On Wednesday we headed out with two other couples to explore the towns of Warnemunde, Rostock, and Schwerin. . .and made it back to the ship! It was a chore. All the railway signs are printed in a foreign language!

We had a great time. Warnemunde is a small town on the Baltic Sea that has become quite touristy because of the cruise ship traffic. We walked into town, and then took the train to Rostock. Pretty rolling farm country--very green and a good hay crop this year from what we could see. The cottages all had pretty gardens--flowers everywhere. Rostock is bigger, about 500,000. We walked around enough to see most of the sites, including the waterfront, and then took a train to Schwerin.

Schwerin is a beautiful small German town--very clean with a great market and nice shops. We found the perfect place for a lunch of beer and brats. Then wandered over to the castle shown in this photo. Less massive than the palaces in Russia, but very nice with beautiful formal gardens.

We have had wonderful sunny weather throughout the trip--mid-60's to mid 70's. While we were in Schwerin a storm rolled in, but we were in the castle when it hit, and then the sun came out again! Talk about luck. We understand they have had terrible weather all summer. So you can imagine the crowds of locals on the streets enjoying the good weather with us!

Tomorrow we are in Copenhagen!

Susan and Frank