Skeddie Sauce and other Delights: In Lübeck With Dan

Dan called me to ask if I had ever been to Lübeck. I said, "Yes, I was there in December 2007." It was The Wurst Christmas Ever. "The town was so cute," I told Dan, that "I would like to go back one day in the summer time." He said, "That's great because I am thinking of going this week for a few days. Would you like to go with me?" That really caught me off guard because I already had plans to go to Germany later in the month. But I ended up saying I'd like to go with him because I really needed to get out of Parkinson's town.

Leaving the bus station.

Dan bought bus tickets and booked a hotel room. The bus stop here in Copenhagen is just a 12-minute walk from my apartment. The bus ride is 4½ hours long via the ferry between Denmark and Germany. The bus stop in Lübeck was just a 7-minute walk away from the hotel. The bus ticket along with the ferry, round trip, was less than a tank of gas and totally stress free which was exactly what I needed.

We are well on our way.

The morning that I left, I popped into the nursing home to do a bit of exercise with Jens. Well..... I wont go into all the details but the nurse and I walked into Jens' room to find him in a horrible situation. It was tough but between the 2 of us, we got Jens dressed and bathed and I just could not get on that ferry soon enough to drown out my stress and worries with a beer.

I had a good laugh on the ferry. I told Dan, "It's going to be a mad rush to the cafeteria." I directed, "You go see what's on the menu and I'll grab a table." To my surprise, Dan came back with food and 4 Gold beers. He said, "Eddie, the line was so long that I just decided to order food for you while I was already there." It worked out great and the Gold beer went down with peace and pleasure.

Sitting at the bow with 4 meet-a-vit-a-veg-a-mins,

fish-n-chips, and crashing waves up onto the window.

This was heaven.

The bus ride was pretty much relaxing and uneventful. Boarding the ferry and crossing a few bridges was the fun part of the ride. The rain, very little traffic (the only hole in the side of the motorway and a driver just happened to crash into it), and stopping for gas, were the mundane travel events.

The bridge to cross with a splash of rain.

The skylight over my seat made for

stimulating viewing of the top of bridges.

The weather started to clear up as we approached the ferry.

I'm getting excited that we have our own lane to

be one of the first to drive on board.

Excited because we can get our food and drink sooner.

Now it's our turn and were first - on this level.

After our lunch, we get up to walk back down to the bus.

Back on the bus and we are the first to disembark -

from this level. You can see on the level above,

cars are already leaving.

Another bridge to cross.

And now we approach town.

The view from the bus stop.

We have to walk across this bridge to get to the hotel.

After we check into the hotel, we head out to the old town.

Between the 2 of us, we managed to snap over 600 photos.

Doing my best to limit my posting to just 5 photos.

(per minute of reading this blog)

A cute dead end street,

with Hollyhocks.

We come to the market square on the back side of the town hall.

We visited all 5 gothic churches with a total of 7 towers.

We also went up inside one of the towers to look out over the town.

Much more in detail can be found on-line.

Here is a great website

to give a very quick overview about the churches.

Here now, in no specific order, are pictures of the churches.

We arrived late afternoon.

After walking around, we found a colorful spot to have our first dinner.

I really enjoy the monstrosity structures of train stations.

Lübeck train station is just across the street from the hotel.

Dan had a great idea - let's go on a boat tour!

From the boat dock we walked about town.

Eventually we had to pop up our umbrellas.

We also popped into the nearest shop with coffee

to wait out the passing storm.

It was odd - a gift shop that sold trinkets and coffee.

Later that evening we were on the hunt for some good German grub.

We started with a beer from this Italian café.

Then it was time to settle our growling stomachs.

Just down the street was one of the few non-international

German food restaurants that we could find.

Here we sat squeezed into the corner of this

full restaurant watching football (soccer).

Germany lost to Spain in the quarter final.

On our last day, we went up the tower

of the St. Petri (St. Peter) church.

After our descension from the tower top, we continued on our little stroll. Dan then headed off to a museum and I made my way to the market square to have lunch - with 2 Swedes? Wait! What? On my way to lunch, I snapped a few more photos of random buildings - because you know - 600 photos is better than 300 photos.

Finally I come to the Market Square behind the town hall. I sat down and ordered. All the table were full. The 2 Swedes walked up to the café, looked at me with a big table all to myself and disappointedly they walked away. "Hey!" I called out to them, "You're welcome to use th other half of the table." They were pleased and accepted the invitation. We had a nice chat. They were from Stockholm and on their way to Italy by car.

Dan caught up with me and he ordered pig knuckle.

He said it was good. Very tender.

Then it was time to head back to the hotel and pick up our carry-ons.

But first we had to stop for dessert.

No trip to Lübeck is official without a mouth full of marzipan.

That's what this town is famous for - marzipan;

Christmas and marzipan.

(however I must say - it is not as delicious as Danish marzipan)

With cake and coffee in our gut, we make our way back to the hotel to pick up our carry-ons and then back to the bus to return to Copenhagen. But wait! Dan looks at his phone and calculates that we have just enough time to go potty and down one more beer for the road. Ha! And Dan wanted me to drive. "Sanks got" for the bus service.