Today was unique in that Carol and I decided to divide and conquer. She wanted to go on a group tour to the countryside and watch a fish smoking demonstration, among other things. [An aside: my experience with group tours is that they proceed either at the pace of the group′s slowest person or at a pace determined by the ego of the guide.] (CC comment: Peter is exactly right. Not only is he right but my tour today was afflicted by a rare maximum combo of both of those problems.)

The ship docked this morning at the port of Travemunde. Although that word looks like it means "travel the world" it actually means mouth (munde) of the Trave River. This Baltic beachfront town, a district of the better known Lubeck, is extra quaint but loaded with shops that sell windbrakers for people who forgot that they were sailing north and that it might get cold. Although it′s very clear today, there′s been a very brisk cool east wind all day. The jacket business was probably brisk too.

Carol said that the final stop on her tour prevented it from being a misspent morning. They stopped at a village, originally for fishermen (although only one family does that now). It has several dozen small but beautifully preserved/restored thatched roof homes with small gardens. Everything was in full bloom including apple and cherry trees. However, Carol said that this gentle-looking village seems to have adopted some big city practices. Reminiscent of New York co-ops, the tour guide said that no one can sell one of these homes unless everyone in the village approves.

I went to Lubeck, an ancient German town. In some ways it was similar to all the towns we have been visiting. It was protected by a wall (gone now) with gates. If you look carefully you can see the German eagle icon on the gate.

Lubeck is a 20-minute bus ride away from the ship. A group of us took the shuttle bus to a town square, were dumped and told that the bus left every half-hour until 3:30.

Leaving me without a GPS (map or not) anywhere, means I′m lost. (CC comment: By GPS Peter of course means Gal Partner-Scout, meaning me. Thanks, Hon!) I decided that the building that looked the oldest, was the highest, and looked churchy had to be the center of the Old Town. I was right in that it was old and was a church but soon found out that there wasn′t any real Old Town. The buildings like this were scattered throughout the town in amongst new commercial and residential structures. Or the old buildings were in areas that were undergoing renovation. The older buildings were all made of red brick – a change from the stone of Spain and Portugal. (The last picture in the series below is of another city gate.)

        

  
The rest of the city looks like an attractive shopping area.

But Lubeck does have its own brand of funk. The guard at a museum and a group of kids were giving a drum concert in the middle of a converted church-downtown square.

We have to have our big bags ready to be shipped home by tomorrow so we have started packing already. Looking forward to going home but not to the travel it will take to get us there.