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Published: June 16th 2006
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We have decided to split the Germany blog into two parts.
This one will cover our time spent in Glückstadt, ours visits to Hamburg, Travemünde and Lübeck.
The second blog, which should be sent out this coming Monday, will cover our night spent in Düsseldorf and our day trip up to Westerland on the Island of Sylt.
Glückstadt, Hamburg, Travemünde and Lübeck We were in Germany for a total of 10 sunny days. Our base for the trip was Susanne and Walter’s (Kai’s Dad) place in the picturesque town of Glückstadt. Glückstadt (located in the Schleswig-Holstein region i.e. northern tip of Germany) on the river Elbe was founded by King Christian IV of Denmark in 1617. Its name, translated in English, means "Lucky City".
5 to 6 June 2006 We spent our first day catching up with Walter and Susanne, chilling out, eating great food and drinking the local pilsner, and walking around Glückstadt in the sun.
7 June 2006 We all drove into Hamburg for the day. Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany, and with its port, Hamburg is also the second largest port city in the EU.
Our
first stop in Hamburg was ‘Miniatur Wunderland’ (or ‘Miniture Wonderland). This is the largest H0 (scale 1:87) model railroad layout in the world with a fully automated train and car system. It is huge. Some of the themed areas included replicas of Hamburg, Las Vegas, a famous Scandinavian mine, a huge port (with real water and moving ships), forested areas, and many more. They have over a 1000 trains and around 15,000 cars running. Every 15 minutes the areas go from day to night and the 250,000 lights come on. Well worth the visit.
We then left Walter and Susanne and spent the next few hours walking through the city centre. We stopped at St. Nikolai's Church, once the tallest church in the world back in 1876. It is now in ruins (destroyed during the war), a memorial and an important architectural sight of the city.
We also walked though the main square, and spotted the USA football team bus visiting the highly impressive neo-gothic Hamburg Rathaus (Town Hall) built of granite and sandstone with a copper roof. We also enjoyed a cold beer by the Altser river before heading back.
8 to 9 June 2006 The next two days were spent on the Solvang, Walter and Susanne’s 1939 Norweigian timber ketch (LOA: 32m) which is based in the museum port of Lübeck. Lübeck is the second largest city in Schleswig-Holstein region. It was for several centuries the capital of the Hanseatic League and because of its brick gothic architectural heritage is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. Lübeck is situated at the Trave river and has the largest German port on the Baltic Sea.
We drove down to Lübeck in the morning, with Kasimir (their 10 Kg cat). The morning did not start off too well. Walter could not find his wallet and we all assumed it had been stolen (we found it 4 days later) and then Kasimir decide to have a wee on my Dad in the car! We eventually made it to Lübeck, incident free, and spent the evening walking around Lübeck, having some delicious dinner and slept on board.
The next morning, at 9am, we motored our way over to Travemünde (which is a borough of Lübeck located at the mouth of river Trave into Lübeck Bay) and after some lunch picked up a group of 35 for a
2 hour sail trip. It was a gorgeous day, however not too much wind. All the sails went up, and apart from the rudder’s hydraulic fuel line springing a leak, we had a great time. Kerry did spend a lot of time in the mess preparing coffees and cake. Hard work.
In the evening, after cleaning the boat, we headed off for a short walk along the river and then around to the beach on the Baltic. Travemünde was quite that evening, everyone was watching the opening game of the World Cup, which Germany won 4-2. We headed back to Glückstadt that evening.
10 to 11 June 2006 Düsseldorf - next blog.
12 June 2006 Water and Susanne drove us into Hamburg and we said our goodbyes. They were heading back to the Solvang. They were sailing up to Kiel for Kieler Woche (one of Europe’s largest sailing events). We were dropped off by the harbour and made our up to the Fifa World Cup Fan village via the infamous Reeperbahn (it makes Kings Cross in Sydney look like a quaint village). Our objective was to watch Australia play Japan in their first World Cup
game in 32 years. Hopefully, the Socceroos would also score their first ever World cup goal. They did, after 84 mins, and eventually beat Japan 3-1. Great match with loads of Aussies and Japanese watching. We then walked around Hamburg, had some food and made our way home.
13 June 2006 Day trip to Sylt - next blog.
14 June 2006 Our last day in Germany was spent making our way by train and bus to the airport and flew back to Gatwick with Germanwings.
What a great time we had in Germany. Thanks to Walter and Susanne for being such great hosts.
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Susanne
non-member comment
Solvang
Thank you for the great photo of the Solvang, we´ll be using it fp#or the homepage! Greetings from Kiel. Susanne & Walter