By Corey Sandler

We’ve completed our third loop of the summer: London to London by way of Norway; London to London by way of France, through the Kiel Canal to Scandinavia, and this cruise from London to the top of Norway and then down and around to Copenhagen, Denmark.

It’s time to head home for a change of socks. We’re due back on Silver Wind in a few weeks for explorations of Iceland, the United Kingdom, and then a transatlantic crossing to Canada and the American Northeast Coast.

Safe travels to all. See you again here soon.

Copenhagen

The Little Mermaid is smaller than most people imagine, and she receives almost no privacy at all.

All photos and text Copyright 2019 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. See more photos on my website at http://www.coreysandler.com

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE ANY PHOTO OR AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

SEE THE “How to Order a Photo or Autographed Book” TAB ON THIS PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS

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Now available, the revised Second Edition of “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” by Corey Sandler, for the Amazon Kindle. You can read the book on a Kindle device, or in a Kindle App on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

Here’s where to order an electronic copy for immediate delivery:

Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession: The Tragic Legacy of the New World’s Least Understood Explorer (Kindle Edition)

By Corey Sandler

Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark and its most populous city, with a bit more than 2 million in its metropolitan area.

It is, today, a very modern city with advanced infrastructure, extraordinary culture, and an exuberant lifestyle—in a quirky Scandinavian sort of way.

Copenhagen is situated on the eastern coast of Zealand, islands stitched together by bridges, tunnels, and promenades.

Aside from Hamlet, not all that much is melancholy in Denmark.

It’s a place where almost anything goes, from the classic century-old amusement park of Tivoli Gardens in city center to Hans Christian Andersen and the Little Mermaid—whose statue is within walking distance from our usual docking space.

To a septugenarian queen who once consorted—in a proper princessly way—with Elvis, Dean Martin, and Shirley Maclaine.

Today was bright and sharp, much like the residents of Copenhagen:

All photos and text Copyright 2019 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. See more photos on my website at http://www.coreysandler.com

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE ANY PHOTO OR AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

SEE THE “How to Order a Photo or Autographed Book” TAB ON THIS PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS

————-

Now available, the revised Second Edition of “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” by Corey Sandler, for the Amazon Kindle. You can read the book on a Kindle device, or in a Kindle App on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

Here’s where to order an electronic copy for immediate delivery:

Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession: The Tragic Legacy of the New World’s Least Understood Explorer (Kindle Edition)

Time for Vacation

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

It’s a difficult concept, I know, but as your vacation aboard the beautiful Silver Whisper comes to an end, mine begins.

We head home for the summer and will rejoin our sister ship Silver Cloud in September.

We wish all safe travels.

If you’d like to see my upcoming schedule, visit the Silversea website at:

http://www.silversea.com/life-onboard/enrichment/destination-consultants/?staff=6417

As we arrive in Copenhagen, here are some photos from our visit last week:

Scenes of Amalienborg Palace, the Marble Church, and an unusual church spire in Copenhagen. Photos by Corey Sandler

Along the waterfront, including the Danish Royal Yacht, the Dannebrog, at dock in front of the palace. And just past, our slightly larger yacht, Silver Whisper. Photos by Corey Sandler

All text and photos copyright 2014 by Corey Sandler. If you would like to purchase a photo please contact me.

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Now available, the revised Second Edition of “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” by Corey Sandler, for the Amazon Kindle. You can read the book on a Kindle device, or in a Kindle App on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

Here’s where to order a copy for immediate delivery:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IA9QTBM

Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession: The Tragic Legacy of the New World’s Least Understood Explorer (Kindle Edition)

 

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

After a couple of loops of the Baltic, we are taking a jaunt into the North Sea and up the coast of Norway.

We say goodbye to guests who were with us, and welcome new friends aboard.

Here’s our itinerary:

Our voyage takes us from Copenhagen to the Norwegian fjord and coastal towns of Flam, Gudvangen, Hellesylt, Geiranger, and Kristiansund and to the glorious city of Bergen.

I’ll be posting new photos and text as we sail.

Scenes of Copenhagen on a sunny day, a rare event in this preternaturally cool summer of 2014. All photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.

 

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

We arrived in Copenhagen early this morning to a day that could scarcely be improved upon: sun, puffy clouds, and a lively set of markets from the waterside up to town.

We joined Chef David Bilsland on an expedition in search of cheese, fish, vegetables, and advice. Tonight we sail out of Denmark, heading across the Baltic to Tallinn, Estonia and then on to St. Petersburg. I’ll be blogging from each port once again,

Here are some photos from a glorious Saturday in Copenhagen.

Silver Cloud reflected in the windows of a building along the water

Nyhaven, Copenhagen

Window peeping

Lost in cyberspace

At the market

All photos and text copyright Corey Sandler. If you would a photo, please contact me through the tab on this blog.

 

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

As we return to Copenhagen, some of us are looking forward to a natural phenomenon not much seen in the last two weeks: darkness at midnight.

We have been up north for the past 17 days, sailing from Copenhagen to Bergen and then up to the top of Norway at Nordkapp and then across to the attic of Russia: Murmansk, Solovetsky Island, and Arkhangelsk. Most of that time we were within the Arctic Circle, and most of that time we experienced the disconcerting experience of bright sunlight all the time.

I remember a visit we made to Longyearbyen in the Svalbard archipelago where we reached to a bit more than 80 degrees North latitude. I interviewed a woman there and asked her, “How can you stand being here in the Polar Night of December and January, when the sun never rises?”

She said: “That’s no problem. We can always turn on the lights.”

But, she continued, “It’s the Midnight Sun in summer that can drive you crazy. If a friend calls you up and asks if you want to go for a hike, you might say, ‘yes, sure’ and then look at your clock and see that it is three in the morning.”

Silver Cloud in Kristiansund, Norway on 4 July

We’ve had a touch of that here on the Silver Cloud. We eat very well aboard ship, and sometimes linger at the table until 10 p.m.; when we return to our suite, our butler has drawn the curtains to make it dark within. That’s fine, although there is an almost irresistible urge to open the curtains and look at the sea and the mountains and the glaciers. And when you do that, there’s the bright sun and it feels like morning again.

Many of our guests are leaving us here in Copenhagen, and we will miss them. More than 50 are continuing on the next leg, and we look forward to meeting about 200 new friends.

Klippfish in Kristiansund. Dried, salted cod.

High architecture and haute couture in Kristiansund

The next cruise is also quite an adventurous loop. We leave Copenhagen and head for Tallinn, Estonia and then Saint Petersburg, Russia for two days. Then on our way out of the Baltic we’ll have stops in Helsinki, Finland; Visby, Sweden; and Warnemunde, Germany before heading through the Kiel Canal and end our voyage by sailing up the River Thames and through the Tower Bridge to dock in London.

I’ll be blogging from each port of call. I’ll see you right here.

To obtain a copy of one of my books or photos, please send me an email through the contact page on this blog.

 

By COREY SANDLER

Our ship, Silversea Silver Cloud arrived in Copenhagen about 6pm last night and we enjoyed a long, slow descent into darkness. It was a gorgeous evening, with a photographer’s light: low and orange.

Many of our guests from the previous cruise (Southampton to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden) debarked this morning in Copenhagen.

A new group, including many old friends from previous cruises got on board here.

Tonight we sail out of Copenhagen and begin to head north…all the way up the coastline of Norway, along the top of Finland’s Lapland, and then to the attic of Russia with calls at Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, and Solovetsky Island.

For the middle eight or nine days of the trip, we will be in the land of the Midnight Sun: no sunset at all.

I’m excited aboard this itinerary: it is not the usual suspects in Europe.

I’ll be posting blogs from each of the ports of call over the next 17 days.

Aside from Hamlet, not all that much is melancholy in Denmark.

The streets are lively, the shops seem to be doing a good business, and the classic century-old amusement park of Tivoli Gardens in city center was whirling by noon.

One of the most famous symbols of the city is The Little Mermaid, and this is something that existed way, way before Disney became involved.

The Danish author Hans Christian Andersen’s story about Den lille havfrue (the little sea lady), was written in 1836. It became a global hit.

In 1909, Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of the Carlsberg brewery and namesake to the beer, commissioned a statue of the mermaid.

He had become fascinated by a ballet based on the fairytale and presented at Copenhagen’s Royal Theatre. Jacobsen asked prima ballerina Ellen Price to model for the statue.

The statue’s head was indeed modelled after Price, but the ballerina refused to model in the nude.

And so Sculptor Edvard Eriksen prevailed on his wife, Eline Eriksen, to pose for the body in 1913.

That’s a little kinky: someone else’s head on your wife’s body. Or maybe not.

It made me think of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and the Statue of Liberty in New York: that work is said to be the sculptor’s mother’s face atop the body of the sculptor’s mistress. That is definitely kinky.

Anyhow, in 1989 Disney made a movie sort-of-kind-of based on the Hans Christian Andersen fable. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that amounts to desecration or homage.

But the Little Mermaid—and she is littler and more vulnerable than most people imagine—sits on a rock just a few hundred feet away from our ship, docked at Langelinie.

And the other thing: when you go to visit The Little Mermaid, you will almost certainly not be alone.

The girl receives almost no privacy.

Photos copyright 2013, Corey Sandler. To obtain a copy please contact me through the “Order a Photo” tab on this blog.

The Little Mermaid gets no privacy at all.

Swans in Churchill Park near our ship

The Anglican Church in Copenhagen, the only one of its kind in Denmark

.The setting sun accentuates the colors of old military structures along the harbor