dessert if you really want to get technical...  :)

 

Some things you can understand in any language!

CHOK-LAD-BOLL! 

 

This was a blueberry cobbler with vanilla sauce.  I swear the sauce was light! 

 

We ate outside an people watched! 

We weren't 100% sure where the ship was leaving from so we did a little exploring in the area where we thought it might be.

Through the streets, we started to see a wharf-y type atmosphere so we kept going.

 

 

Can you see a white tall skinny building that looks like it is sticking out of the brick building? 

More on that in a minute. 

 

Oh yeah, there is an anchor, the port must be around here! 

 

I love the look of ivy growing on buildings and it looks really cool on brick ones!

 

 

Wallah!  There she is!  The Pullmantur Empress.  She used to be a part of the Royal Caribbean fleet and you can see the body style of the older R.C, ships in her for sure! 

 

Inside cabin on this cruise but it was fine-every time we were in the

room our eyes were closed anyhow! 

 

I thought I would take a picture of the pool deck area before the pool was full

of people and the chairs were all occupied. Hello!  Dorothy?  We are not in the Caribbean anymore!  Only a few people braved the pool and I'm guessing they were from Canada!  But gosh darn it, I brought my bathing suit and I was sure going to use it!  We only had one at sea day so I put on my suit and sat in the hot tub for a short while and then started reading a book on a lounge chair while the sun and the breeze dried me off.  It didn't take long to realize that I was proving nothing to no one and I was FREEZING!  I bee-lined it to the room to change!

 

Here is the building from before.  It's called the Turning Torso and yup, I'm holding it in my hand! It's the tallest skyscraper in Sweden!

 

Ever been on a cruise?  Know those big bins by the pool where they normally hand out towels?????

 

Time for the Life Boat drill-that means we are close to sailing time! 

 

Let the grazing begin!  :P

 What do you say when you see bread in the shape of an anchor? 
Pass the butter!

Cheers to a great week! 

Malmo aka Malmae!

This may sound like we were going in circles, but Sandra and I flew into Copenhagen, Denmark, then took a train to Malmo, Sweden...where we checked into the hotel, put down our luggage and then.....hopped on a train...back to Copenhagen Denmark for the day!  We needed to secure our luggage but didn't want to miss the opportunity to see Copenhagen as our cruise was leaving from Malmo, Sweden the next day.  Phew.

So, here we are walking through Malmo, on our way back to the Train Station.  Malmo, is pronounced more like Malmae with the way the Swedes have a few other letters/sounds in their alphabet.  Sandra and I had some fun laughing trying to say it the correct way!

Copied from Wiki:  Malmö, in the southernmost province of Scania, is Sweden's third largest city by population after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and is one of the largest cities in Scandinavia.
Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County. The administrative entity for most of the city is Malmö Municipality which, as of January 2012, has 302,835 inhabitants in eight different localities. Malmö is also a bimunicipal locality, as part of it is formally situated in Burlöv Municipality.^[4] The total population of the urban area was 280,415 in December 2010.^[2]

Malmo was very clean, had beautiful, crisp architecture, and many stores, restaurants and coffee houses!

 

I love photography so enjoy some of the beautiful sights that I captured.

 

Follow the band! 

 

Here is where I first saw these funny trees, I say them again later in Copenhagen.  Still not sure what they are and if they are supposed to look like that or if they had just been cut back.  

 

Malmo would be the first place on our Baltic Sea adventure where we got to see so many beautiful flowers. 

This was the Central Train Station.  Next to it was a waterway for boat transportation and sightseeing.

 

I thought it was funny that the entrance to the train station (that went underground) had a sign stating no balloons!  Until we were down there and saw all the balloons stuck up on the ceiling!  LOL 

Here is one of the train cars.  Subway trains I guess and the one to Copenhagen went under the water! 

 

I thought it was cool that as we waited for the train, the pictures passed by on the wall in the shape of train windows like it was the scenery you would be seeing on a train ride...clever! 

 

Okay-Intermission-we are now in Copenhagen and the Malmo pictures will continue shortly!

:)

 

We are back!  Copenhagen was beautiful and you can check that out in another post.

 

Back to Malmo

 

A cool chandelier as we arrived back to the Malmo train station.

 

When we walked past this statue in the a.m., they were decorating this guy and his horse-the finished product.  I LOVE the fact that they decorate the statue for different occasions-how fun! 

 

This is the outside eating area of our Malmo Hotel, the Elite.  What is notable here is that they offer each guest a blanket to sit outside! Honey, we aren't in Florida any more! 

 

Nice European style hotel, Sandra and I had already trashed the nice look we saw

when we walked in!  ;) 

 

Our view was to a small closed in courtyard and we were pretty high up. 

 

I had no idea what this sign meant but I took the picture because I knew SerVlad would find it funny.  Since then, I have looked it up and Utfart = Exit

 

I loved that Malmo had so many safe areas to walk or bike through, and so many eateries with outside seating.  Yes-they mostly all head heating lamps outside, lots of them, and blankets too!  

Hmmm, who are those three guys checking out the menu? None other than Marino, Papi and Evis!

Nice state of the art looking Emergency Vehicle. 

 

I didn't see any soda that said DIET over in Europe, they all said LIGHT and

soda was expensive there! 

 

Sandra and I had dinner in this pub-I though the brass beer line was neat! 

 

After dinner, we went out at a different place for coffee and cheesecake!  And there it started-our European tour of sweets!  :)

We at least shared the cheesecake!

 

Where's Waldo? 

I have a few more Malmo pictures, they will be on the next blog post: Boarding Day.

Stay Tuned.

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