Day trip to Travemunde

Day 4

Day 6

This morning feels a bit like a rerun of yesterday! We assemble at Berne station, get the 10h20 train to Hauptbahnhof, and the 11h03 to Lübeck (late again).

Outside Lübeck the train stops for 15 minutes - long enough to miss our connection to Travemunde, so we mill around outside the station looking for the bus that promises to take us to the Baltic resort of Travemunde.

We move on to the bus station and negotiate our way onto a service bus to Travemunde Strand, and we alight and gather round to discuss meeting up to return to Hamburg.

We head towards the beach - only Ben was brave enough to dash between the fountains, though we all wanted to take pictures!

Martina's dad, Gunter, gave us a guided tour of Travemunde.

Across the beach shelters (standard issue on the Baltic coast) you can see the guard post that marked the border between East and West Germany (and presumably still marks the border between Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania).

The golden mermaid in the foreground had recently appeared, having moved from somewhere further east.

There was a collection of buoys, each style and colour having its own purpose (international border, marking channels, crossing of channels and so on).

This old lighthouse had been superseded by a light at the top of the monstrous hotel next door.

A family of ducklings became the centre of attention...

...with lunch being shared (I think the locals were  a bit bemused by this)...

Does Tanja thinks they'll eat ash?

There were good views across the River Trave, with the Passat in the background.

We walked inland to the town of Travemunde.

And crossed the river by a car ferry.

From the water you could see the Skandinavienkai (Scandinavian Quay) and the big ships that serve it.

There were older, smaller vessels too.

Günter showed us his boat.

And his yacht-club haunt

where we lunched

Good health!

A pirate boat made by unemployed people motored by.

We walked along the right bank of the river...

...viewing the town across the water.

We closed in on the Passat.

Cormorants hanging out to dry

Reflections on the water

The Passat close up.

Statues of sailors looking out to see seem popular in northern Germany.

That's no statue - Sylvie was determined to paddle in the Baltic

We took a pedestrian ferry back...

.. which was cool.

Just after we landed this huge ferry passed bound for Finland.

We passed by the beach shelters

and had a mad dash for the train back to Lübeck.

Farewell to our guide, Gunter.

We then split up and had evenings with our hosts, in small groups. I took my camera but left it in its bag, and left the bag at Frauke's, so I hope Sylvie has some photos of our evening, and others have some of their evenings to share.

Day 4

Day 6