Wednesday was an at sea day and all we did was rest.
It is now Thursday, Carole's Birthday !
Today we are in Kiel, our last port in
Germany before heading back to Sweden tonight. Whist Kiel looks like a nice town,
there does not appear to be enough to see to occupy a whole day, so we have
booked a tour to the nearby town of Lubeck, which played a very important role
in the early history on this region of Germany, Schleswig – Holstein, Germany’s
most Northern State.
Approaching the dock at Kiel
The bus ride to Lubeck takes 90 minutes and
we are in a big group, 43 people, one of whom has a walking frame. It doesn’t
look encouraging. On arrival at Lubeck
Old Town, your first view is the magnificent gate into the medieval
town, that appears on all of the tourist brochures.
The old town is located on an island and
the gate is very solid, it must have been almost impenetrable in its day. One
inside of the gate, the view of it is very different, where its defensive role
is less important and there is an opportunity to show a more opulent side.
Featured along the gate is the Hanseatic League Coat of Arms, a red and white
shield interspersed with the double headed eagle, the coat of arms of Lubeck.
The inner side of the gate even has windows
When observed from the side, it is apparent that the gate is leaning. It has gradually subsided over the years due to the swampy ground the city is built on.
Crossing the "moat" into the old town
Lubeck was known as the Queen of the
Hanseatic League, as it was the headquarters of its activity throughout the
region. At it’s peak, 200 cities around the Baltic and elsewhere in Europe were
members of the league. This bought enormous wealth to Lubeck, which was the
largest city in Northern Germany at the time, more than 10 times the size of
Hamburg.
The architecture of Lubeck reflects the
wealthy lifestyle of the merchants that dominated the town, with houses having
large, decorative facades to display their wealth and importance. Otherwise it
is a typical medieval village, with narrow cobbled streets and seven large
churches. Now, of course it lives off tourism.
Some of the Merchant Houses where the facades were always bigger than the house
Much of the construction is from red brick,
as there is no natural stone in the area and it is low, flat, marshy land. The
bricks were all hand made and had to go through a winter and freeze and thaw
before they were fired. As they were layed out on the ground, many of the
bricks have animal prints and other indentations on them as a result of this
process, as well as the brickmaker’s mark.
The more modern claim to fame in Lubeck is
the manufacture of marzipan, for which it has become famous. There are
apparently still 7 marzipan confectioners in town, and we visted the café of
the most famous one, I G Riedernegger. As part of our tour we had coffee and
cake here before having 3 minutes free time in the town.
The free time turned out to be about 20
minutes, so a quick wander into the nearby square and a department store to try
to get rid of some euros was all that was possible.
Market Stalls in the Square
We then regrouped and continued the tour.
Some time before this one of our audio transmitters gave up the ghost and they
didn’t have any more spares (this was the second one we had fail), so I
continued on without hearing the guide and probably not missing much.
We started in the town square in front of
the elaborate town hall, which certainly reflected the wealth of the town at
the time.
Town Hall
Buildings have popped up all around the old churches
St Marys Church had a bit of a legend related to it which is told on the plaque below and explains the statue of the devil which is just outside the church.
The Church is remarkably close to the structure behind it
Apparently Lubeck grew at such a pace and had only a limited land area, every usable piece of space was utilised.
Many of the merchant houses had their facades updated as architectural fashion changed. Merchants from many trading countries set up in Lubeck.
In front of one of the houses were these
brass plaques set in the pavement. They are the size of a cobble stone and
commemorate the Jews that used to live here and lost their lives in the
holocaust. This is apparently a growing movement and there are now over 50,000
of these in existence in Europe, most of them in Germany.
Soon we exited the city and found ourselves
back next to the water, awaiting our bus to take us back to Kiel.
The tour was interesting, but poorly
organized and with such a big group, and at least one member who struggled to
keep up, there was a lot of waiting time. In retrospect, we would heve been
better off to just go there on our own and have a look around. We would have
seen a lot more and I certainly would not have missed much in commentary.
Ninety minutes later we were back in Kiel,
with 2 hours to go before the ship leaves. After a failed attempt to get
connected to the totally inadequate Port of Kiel free wifi, we headed into town
on foot to find somewhere where we could log on. In the end we found a small
café with good wifi, so had a beer and got to work getting my mail from the
last few days and updating as much of the blog as time would permit. Carole
went shopping with a handful of euros but came back empty handed.
Kiel main shopping area
Walking back to the ship
Back on board, we sailed on time at 6 pm,
and the view from our balcony of our departure was great. Kiel is well known as
a City of sailors and once a year holds a major regatta , Kiel Sail Week, which
draws thousands of International visitors. We saw T shirts for sale in a department
store in Lubeck, that were obviously left over from this years Sail Week Teams.
There were shirts from teams from, The Port of Brisbane, The Port of Adelaide,
Sunshine Coast and others. Quite a surprise.
Shipbuilding is also a major industry here,
and partly under covers in one of the shipyards is the strangest looking
sailing vessel under construction. From what I could gather it will be the
largest sailing vessel in the world and is being built for a wealthy Russian
businessman (surprise, surprise!!).
There are sailing boats all over the
harbour, many coming close to wave farewell (and the odd adventurous power boat
doing the same).
We see Kiel’s famous beaches on the port
side and a military monument remembering those lost at war, with an old U Boat
nearby, that is now a tourist attraction.
It was now 7pm and there is a happy hour at
the front of the ship to farewell Australian and New Zealanders on board. There
are only a few days left for those just doing the Baltic part of the cruise,
and it seems there are that many of us on board to warrant our own function.
More than expected turned up, and they had
to extend the function area in the Crows Nest Lounge to accommodate everyone.
We ended up talking to the Hungarian (Australian) couple what had a bit of
grief on the St Petersburg tours. They were a nice couple who live in Pennant
Hills.
We had booked diner at the Pinnacle Grill
for 8 pm to celebrate Carole’s Birthday, and when we left, the staff had
decided to extend the happy hour till 9 pm.
The meal at the Pinnacle Grill was very
good and you don’t mind paying a surcharge for such good for. The steaks were
as good as you would get anywhere and just when Carole thought she had got
through her birthday without anyone knowing, the staff appeared with a small
birthday cake, a nice touch.
Of course we had far too much food and
waddled back to our room, barely able to move.
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