Germany 12: The Valentin Submarine Pens and Helgoland Day One

   The drive from Lubeck to Cuxhaven was made extra long due to traffic surrounding Hamburg.  The Valentin Submarine Pens looked interesting enough to visit.  There was a free circular tour, beginning with a memorial and plaques indicating to approach with the mindset of respect.  Plaques lined the walk, with information about the history, as well as quotes from survivors of this forced labor camp.  The idea was to make submarines that would change the tide of the war.  They would import premade parts from hamburg and bring them in through a giant opening in the side of the building.  No submarines were ever actually completed here.

  Cuxhaven was a cute harbor town.  I tried to park my car that night, but the parking lot for the ferry was closed.  As it was a Sunday, the grocery stores were closed.  Instead, I opted to walk to a nearby gas station to eat from their convenience store.  I woke up early the next morning and reread an email that I had received from the ferry company.  It wrote about a delay for the ferry to 10:50 AM.  Upon rereading it that morning, I realized that this delay was actually for the return trip and not the departure.  I quickly gathered my bags, parked the car at the lot, and walked the fifteen minutes to the departure port.  

  I chose Helgoland for a few reasons.  The island is super small and walkable, advertised as having no cars, is fairly remote and not visited much by foreigners, and had an odd history.  Of course, like most towns that advertise as being no cars, there were a few exceptions.  Police had cars, there were a handful of taxis, and there were small vehicles to haul supplies.

  I was allowed to check in early and had picked a hotel along the side of town, a great compromise between the front area near the port and the steps to the higher ground of the island.  My room was on the first floor, and with the window open, someone could literally step into my room.  The room, otherwise, was great, except for the fact that the curtains were nearly sheer and so intense light was let into the room from very early in the morning.

  In the evening, I decided to walk the path around the island.  The cliffs were red, but not particularly tall.  There were a few spots that served as viewpoints

Domesticated sheep roamed the upper cliffs.

Dune Island in the distance

I believe these to originally be crab stalls.

  There was one perfect spot for watching the Gannets of the island.  What struck me instantly was that the place looked like a bird graveyard.  There were dead babies and adults alike.  I found it incredibly disturbing.  There was one mother freaking out that its baby was not waking up and it was ringing its neck constantly.  I didn't take photos of it because it was so upsetting to me.  The next day, i went into town to find out what the cause of all of the death was.  According to them, avian flu came to the island four weeks prior.

  I also noticed a ton of pollution around the birds.  There were, what I assumed were cut fishing nets and remnants.  One of the birds had it loosely around its neck.  In any case, I spent quite a while amongst the birds.  For most of the time, it was gloomy out, but there was a short time where the sunlight burst out of the clouds.

  After birding, I continued the walk around the island.  The small supermarkets and convenience stores were almost always out of ready made food, so I settled on an Italian restaurant with high ratings.  You told them the table that you intended to sit at, ordered and paid at the counter, and then they brought out your food.  I ate vegetarian lasagna, and ended up eating here every night.  The problem with their process was that sometimes there was a long line, and a table that was empty when you entered the line, may be full when you place your order.  This actually happened once, and I had to go back in and give myself a table reassignment. 

Germany 11: Wismar and the beautiful Lubeck, the homeplace of the Hanseatic League

     For my first evening in Wismar, I walked all around time.  I immediately fell in love with the St. Marienkirchturm church.  I liked that it was allowed to age, without being as touched up as many others.  Nearby, the Wasserkunst, in a market square, had vending tents being slowly removed as the day was ending.  I enjoyed the architecture of the town, which reminded me of what I saw in Belgium.

A nearby video game store popped up on Google Maps, and I couldn't resist visiting.

  The second day in Wismar was spent doing the laundry at a nearby laundromat, and then trying to survive the 100 degree heat.  I did not have air conditioning, but luckily, the room had a mini fridge.  Cold orange juice helped me through the day, along with my fans.

  Just one hour away, I arrived in Lubeck.  The view from my room was extraordinary.  On the first day, I walked across the street to see Holstentor, the old city gate.  Then I walked east, into town, and headed north, doing a slight zig zag, toward the north gates.   

  I passed what seemed to be a community garden, with chairs for people.

This romanticized medieval man is a walking tour guide.

  After walking around the amazing buildings of the northern part of the city, I walked around the outskirts, along the water.

  As I approached the Music and Congresshall, an event venue, the sunset looked beautiful.  I tried to line it up with the characters that were atop the building.

  The next day I set out east again, toward the center, and this time cut south.  There were less interesting sites here, but still enough to keep me interested for the afternoon.

  That evening, the woman that I met in Denmark, who I have remained friends with, joined me.  The next day we visited the museum inside the Holstentor.  What I found the most interesting was that the building was actually incredibly slanted, which I believe might have been due to the wet terrain.

You can clearly see how the room is slanted here.

    We stayed on the peninsula with the Music Hall, and continued north until the end.  Google Maps reported that there would be an old ship here, but there was not.  Instead, we found a fake beach resort that was deserted.

  We retraced our route and visited the European Hansemuseum.  They only allow twenty people at a time, which meant that we had to wait about forty minutes.  Just around the corner was a coffee shop, where I asked the worker to recommend her favorite cake, which I then had.  Back at the museum, we took a large, oddly shaped elevator downwards.  Downstairs were some unremarkable ruins of the old buildings.  The museum was high tech.  First, you have to design your ticket with your language and the country and an area of interest.  You would then place your ticket at indicated areas, and it would project information in your language.  In other areas, placing your ticket would give you information based on the area of interest that you had chosen.  Unfortunately, most people seem to be slow readers, which led to a lot of waiting around.  Beyond the ticket, you were able to scan a QR code, with your phone, and that gave you access to a series of audio recordings, to play when the museum indicated you should play it.  We got fairly bored with the slow pace and skipped the second half.

  We walked to the center of town and walked around the uncreatively named Marketplatz Lubeck. 

  I showed her the route that I took when I viewed the south side of the town.  We explored westward, and ran into a synagogue.  At first I thought that it was a brewery, as it share that symbol.  It was behind bars, with a mobile police station next to it.  My friend explained that Jews are still targeted by extremists in the country.

  Nearby, on the ground, were the names of four people.  She explained that these were the names of people that were taken away during the war(if I remember correctly). 

  We sat for a while near the water.  At some point, the bridge rotated sideways and an old looking ship came through.

  We ate dinner at my third Vietnamese restaurant in Germany