Sunday | June 26, 2016
Nicknamed the sunshine Island, this Danish outpost in the Baltic is far closer geographically to Sweden and Poland than to its government in Copenhagen. The island has been ruled at various times by Sweden, the Hanseatic League city of Lubeck, the Nazis, and the Soviet Union.
I headed out a bit early because I was going to play golf this afternoon. I took a shuttle bus into Ronne, a town with a population of only 30,580 people. The town was dead, probably because it is a Sunday. But in a juxtaposition to the United States, all the stores were closed on Sunday except the liquor stores. (At home, it tends to be the opposite.)
In sum, there was not much to do here and this is not a town does not seem to be worth traveling to see. But in all fairness, the city was closed, the weather was gray, and we did not visit any of the main attractions outside the city center, such as the old town, the castle ruins, or the cathedral.
The town square was a few blocks from where the shuttle dropped us off. As you can see, it was virtually uninhabited.
But needing photos from every country and city I visited, I was just happy to smile and pose anywhere.
Once back on the ship, I grabbed something light to eat and headed out to play golf. Golf today was certainly not one of our better courses. It was not exactly a goat track, but it was home to several dozen cows.
Wind was the theme today. We arrived last night around 9:00 PM, ahead of our scheduled arrival time of this morning. That is because the captain got wind of the forecast which called for gusts in excess of 35 mph. So those wind gusts followed us onto the golf course. And, as is almost always the case, it seemed that the wind was in our faces for about 16 of the 18 holes. I played with a few fellow residents today with whom I will not play again for a long time. They couldn't shut up! Overall, I struck the ball well and scored nicely, but two holes of errors cost me dearly.
The grey day ended as it began, with a fairly banal dinner back on board before some drinks in the karaoke bar.
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