beauties
DESTINATIONS BALTIC SEA | EUROPE
i
travelweekly.co.uk
t’s the words ‘speed’ and ‘thrill’ that do it. My daughter Ilana and I are choosing tours for our upcoming
voyage in the Baltic with Oceania Cruises. We’ve already planned a dip into the history books in Riga and Tallinn; as we check out Helsinki in the excursion brochure, there, flashing in neon lights, are those two words. I exaggerate of course, but you get the picture. Which is how I find myself looking my
sartorial best, modelling the latest in safety glasses and sitting in a rigid inflatable boat (RIB) as it speeds around some of the 330 or so islands that guard the seaward access to the Finnish capital. Jukka, our RIB driver, slows now and then to point to log cabins and houses nestling amid the pine trees, to which city-dwelling Finns escape in summer. I don’t blame them. The islands look glorious, but then it is August. Come winter, they are part of a frozen landscape with temperatures around minus 30C. No wonder cruise lines come here only in summer. By the time we return to base – a
short walk from Hernesaarenranta, the out-of-town port where our ship, Marina, is docked – the morning chill has lifted, the sun is out, the sky is blue and there’s
loads of time before the vessel sails to take the shuttle bus into the city for lunch in the colourful harbour market. When Russia invaded Ukraine last year, cruise lines raced to pull ships from the Baltic amid safety fears and a belief that people wouldn’t be booking cruises in the region without calls into St Petersburg. The Russian city was always the jewel in
the crown of a Baltic cruise: the place where ships stayed for two or even three-day calls so passengers had time to see the city’s Hermitage Museum, ornate palaces and cathedrals, and learn about the tsars who ruled from here and the revolution that ended their 300-year reign. Our Oceania cruise last summer, then, was bold. “Internally there were voices [against it] but I decided to stay,” former Oceania president and chief executive Howard Sherman said. His plan was to find new ports to visit, to prove there is more to the Baltic than St Petersburg. It was a gamble. It meant Marina wasn’t sailing full, which wasn’t ideal for the line’s finances after the lost years of Covid. “Many people were concerned about travelling to the Baltic,” Sherman conceded. However, Oceania made the most of the empty cabins to host agents
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