A Winter Travel Idea From Chris And Diana

A few years ago we were lucky in being able to work on cruise ships a great sounding job until you do it.

One of the less glamorous sounded contracts that we did was a cruise ferry between Stockholm and Helsinki. Both times that we did this was in the winter months.

For anyone who has not seen the sea frozen solid this is quite spectacular. The best month for this trip is February (check first how thick the ice is). The second season we did the ice was one meter thick and the ship just kept going. We heard many stories of cars being driven 100 km (60 miles) out to sea on the ice. Yes, at the end of the season some cars sink!! And for some reason the insurance companies do not pay out!!

If you would like to make this trip it can be done easily from the UK and with little expense www.ryanair.com (sorry not our favourite low-cost airline). Fly to Stockholm from Stansted, Luton, Glasgow, and many more cities in Europe. The trip from the Stockholm airport takes about an hour by Bus into Stockholm city centre. The ferries leave about 17.00 from Stockholm and arrive at 10.00 am the following morning in Helsinki. On the way back departure from Helsinki is at about 17.00 arriving about 10.00 am the next morning in Stockholm. The ferries are called cruise ferries for good reason. We worked on the Silja Line http://ext1.silja.com/?ChangeLang=english we feel this is the higher class of the two lines but this is our personal thing I remember the day we joined one the two Silja ships ( M/S Silja Serenade and the M/S Silja Symphony). You enter the ship on the seventh deck (the best way to describe this deck is a street in Nice or Cannes, there are cafes, shops, restaurants, kids play area, reception, pubs and cabaret/nightclub etc on this deck. From this deck to the top the ship is open with two rows of cabins on each side of the ship so if your cabin is on deck eight or above you will have views out to sea or a view of the ship's street below. Both are very good. We have not travelled the http://www.vikingline.fi/index.asp?lang=en which does the root and similar times.

On arrival in Helsinki the town is a short walk away or you can get a taxi or the T3 tram, this passes most of the tourists sites and stops close to Silja port. Some websites to give you more info are below.

http://www.bugbog.com/european_cities/helsinki_travel.html

http://www.hotel-helsinki.co.uk/museum.html

http://www.hotel-helsinki.co.uk/restaurants.html

http://www.hel2.fi/tourism/en/matko.asp

Items to take with you are: warm hats, good boots/shoes, cameras, video camera

You can also do a similar trip to Tallinn http://www.tallink.fi/en/index.html and www.baltic-photo-links.com

IMPORTANT, if you do this trip, please write to us at info@web-500.com and let us know how you got on plus we would like to know anything that you feel we should change on this travel idea.

Many Thanks, Chris And Diana.

Legal Note All information is to the best of our knowledge. It is up to you to check it all out for yourselves. We don't accept any liability for inaccuracies.