Kiel - It's All About the Canal.

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Geo: 54.3227, 10.1359

Today we have a Holland America tour to the Holstein Switzerland area of Germany including the town of Eutin, a visit to a local schnapps distillery, a German lunch and finishing up with a five lakes boat ride. It all starts at 10am when we board our bus at the pier. We had breakfast earlier and I had tried unsuccessfully once more to send out blogs on the ship's Internet. Now we are in the city of Kiel, Germany. Kiel is a port city in Northern Germany on the Baltic Sea near the end of the Kiel Canal. A large portion of the city was destroyed during WWII. Most tourists arriving here by ferry or cruise ship continue on to Hamburg or Lubeck and few stay in Kiel.

The biggest thing in this area is the Kiel Canal. The Kiel Canal is a 61 mile long freshwater canal in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The canal was finished in 1895, but later widened, and links the North Sea to the Baltic Sea. An average of 275 miles is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around the Jutland Peninsula. This not only saves time but also avoids potentially dangerous storm-prone seas. This weekend, however, is the Kiel Regatta, the largest gathering of boats in Northern Europe. With 3 million in attendance during the period, the port area is quite busy, full of sailing buffs.

We disembark and meet our bus waiting on the pier. Our first stop on our tour is the village of Eutin. They're having a triathlon in the area and the police have a number of streets closed. Fortunately, our driver knows the town well and the event fails to thwart our access to the town square where we are dropped off for 40 minutes to walk on our own and explore. We explored the ATM, the restrooms and finally a little coffee shop. We grab a couple of mugs of coffee and Mom splurges on an apple strudel. The coffee is great and the apple strudel to die for. Unfortunately, with only 15 minutes to indulge ourselves and return to the bus, we curtail our people watching from our outside seating and board the bus, this time for a family distillery.

The countryside is littered with Holstein cows, the black and white ones originating from here that we're so familiar with in the states. We arrive at Munsfer Farms, a facility that grows strawberries, peaches, cherries and pears. He is one of two farms licensed in the state to make fruit schnapps and he explains his operation on a small tour of the facility (barn). Fortunately, they sell their products to tourists. Boy, are we lucky. Mom buys a jar of berry jam for €3.

Next on the agenda is lunch at a very nice restaurant, Fegetasche, located next to the five lakes we will be exploring on our boat ride. Our guide realizes we are a little early for the restaurant stop so she takes a detour to this castle on a hill. Now they like to call this area of Germany "Switzerland" but we've been to Switzerland and this is not it. It's Switzerland minus the mountains, snow and chalets. She shows us the "castle" on the hill and we've also seen castles. Sorry. Let's just say it's a big house. Mom reluctantly makes the climb up to see it. I think it's time for lunch.

Our lunch today consists of a tossed salad, schnitzel (chicken fried chicken) with mushroom gravy, potatoes with onions and bacon and, for dessert, Logan berries with light cream. Served with a German lager beer, it was delicious. Following our restroom break, we all walked to the park next door and boarded the tour boat that covers the five lakes. All five lakes are connected together. While we boat our way to the town of Bad Malente, our bus driver will take the bus and meet us there. The boat ride takes about an hour and, sure enough, our bus is waiting.

It's a 45 minute ride back to the ship and most are using to time to sleep. Mom is no exception. She has used her sun glass routinely on both the bus and the boat which I have documented well with pics. We return 1/2 hour early, get cleaned up and go to the dining room for dinner. Mom likes those fancy dinners. Mom had crusted Parmesan chicken and I had Boston lager strip steak. Tonight we had a table for just two so we had no problem making it to the 8pm show. Tonight is a pianist, Rogerio Tutti. With the HAL band accompanying him, it's very good. At its completion we successfully outmaneuver the myriad of salespeople stationed in the main hallway, offering prizes and fantastic prices to everybody that stops at the stores. I show off to Karen some of my famous tricks maneuver my way through one sales person after another and, having safely reached the Oceans Bar just past the shopkeepers, I feel like a soldier landing in Normandy and reaching the top of the beachhead unscathed. Wow!

I write some more from bed but soon collapse from the day's activities. Tomorrow we attack Gothenburg.

Note: Sometimes I need to do more research to get names or locations of sights in the blog. If I don't have literature then I will use Internet to fill in gaps. I don't have time to complete while traveling, especially not at .40/minute for ship wifi. Therefore, I left gaps like ........which I will fill in later with information. In the meantime, just ignore, otherwise I'll never get this out. Grammar, editing and additional info to be added when I return. I have 180 minutes left and will push these out until I run out of Internet time. Thanks.

Weather: Cloudy, windy, 59°F

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