Lubeck/Travemunde/Hamburg, June 10 & Kiel Canal, June 11

I saw several things today that I've never seen before and not all of them were sights. You'll read about one of them below, and the other occurred after I got back to the ship. We were docked at the shipping/ferry port at Travermunde, Germany. One of the overnight ferries, which is almost as big as we are, came up river behind us. Before it got to us, it turned around in the basin, and proceeded to back up the river past us and a good deal beyond us where it parallel parked with no assistance from a tug. And here I thought that parallel parking a tour bus was quite a feat!

Jill took a tour to Lubeck where the guide walked the legs off everybody for three and a half hours. But she did get to the marzipan factory that was her reason for choosing that tour. Meanwhile, I took a five and a half hour tour to Hamburg which is 90 minutes away by bus on the autobahn. Again the weather cooperated although toward the end of the afternoon it got cloudy, and there was a brief shower as we traveled back to Travermunde.

Hamburg is a lovely city that was heavily damaged by Allied bombing during World War II (one of the few undamaged buildings was the office of their IRS equivalent). Our tour was mainly photo stops. However, at the very ornate City Hall shown here, we descended to the restaurant/rathskeller in the basement for coffee and cake. After that we resumed touring the city.

Our route was most convoluted because many streets were closed for a special annual event. You can see why. There were 30,000 motorcycles in town waiting to all ride out together. We jigged and jogged all around waiting for them to get going so that we could visit St. Michael's church (where four motorcycle couples were getting married as part of the festivities). Three times we wound up at polizei road blocks, and three times our guide got out and talked our way past them. He wouldn't say what he told them, but whatever it was, it was effective!

Kiel Canal

The canal goes from the Baltic to the Elbe River and North Sea, and is 60 miles long from Kiel to Brunsbuttel. Only five cruise ships are small enough to pass under the bridges, and we had to lower our mast to do so. Initially built for military purposes, it was enlarged before World War I and is now used mostly by shipping and pleasure craft. We entered the canal at The Kiel-Holtenau locks about 4:00 am, and no, I was not up to see that end of it.

Jill and I spent a beautiful morning enjoying the sunshine, warm temperature and lack of wind out on deck on our balcony and up on Lido deck. Even the wind turbines of the several wind farms we passed were still. The land the canal passes through is generally flat with occasional small hills. It is all farms with patches of forest. Roads and paths go along each side with people waving to us from their RV campsites, their bicycles, as they walked along, and from the cross-canal ferry docks. It was enormously peaceful.

We eventually went down to the dining room for lunch to escape the brats-und-bier buffet with loud recorded biergarten music on Lido deck. Just as we finished lunch, the ship approached the Brunsbuttel locks, so we went outside to take some photos. As the ship came to a halt in the lock, on shore there were hordes of people out to see us pass by with lots of waving and greetings. Then suddenly, a local brass band of about 14 or 16 uniformed people began playing lively music, mostly German tunes, although they did do a rendition of "Anchors Aweigh." I think the ship must have been listing to starboard as all the passengers were lined up along the rails to clap along and listen to the music. What great fun!

Onward this afternoon toward Amsterdam. Lots of passengers are busy packing to get off tomorrow. I'm really glad that we are going on for another two weeks. We will be sorry to lose our delightful Australian table mates, Ken and Sheila, however Jill's next door neighbors will be coming on. A few months ago, she and they were comparing vacation plans and discovered that that they were booked on the same cruise.