The ship's photographer had the cheek to ask £6 extra for this as a jpeg

Lifeboat drill

Looking back to the white cliffs

Lesley claimed this was an oil rig

MS Braemar deck plan

This model, on display in the ship's reception area shows the state before it was lengthened in 2008.

How the split happened. Note the addition of some (very expensive) "deluxe balcony cabins" forward on Deck 8

We had to wait quite a long time for clearance to enter the Kiel Canal

Forget what you have learnt about red=port, green=starboard. The lights in the Kiel Canal have their road meanings of stop and go! In German it is the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal.

Lock gate. The water level in the Elbe estuary may be higher or lower than the canal depending on the state of the tide. On this occasion, we dropped just over a metre to enter the canal.

Site of the old gate before the lock was enlarged. Note the special box for gongoozlers.

Ships travelling in the opposite direction entering the lock beside the one we are using

Our boat is 196 metres long but there is still room to get two more into the lock

The gate shutting

The gate at the canal end just finishing opening

A special viewing platform. Big passenger vessels are probably quite rare to judge by the amount of attention we received. I wonder what the German word for "gongoozle" is.

The first of several ferries that cross the canal

From the Observatory lounge forward on Deck 8

In the wide parts of the canal we were allowed to do 8.7 knots and this is the wake we were leaving.

Sign showing a ship. But you are on a ship canal - you expect ships! What it means is: ferry crossing ahead.

Pilots are changed half way at Nubbel

Transporter gondola for road traffic, suspended from a railway bridge. Eisenbahnbrücke mit Schwebefähre

This is part of a ship being towed through the canal but it is not the bit that was spliced into Braemar - larger version.

Only a couple of weeks earlier we had visited the transporter bridge in Newport. This signpost points to (probably all) the transporter bridges left in the world. Little did I think when I took this photo that I would be seeing one of the bridges it points to.

A bit of the Berlin Wall. This is Land Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, part of the former DDR.

The Hansa is not forgotten. The car on the left has a registration mark of HRO = Hansestadt Rostock - the local area. And the one on the right is HH = Hansestadt Hamburg.

When we were in Algarve we found this sand sculpture show where everything was in the open. They cannot do that here!

Seal research centre

East lighthouse

One of my most successful image stitchings and it was not even planned as one! Lesley took the two images thirty seconds apart so the boat on the move appears twice!

Am Strom beside the old harbour

Werner Stötzer (1931–2010)
Grosse Stehende (Large standing figure)
1986 | 1998 Eigentum der Hansestadt Rostock (property of the Hanseatic city of Rostock)
Als Gedenkskulptur für auf See Gebliebene in Auftrag gegeben, schuf der Bildhauer die trauernde weibliche Marmorplastik.
(The sculptor created this marble figure of a grieving female as a memorial for those lost at sea.)

West lighthouse

The number 40 picked out in images of eyes across the face of the Hotel Neptun to celebrate the hotel's 40th anniversary - opened 1971 June 7.

Happy socialist workers seen in 1972 relaxing on the beach with the Neptun in the background.

These strandkörben (literally "beach baskets") are a common sight along the north German coast. The sun may be hot but there may still be a vicious wind. Image ripped off from here.

The Kurhaus, ie. spa. Built in 1928 in the New Objectivity style

Old tram in Kauppatori square. History of the tram routes

J C Decaux get everywhere

Swedish Theatre

House in Aurakatu

Old Bank pub Aurakatu near Linnankatu

Looking up Aurakatu towards the art museum

from Uransilta (bridge) looking downstream

from Uransilta looking upstream

Vartiovuorenkatu directly opposite the Consulate - brilliant aerial photos better than Google

Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum

The Russian Consulate

Tuomiokirkko from the Observatory

Corner of Hämeenkatu and Uudenmaankatu

Looking across the river and up Kaupiaskatu

Looking up river towards Auransilta

Teatterisilta - Theatre footbridge

Myllysilta. The original bridge sagged alarmingly on 2010 March 6. The decision was taken to demolish and rebuild.

These two figures only 30cm high sit on the gunwale of a restaurant boat moored beside Läntinen Rantakatu near Föri

The free passenger ferry, imaginatively called Föri. I could not see the means of propulsion but I assume it uses submerged chains

Ventilators for the district heating scheme. Presumably to let off steam if pressure builds up for some reason

The last remaining wooden three-masted barque in the world

The Variotram article in Wikipedia describes the problems they had in Helsinki with these trams. A few months after I saw this tram, the same make turned up in Croydon.

I was reminded of these giants when I visited Washington, DC Union Station.

Called the Sea Canal, this looks like a lock with recesses for the gates

I think these were actors playing Grigori Rasputin and Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova but they were just sitting in a corner rather than putting themselves about to be photographed

The Adam fountain - I wonder where Eve learned hairdressing!

Mon Plesir Pavilion

They have dismantled socialism but the squirrels are still red

Sudden rainstorm

Russian entertainers

The sign says STOP but in Cyrillic letters

In winter the snow ploughs are out promptly. In summer the water carts ditto.

See Segway in centre of previous image. The only other time I have seen a Segway recently, albeit in a photo, was this also in Eastern Europe. Subsequently I saw them outside the White House.

Amrots Armenian restaurant, 176 Nevsky prospect

The few words you do see in English seem to be entirely prohibitions

Statue of Pushkin