Altstadt Neustadt

On Tuesday and Wednesday we continued our journey up the Baltic coast by visiting the two historically significant cities of Lubeck and Kiel. While much has been done successfully to keep Lubeck's medieval charm, Kiel has had much of the city centre redesigned in the 70s and 80s by what seems to be the same people that designed Milton Keynes...

The first stop on our way into Lubeck was the mighty Holstentor which is one of the medieval gates out of the city. Housing a free museum, and impressive cannon on each level this was an impenetrable bastion. It is a shame therefore that when Napoleon attacked in 1806 he chose the undefended south of the city to attack through.

A surprising feature of the Holstentor was this peculiar door handle. On further inspection this was a part of the Nazi renovation's, curious how there was not recognition of it...

Surprisingly enough, or not so for people who pay attention to packaging, Lubeck is a capital of marzipan production. With up to 200 historical brands, and 5 modern ones, from the city, its got quite the call to fame. One of the defining features of this is the marzipan museum in the Niederegger HQ shop in the centre of town including these super cool marzipan sculptures.

Despite being super close to the coast for several days now including Szczecin, Rostock, Lubeck, and now Kiel, Kiel was the first place we could actually see the Baltic sea. Our first sea since the Adriatic over a month ago now! 

While the naval industry has declined significantly since 1945, the military base just by our park up did still sport over 7 of these huge military ships.

Starting in Kiel the next day we went straight to the stadtmuseum. A usual technique of ours since it gives a really good sense of the buildings around and what the town historically was like. Unfortunately, unlike the beautiful Lubeck, the very historically important Kiel had, through a combination of WW2 bombing and terrible post-war planning decisions, largely ceased to exist.

A good example of the butchering of this once-beautiful town is the previous river around the Altstadt which looks more like an artificial university water feature than a thousand year old structure.

The naval museum in Kiel served to demonstrate what we already knew: Rob would not be cut out as a U-boat sailor in these two man subs (Seehunds). Then again, who would.

Quick stop at a vegan ice cream stand to watch all the people braver than us swim in the very chilly Baltic sea.

On our way crossing into our 19th and final country of the trip, Denmark, we crossed the enormous 19th century canal that the German Empire built to bisect the Jutland Peninsula.

Funky lookin' Danish houses. I assume these are more the exception than the rule, but with only a 24 hour visit you never can tell...

With time really against us now we only had time to pop inside the Danish border and see a bit of the local town before parking up for a night ready to head back down south tomorrow after visiting another concentration camp. While we were expecting not much more than a British motorway stop this place had a whole camper section, bins, picnic tables, toilets, and a shower. What luxury for the most northern point on our journey.