Port 75 Travemünde, Germany

by Ed · May 28, 2022

Hallo!

We came in to Travemünde on May 20th, 2022, with mostly cloudy skies, and light sprinkles of rain. Our docking spot is right in front of town! How sweet is this?

We have an afternoon excursion to the nearby town of Lübeck, so we decide to take a walk around Travemünde in the morning! We head toward the ocean, and pass by this old lighthouse. It is not in use anymore, and is now a cultural monument and museum.

A little farther down is this spacey structure looking more like an air traffic control tower than anything! It is identified only as a radar tower.

This brings us to the beach! The first thing we see is a great playground for the kids! I’m jealous! Ah, but this reminds me there is more stuff like this near the ship! Gotta check that out when we get back!

The beach is lined with hundreds of huts for the beachgoers! There is a fee to use the beach, then there is a fee to use the huts! But there are people out there in the huts! The beach is gorgeous – the weather isn’t.

Heading inland, this interesting statue is in a large park.

We find the St. Laurence Church (St Lorenz-Kirche).

The interior is surprisingly bright! And the open-beam ceiling is ornately decorated!

A life-sized figure of Jesus hangs from the ceiling in front of the altar, and the ceiling beyond the hanging Jesus was left plain.

The organ pipes at the rear don’t fit in this decor. Or more correctly, the ornate ceiling doesn’t fit the rest of the church!

There are a lot of cute houses in this neighborhood! A mix of Dutch and Germanic styles!

Back at the ship, this playground matches the one at the main beach earlier this morning.

Our excursion takes us a half-hour west into the old part of Lübeck. This was once a walled city. We begin at the medieval gate. But see that big black box in front of the gate? It is a camera obscura experiment, taking photographs through a pinhole. The box is supposed to stay in place for 3 months. So to get a better picture of the gate…

…we step around the camera obscura, and voila! The gate is gorgeous, but it is collapsing inward.

On the other side, the gate looks completely different!

Walking into town I spot this beautiful brick gothic building, where the bricks create the design rather than carvings!

Connected to the previous building is this tower. This is the portal to the Shop Keepers Guild! The merchant trade is very strong in the history of this city.

Across the street is the entrance to this square – the Marketplace! On the left is this amazing wall – it’s the inside wall of the city government offices! just below each of the white peaks is a band of emblems of the merchant trades. Merchants once governed this city!

The rest of the Marketplace is equally stunning!

And a special tribute to Ukraine flies in the center of the Marketplace!

A special seal of Lübeck was donated to the city. I love the look of this! It has a Viking boat, caravels, and a galleon sailing in front of the city. You can see the gates, a cathedral tower, and in the back the spires of the merchants that you see in the square!

We didn’t get any closer to this building than this, but it is gorgeous! This is the backside of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The outside of the city government offices is a little more imposing than the interior in the Marketplace!

This is the Devil sitting on the Devil’s Stone. There is a story here! Believing the city was building a wine bar here, he liked the idea and began helping in the construction. As the walls grew taller, the Devil realized he was helping to build a church, not a wine bar! So he grabbed a large stone and began smashing the wall he helped build. The townspeople asked him to stop, saying they would build a wine bar for him, so he dropped the stone. And now his statue sits on the stone he used. Supposedly you can see his claw marks on the stone, but I couldn’t see anything in the open spaces, so someone must have been sitting on the obvious marks!

Notice also that he has one toed foot and one cloven hoof. There is a belief that kissing his big toe will help a girl get pregnant! See how shiny it is!?

We had to get our picture taken with him!

This is St. Marien’s Church, from the side. It is a remarkable brick gothic structure!

This Apothecary has been in business since 1812, but the building was originally built in 1230! It was reconstructed after World War II.

The streets are lovely and narrow!

We pass by an immense St Catherine’s Church!

Then we pass by a confused St Jacob’s Church – it doesn’t know what color, shape, or finish to be on top, eh? I regret not having the time for us to stop and look inside any of the Lübeck churches.

Then we see the Hospital of the Holy Spirit! This is just as beautiful as any of the churches in this city!

Here is the only street art I captured. This is a great impressionistic portrait of the city from the main gate!

Finally, Lübeck has a few beautiful business buildings to show off!

Back at port, I realize all of the cranes are parked the same direction! Nine cranes all on the same worksite – a massive new condo complex on the waterfront!

The time finally comes for us to head out! Our prop wash rocks the boats in their slips, but they are all well secured – no one bangs into anyone else.