Gothmund

There's a little fishing village called Gothmund on the Trave River not far from here, where we read that the main street is just a footpath, and that the houses still have thatched roofs. Gothmund is so isolated that, in 1806, when Lübeck was under French occupation, the ransacking soldiers missed it completely, even though they passed within only a hundred meters of it. Our travel guide said that Gothmund hasn't changed much since then, so naturally we had to find it. 

We started out for Gothmund on foot, figuring we'd catch a bus when we got tired. On the way, we stopped at an Esso station and bought a good map of the Lübeck area, and continued walking. We passed an expensive-looking neighorhood, a festival platz with circus tents set up (but not much action), and woods with holly and ivy growing in them. Seven kilometers later, we arrived in Gothmund, looking forward to rewarding ourselves with kuchen and tea at what would surely be the cutest bakery in Europe in this remote village in the heart of the Lübeck suburbs.

Gothmund turned out to be very pretty, indeed -- although a tad more upscale than we'd imagined it -- but much to our dismay, there was not a bakery to be found there. 

Fortunately, the number 12 bus stop was nearby, so we hopped on, and were back in Lübeck in 20 minutes flat, exhausted. You'd better believe our dogs were barkin'! 

Visit to Gothmund: check. 

Before we left for Gothmund this morning, I had a little personal adventure. I badly needed a haircut, and it happens that there's a good friseur (hairdresser) next door to our flat. Our landlord, Peter, told me that, unfortunately, she doesn't speak English, so I knew I would have to explain to her, in Deutsch, what I wanted, which made me very anxious. I have now learned this about myself: I will go way outside my comfort zone for a haircut!

This past weekend, while we were at Eva and Guntram's, Eva helped me write down, in German, what I needed: shorter layered front and sides, with the possibility of styling without a hairdryer on occasion. 

After frühstück this morning, I put on my coat and bravely walked next door. With my piece of paper from Eva, I asked for an appointment, described what I needed, and came away with a cute haircut by Amelia, who was very sweet about it all! After introducing myself and telling her I don't speak good Deutsch but that I would try, I said, "Konnen Sie mir einen Termin, um Haare scheiden geben?" She checked her appointment book and said, "Ja, jetst!" which meant, "Yes, now!" and I was on my way! Speaking in a foreign language and being understood is an amazing thing. 

A weekend in the country

We took a train to Osnabrück this past weekend, to visit Guntram & Eva, who live in a renovated farmhouse in Lower Saxony, about 40 km from the border of Holland. Guntram is a whiz at solar power (which, along with wind power, provides 35% of Germany's energy), so he and Gary had a lot to talk about. Eva plays the flügelhorn, has a great sense of humor, and is a patient teacher of German, so she and I had a fun weekend, too. 

Eva’s father, Wilm Böing, was a talented sculptor who was often commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1960s and 1970s, before he died in 1981. Many of his pieces are on display (in wood and bronze) in churches and public places throughout the region, and are beautiful in their simplicity and energy. Guntram and Eva’s house is like an art gallery, full of his sculptures, large and small.

Yesterday we drove into the nearby town of Bippen to see the sights. One was the little church in town, now a Lutheran church (originally Catholic, of course, until Martin Luther came along), built in 1271. One of the neat features on this church is a stone on the side wall where churchgoers would sharpen their knives and spears before and after services. Apparently getting to church back then, traveling through the woods, was a hair-raising experience due to thieves and wild animals, so sharpening one’s weapon before heading back home again was essential. 

Across the lawn from the church is what used to be the village blacksmith shop. It's currently for sale for 60,000 euros, so naturally we had to take a look. Unfortunately, we will have to give it a pass, despite the fact that this building has a brick forge, living quarters upstairs, and a sweet little brook running alongside the property. If it had had a spreading chestnut tree, that would have been the clincher. 

Late this afternoon, we packed up and left Guntram and Eva's, and took the train from Osnabrück to Hamburg, where we switched trains to get back to Lübeck. A 20-minute walk from the bahnhof, with a stop at the grocery store along the way for milch, and we were back in our cozy apartment, with a surprise waiting for us: a card from our friend Rachel from Mahtowa! Thanks, Rachel — what a treat to get a card from Minnesota! 

The snow is coming down hard tonight. Three years ago, Lübeck got an unusually large amount of snow -- so much that they didn't know what to do with it. We hope this isn't another year like that.

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Happy Hunden: a day on the beach in Timmendorfer-Strand

Now that we've reached our goal of walking down every strasse in Lübeck at least once, we decided the time has come to spread our wings and start exploring our new state of Schleswig-Holstein. This state borders the Baltic Sea and extends from the border of Denmark down to Hamburg. There are some interesting-sounding little towns here that we'll be exploring in the coming weeks.

We don't have a car (don't need one, with all this mass transit available), so this morning we walked to the bahnhof to find  a place to go for the day. There was a train leaving for Berlin, and one for Copenhagen, but we were interested more in a day trip today. We settled on a town called Timmensdorfer-Strand, partly because it was the destination of the next bus leaving the bahnhof, and partly because our map showed that it's on the Baltic Sea and has a beach.

The half-hour bus ride from Lübeck to Timmensdorfer-Strand wound through pretty villages, past small fields of what looked like sugar beets, and around woods with their ubiquitous walking paths. (Everywhere you go in Germany there are walking paths, and they all have someone walking on them.) We weren't sure where to get off the bus, so we picked a likely spot, and promptly were lost in Timmensdorfer-Strand, unable to figure out which way to go to find the sea! A teen-aged cashier at a gas station pointed us the right direction (some things are the same everywhere you go), and we were soon in the upscale village center of Timmensdorfer-Strand, eating gulaschsuppe at the Weihnachtsmarkt.

After lunch, we followed the path down to the beach, and joined the other folks walking there. The most unusual thing -- to an American, anyway -- about walking on the Baltic beaches is the dogs. German dogs must be the happiest in the world: they're allowed in restaurants and on beaches and they apparently don't need to be leashed, as they all were running free and were having the time of their lives. They're so well-socialized, we have yet to see a fight, and it was so entertaining watching them greet other dogs and immediately start to play, I could have watched them all afternoon.

We walked out a long pier to check out this elegant building, which turned out to be Japanese tea room. We didn't stay for tea, but continued back into town for a kuchen and kaffee at the bakery chain, Junge. 

Along the way, I saw this poster. I don't know if Americans do this, but I think it's a great idea: a Christmas tree bonfire!

Tomorrow we are off to Bippen to visit friends Guntrum and Eva at their farm for the weekend. Tshcüss! 

Heilige Nacht

It’s Christmas Eve in Lübeck. After three days of rain, the sun came out today, and we spent the afternoon exploring, as usual. We explored a few "new" (to us) centuries-old streets, and stopped by the Weihnachtsmarkt downtown for some pumpkin soup, yet another tasse of gluhwein, and a waffeln mit vanillasosse. I don’t know why vanilla sauce isn’t more popular in the U.S., because nothing can’t be made even better with vanilla sauce on it. 

We always give our wild birds on the island an extra treat on Christmas Eve, but we’re far from them this year, so we brought along some stale  brochen and the last of the soul bread to feed to the ducks and seagulls by the canal, where we were very popular for a few minutes. 

We were back in our flat by mid afternoon, and at 3:00 sharp, the church bells started to ring. I opened our kitchen window and listened to the sound: big, deep bells, ringing all over town. Now, that is how to start Christmas Eve! At 4:30, we walked up a few narrow streets to the Gothic St. Jakobi church for the 5:00 service. The place was packed, and we were led by a kind usher to a seat in one of the little rooms off to the side, where we had a nice view of things. 

Jacobikirche was built between 1276 and 1334, and is known as the church of the seafarers. It survived WWII without damage, so the sanctuary looks just as it always has for the past 7 centuries.

Its two pipe organs, one built in 1466 and the other in 1504, are still used, and one of them — I don’t know which — was in full form tonight. Wow! As if all of this wasn’t enough, the music for the entire service was absolutely beautiful. If I could have created the perfect Christmas Eve service for myself, with all of my favorite German carols and a stunning church to hear them in, it couldn’t have possibly been better than this. I’ve never had a more beautiful start to Christmas Eve. (I posted a bit of it on Facebook, just fyi, as the video doesn't seem to want to work in this blog.)

After the service, we floated home, and heated up yet more gluhwein from the bottle our landlord/friend Peter gave us this morning. He made it himself, and it was very gut! 

Because every restaurant in town is closed tonight, as far as we know, we had dinner in our flat: baked cod with cream sauce, roasted kartoffeln with rosemary from Peter's garden, and red cabbage, with marzipan pigs from Niederegger (Lübeck's famous marzipan shop) for dessert. 

Yesterday I had bought some red tulips and pine boughs at this little flower market, and with that red and green bouquet, some candles on the table, and Gary's Macbook streaming Minnesota Public Radio's holiday songs, it was a great Christmas Eve! Frohe Weihnachten, everyone!

Our flat

I promised to describe where we're staying while we're in Lübeck. We're renting a furnished flat from an old acquaintance of Gary's, who is giving us a special (otherwise we never could have afforded this trip). As I mentioned previously, the flat is upstairs from a goldsmith shop, and here is how it looks from the street. That's Gary, at our door with our bag of groceries and wine from Aldi. Our place is up a flight of stairs; the second-floor windows are the windows of our guest bedroom.

Inside, we have a large room that doubles as our living room and bedroom.

We also have an eat-in kitchen, complete with everything we need for cooking. Since this photo was taken, we've discovered a second-hand store and have added a tablecloth and place mats, and it's very gemütlich in here. 

In addition to these two rooms, we have a bathroom (with a tub/shower combination, washing machine, and clothesline), plus a guest Schlafzimmer that faces the street. We have internet, TV when the reception is good, and cozy hot water heat from radiators in each room. 

The only thing that would make us more glücklich is if we had friends or family here to share it with us!

Sonntag in Travemunde

Today was our first Sunday in Germany, and the sky was blue when we awoke -- a rarity, we've learned. We decided to take advantage of the nice weather by going for a beach walk in Travemunde, the "resort" town of Lübeck, on the Baltic Sea. 

To get to Travemunde, we had to catch a bus at this bus stop, which we reached by zig-zagging up some narrow cobblestone streets near our flat. (The first night we were were here, I took a photo of the castle gate, and this is what's on the other side of it, inside the town itself.)

It takes about a half hour to get to Travemunde on the bus, and costs 3.10 euros. When we arrived, we disembarked just before entering town, so we could walk down the streets of this sweet fishing village before reaching the promenade to the beach.


We weren't the only people who thought walking on the beach would be a good idea today -- the place was filled with visitors, out for a walk on what turned out to be a rainy day. But the temperature was mild, in the high 40s,  and the rain was a fine mist, so it was a pleasant day. Some well-mannered swans were out for a walk in town . . .

. . . while the seagulls, and cormorants, the bad boys of the beach, hung out on this pier. 

We had a nice long walk along the shore, where the Baltic is clear and calm, before heading back into downtown Travemunde for a mid-afternoon lunch. Because our clothes were damp and it was starting to get dark, we caught the bus back to Lübeck, and stopped at a little bäckerei for some excellent cherry kuchen. Only nine more Sundays to go, sadly!

Out and about on a Freitagnachmittag (Friday afternoon)

Yesterday we took a walk around the west side of the town along the river to find the music school, where they have free concerts nearly every night performed by the graduating students. On the way there, we passed these beautiful ships docked in the Trave River. The yellow one is a replica of a frigate, the Shtandart, that Peter the Great commissioned in 1703. It was built by a dreamer much like the Viking ship Hjemkomst in Moorhead, Minnesota was. You can board the ship for the price of a donation, so we did.

After that, we visited the Holsten Gate (Holstentor), built in 1477, which is the iconic symbol of Lübeck. It's the former western gate to the city, and was designed for defense, complete with chutes for pouring hot tar or boiling water onto enemies. Inside one room is a fireplace, which they say wasn't used for warmth: it was used for heating tar!

The Holsten Gate was badly in need of repair by the 1860s and was nearly torn down. The city asked the citizens to decide what to do, and the gate was saved by one vote. Today it's a good local history museum, and we spent the entire afternoon there. 

Afterward, we continued our walk along the river, and spotted these nutty guys. They must be pretty confident, because that water looks KALT!

It gets dark early in northern Europe this time of year -- the sun sets around 3:49 in Lübeck-- so the days are darn short. Before heading back to our flat, we stopped at the Weihnachtsmarkt for another Tasse of gluhwein, at a fancy place where they supply afghans and you can sit outside for people-watching. We could hear a brass band playing Christmas carols around the corner. Gary ordered a gluhwein laced with amaretto, but I prefer just straight wine. 

On our way home, we passed a half dozen beautiful bakeries, and took advantage of the luxury to choose the prettiest one, where we bought a kleine loaf of Weihnachtsstollen, for our teatime this weekend. More on bakeries soon! 

Advent in Lübeck

Last night we went to the Weinnachtsmarkt for gluhwein and music. The goal was to attend a Christmas concert at the Marienkirche, the big cathedral in the middle of town.

Lübeck was founded in 1143, and work on the Marienkirche began about a 100 years later, completed in 1350. The concert there was everything I thought it would be: beautiful German Christmas carols sung by two choirs, accompanied by the massive pump organ. One was a boys' choir of adorable jungen in black robes and big white collars. They held real candles and music books and were allowed to hold both while walking from place to place in the cathedral, which they achieved with no one setting their friends or their music on fire. At one point they were stationed right next to us, and were so cute I was itching to snap a photo, but I didn't dare, as I didn't see anyone else taking pictures. The other choir was a male chorus, which started the concert with a Gregorian chant. Sitting in that lofty cathedral surrounded by music and art and seven centuries of souls will likely be the highlight of my Christmas.

The other highlight will be the gluhwein we had at the Weinnachtsmarkt before the concert.


Lübeck was the "capitol" of the Hanseatic League -- a trade organization of merchants -- for a few centuries, and spent some time as part of Denmark. Lübeck is known for its marzipan, its brick gothic architecture, its progressive politics, and its culture, which are some of the reasons we chose this city to live in this winter. I may have mentioned that the old part of the city -- the innenstadt -- is located on an island in the Trave River. The innenstadt is just short of a mile long and 6/10ths of a mile wide, which makes it easy to reach everything with a short walk.

Our furnished flat is at the northeast corner of the innenstadt, next to the Burgtor gate, which used to be the gate to the castle (now long gone). The flat contains one large room that doubles as our living room and bedroom, an eat-in kitchen, a bathroom, and a guest room, all clean and modern. We're on the second floor, above a goldsmith who is noisy sometimes, but who fortunately doesn't work at night. Our building is part of a small complex of old buildings -- formerly a vinegar factory long ago -- that our landlord, Peter, bought in 2009. He renovated the complex and now rents the buildings to a variety of businesses: the noisy goldsmith, a hairdresser, a tailor, a graphic artist, and a bistro that has live music every Wednesday night. We could crawl there and barely get our knees dirty! They all surround a courtyard with an herb garden and a fire pit in the summertime. I'll post some photos soon.

Day 1

Our first full day in Lübeck, our goal was to walk around the perimeter of the city and get a feel for distances. Over the centuries -- all nine of them, give or take a half-century or two -- the city has crammed itself onto an island in the Trave River, and its winding cobblestone streets and ancient brick walls give the impression that everything is squeezed and stacked. That's the first impression of two Americans, at any rate, who just arrived from northern Minnesota to this rich, beautiful, people-sized old city, where you never know what you'll discover next. Even in the rainy weather, we're completely smitten.

It probably takes about an hour to walk around the perimeter of the city; we didn't make it all the way, as there was too much to stop and look at. One of the most charming things about Lübeck is that the houses all are (of course) packed together side-by-side, and the first-floor windows are on display as you walk along the sidewalks. Homeowners set collections of things on their window sills, inviting you to look. It makes every walk a treasure hunt.


Because it's Advent, part of our walk yesterday included Weihnachts (Christmas) markets. Lübeck is big on Christmas, and there seems be a Weihnachtsmarket around every corner. The first one we found was inside a cathedral -- Petrikirche -- and was more of a juried art show than a traditional market, with high-end ceramics, textiles, and metal sculpture. The second was a traditional outdoor market in the Marienkirche churchyard, with decorative booths selling gluhwein, wursts, pastries, roasted almonds, and Christmas decorations. There's a lot of hot-wine-drinking going on each day during Advent in Lübeck.


We bought some "poffers" (little pastry puffs) from a vendor, who fried them on the spot and added vanilla sauce and applesauce. Then we picked out a loaf of "seelenbrot" from this baker, who had six wood-fired ovens fired up. My Google translator tells me that seelenbrot is "souls bread," and it looks like this:

Our first night in Lübeck

Arriving in Germany for a winter's stay

Today we arrived in Lübeck, having flown from Minneapolis to Philadelphia to Munich to Hamburg. We finished our journey by train from Hamburg to Lübeck, and our landlord, Peter, kindly picked us up at the bahnhof in a misty rain. 

For the next two and half months, our home is a furnished flat in the north-east corner of Lübeck's innenstadt. To give an idea of the kind of neighborhood we're in, Peter's bedroom wall used to be the wall of the original castle, built in the 13th century. Here's the castle gate. 

We are jet-lagged but happy and well-fed, thanks to Peter, who prepared us a home-cooked meal after our nap. Tomorrow, the exploring begins!