The more formal restaurant is the single-sitting Galaxy Dining Room where open seating for the 180 passengers makes it easy to meet new people. Copenhagen, Day Eight. Kiel Canal, Day Nine. Going through is like an eight-hour river cruise in an oversize boat. The shipping traffic on what's said to be the world's busiest waterway is mesmerizing.
Ferries scurry back and forth, dodging oncoming ships.
Several high bridges span the canal, one actually airlifts ferries on a hanging moving platform. As we wait to get through the exit lock, I realize it is the promise of the Baltic Sea itself that connects every one of the diverse countries we just visited. Since the time of the Swedish Vikings, who sailed east to Russia seeking trading partners, the maritime history of the Baltic is about people who often fought over sea dominance, and just as often banded together to trade. Soon after leaving the Kiel Canal, we sail into Hamburg's enormous harbor, past huge container ships and thickets of loading cranes, to dock in the shadow of the city's venerable churches. But that's another story.