The Best Laid Plans

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

We are back in Copenhagen and today is “turnaround day.” This means our beautiful Baltic cruise ends today, and a new cruise begins. We have booked back-to-back cruises, so we have lots of travel yet to look forward to, but we also have some tedious matters to deal with. For one thing, we have to change rooms today. Our new room is just like the old one, but on the aft of the ship. We had to pack up all of our stuff last night except for what was on hangers. Everything will be moved to the new room today by cabin stewards and the hanging clothes will be waiting for us in the closet.

It is also necessary for us to clear immigration in Denmark (again). They have an insane process that is also new and has not been field tested very carefully. The process calls for ALL passengers and crew members to disembark before 9:00 am so that “zero count” can be attained. In other words, everyone must be accounted for. Once we have zero count the 1089 passengers continuing on back-to-back cruises, and all of  the crew members can start going through Danish immigration and returning to the ship.

We had the choice to go off on our own and explore Copenhagen, or stay at the port and return to the ship right away. We were tired from all our Baltic adventures and from packing and getting up early this morning so we decided to stay at the port. Also, rain was expected today. The port is not near anything - not even a cafe or convenience store. The cruise terminal is just a large building, very similar to a warehouse, in fact. I think there was a train between the port and the town center, but I hadn’t researched it because I thought we would be closer to things. Our taxi from our central Copenhagen hotel to the ship at the beginning of the cruise was about $40 US. So if we were to go anywhere today, we would be looking at a round trip in the vicinity of $80. Yeah. I don’t think so. We would prefer to enjoy the relative quiet of the ship before the arrival of the 1500 new passengers.

So, here’s the thing. We were herded into a large room full of chairs. Several Danish officials were in there to tell us where to sit. It started raining hard, but nothing else happened. We thought they were having a problem getting to “zero count,” but it turned out to be a bigger problem, with their IT system. Eventually someone without a microphone came over to tell us we would be starting soon, but at the other end of the room. This outraged some of the people near us because our group had gotten off the ship earlier and we had been waiting longer. I was particularly embarrassed by the way one of my fellow passengers behaved, berating the junior staff members and demanding to see their superiors.

But really, nobody was going to start soon.

Outside, on the street side, we could see some of the 1500 new passengers starting to arrive, but they were being sent to another room, which was good, because our room was full. Outside on the dock side, we could see Danish officials trying to set up flimsy little booths in the rain. At some point, someone from Princess came and told us the Danish immigration computer system was not working. That was the only time anyone from Princess came to check on us, and that is how we found out why it was taking so long. Every once in a while there would be a flurry of activity in the vicinity of the Danish officials, but nobody was told to get in any lines.

There were bathrooms there, but there was no coffee available, and not even any water, in fact. This waiting game went on for three hours. Finally, they permitted one row of people to go outside and visit the little booths for their immigration inspection, after which they were able to reboard the ship. We saw a lot of uniformed officials whose primary job seemed to be standing next to a row of chairs and preventing anyone from getting up or leaving until it was that row’s turn. After three hours of sitting there we finally got to go through Danish immigration. We went outside to the flimsy booths and were asked lots of silly questions by officious officials. Who are they kidding? They have probably had the ship’s manifest since we first boarded 12 days ago. If they haven’t already vetted 99% of us, something is wrong with them. Was it really necessary to page through my passport and look at each stamp? And run it through their copying machine multiple times?

I want to make it clear that 90% of this situation was on Denmark. Princess was not involved and they had no control over anything. However, it would have been nice if Princess had provided us with periodic updates in a more transparent manner, since the Danish were not. And they could have brought water out from the ship for us. I noticed that the Danes did not offer an apology when they finally started processing us. Later that night, by contrast, our ship’s captain apologized to the entire ship despite the fact that Princess did not cause the problem.

I really like Denmark, but this left me with a bad taste, and I admire them somewhat less than I did before this wasted day.

That’s how travel is sometimes. Expect it and build a little flexibility into your schedule. Have a Plan B if the weather is bad, or you are tired, or something stupid happens. Don’t take it out on the low level clerks you encounter and don’t be the entitled American like that guy in line near us. Maybe they are doing this to us because “we” do it to them. Or maybe they can’t control everything about their computer system.

When the ship left in the early evening, we had great views of Copenhagen.

A little bit later, we sailed past Kronborg Castle, the model for Elsinore in Hamlet.

Kronborg Castle

A castle on the Swedish side of the channel

Today’s fabric is “Exercise Patience, Eggplant, Large” by applebutterpattycake for Spoonflower.

The Seaside Painters

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Skagen, Denmark, is another small resort town that is just as scenic and interesting as Visby, Sweden. (The “g” is silent, so it is pronounced halfway between “Skay-en” and “Skayn.”

Skagen is the northernmost town in Denmark, on the tip of the Jutland Peninsula. The population is about 7,250, though the population was twice that in 1980. Skagen is the setting for the PBS series, “The Seaside Hotel,” yet the name of the town doesn’t come up in the series (or if it did, I missed it because I didn’t know how to pronounce it when I saw the series). The building portrayed as the hotel in the series does not actually exist, according to our guide. The series, set in the period from 1928 to1947, is about some upper middle class families who come to Skagen from Copenhagen every summer, and some of the Skagen locals who are associated with the hotel. 

Our tour today was called “Skagen on Foot” and our guide, Ann, was wonderful. But Skagen was the star of the show. I hesitate to say “charming” once again but Skagen really shines when it comes to “charming” and “interesting.” This small town, first settled in the 12th century, has many noteworthy features. It is an important commercial fishing port (herring). The surrounding waters, where the North and Baltic Seas meet, have become the site of an extraordinary number of shipwrecks. Skagen is home to a migrating sand dune. It is also a temporary home to large numbers of migrating birds, and birders are drawn to the lovely coastline here for excellent birdwatching. The king and queen of Denmark loved Skagen so much in the 1910’s that they built a summer residence there. (Today the royal villa is a retreat for scholars.) And Skagen has such extraordinary light that it became the home of a group of impressionist artists known as the Skagen Painters. 

These buildings by the water are used by fisherman to store their gear

Dozens of huge tankers and other vessels anchor offshore here while they await their next job

The Royal Villa

Wild roses are invasive here, but they help to anchor the sand dunes so they are welcome along certain parts of the beach

Black Houses

The oldest houses in Skagen are black. That is because they were made from driftwood and salvaged wood and then covered with tar so they wouldn't deteriorate. Nowadays, I think they just paint them black, but the tradition of the black exterior is maintained.

Sones with holes in them, nown as hag stones or witch stones, can be found on the beach around Skagen. Some people coolect them.

This thatched-roof house is part of the Kystmuseet, or Museum of Local History. It would have been the house of a prosperous fisherman.

This is an example of the house of a poor fisherman

Black houses in a neighborhood

Yellow Houses

The yellow houses signify a more prosperous period in Skagen’s history, when people could afford paint. Our guide said the only store in town only sold yellow paint, because that is what the shopkeeper ordered. (I don’t know if that’s true.) Today, that color is known as “Skagen yellow.” Most of these houses have white trim and red tile roofs, which go very nicely with the yellow.

The crossed flags indicate a lifeboatman lives here (or stores things here)

Red Houses

The newest houses are red and made of brick. The townspeople started using bricks when ships started using bricks (which they could sell) as ballast. There are also some buildings with red paint, but I don’t know if there is a story that goes with them.

Not brick, and not a house, but a warehouse. I thought I would put it with the red houses.

Did you notice how small these red houses are, and how similar they look?

Village Life in the Old Days

In the Museum of Local History we saw what everyday life was like for the families of the fishermen and lifeboatmen.

The wives of the fishermen used to come to this windmill to gossip

Inside the house of a prosperous fisherman

The Lifeboatmen

This is one of the lifeboats they used to use to rescue people from shipwrecks. It took eight men to row it.

A portion of map showing shipwrecks off the coast near Skagen between 1858 and 1882. The black circles represent wrecks; the white circles represent ships which ran aground.

In 1852, the North Jutland Rescue Service was established to rescue people from stranded or sinking ships close to shore. There were 19 rescue stations along the coast. Each station had a permanent team, usually local fishermen. The work was dangerous and difficult, but was considered an honor. The men received extensive training. Some rescue missions lasted for days. When conditions did not permit a boat to row out to a ship in trouble, the lifeboatmen would use rockets to shoot a rope or cable out to the ship, and after the line was secured, a bosun’s chair would be used to carry people off the ship, one at a time. To find out more about the rescue service, click here.

Some times an old boat would be turned upside down and used as a roof for a storage hut.

The Skagen Painters

We saw the houses where some of the Skagen Painters lived, and one of the hotels where they used to eat, drink, and display some of their paintings. I have included a few of their paintings below. The paintings are all in the public domain and can be found on the internet.

The Lifeboat Is Taken through the Dunes, by Michael Ancher, 1883

Launching the Boat, by Oscar Björck, 1885

Sunlight in the Blue Room, by Anna Ancher, 1891

Summer Evening on Skagen’s Southern Beach, by Peder Severin Krøyer, 1893

The narrow streets are lined with enchanting yellow cottages with red tiled roofs. Everything is neat and tidy. The beaches are clean and empty. A delightful place, indeed!

Today’s fabric is a sampler. A sampler is a piece of fabric used to practice embroidery or to show off different stitches. This antique sampler is from the Kystmuseet in Skagen. If you look closely, you can spot two of the three extra letters (æ, ø, and å) in the Danish alphabet as they must have looked in 1849.

All Aboard

 Friday August 7, 2026

After another delicious breakfast at our hotel, we walked around Vesterbro, the neighborhood the hotel is in. After you get a block or two away from the main streets, you are in a fairly residential neighborhood. There are lots of small ethnic restaurants and bars. It was quiet in the morning when we were there, but we could imagine a bustling scene in the evening. 

All in all, I loved our time in Copenhagen, even with the crowded shopping street. The city is beautiful, the food is wonderful, and the culture is an interesting mix of egalitarianism, social trust, a bicycle-oriented lifestyle, and a design aesthetic that emphasizes functional minimalism. 

There is a lot to see and do in and around Copenhagen, so I think a first time visit should be at least 4 or 5 days. I haven’t spent a lot of time in my blog talking about all the things Copenhagen has to offer, but at the top of the list is quality of life. This is our third visit and we have seen some of the city’s museums, castles, palaces, churches, markets, parks, and more during our previous visits. You don’t want to miss the chance to soak up as much of the rich culture of Copenhagen as possible.

We saw a lot of 4- and 5-story apartment buildings. Usually there was some kind of commercial use on the ground floor - a restaurant, a café, a little bodega, or a boutique. It occurred to me that urban spaces can be much more livable when you have this type of mixed use. Residents are able to walk to most places they need to go and the number of cars on the street is reduced accordingly.

Visitors who stay in hotels also benefit from the availability of restaurants, parks, and shopping in the city center. They are able to walk everywhere and don’t need to use taxis or compete with local commuters for space on buses.

I live in a city that has embraced the car culture, and almost nobody lives downtown. Instead of playgrounds, pharmacies and grocery stores, our downtown has parking lots, empty storefronts, and office buildings that empty out at 5:00 pm every evening. I would love to see more folks living there.

Soon enough it was time to check out of our room and find a taxi (which was easy to do). We were dropped off at Oceankaj terminal, which is newer, and in an isolated area about 30-40 minutes from our central location. We were able to board our ship, the Sapphire Princess, within about 40 minutes, and our room was ready by the time we got there.

We ate dinner at Sabatini’s, an Italian specialty restaurant on the ship. They have tweaked their menu since our last Princess cruise and the service and the food are top notch.

Eggplant Parmigiana

Tortello di Ricotta

Burrata (a soft cheese)

Ossobuco Milanese

Cannoli

Torta Caprese

Shabbat Shalom!

Today’s fabric is “Hygge in Blue” by Cindi Magi Design for Spoonflower.