Wanderung 30

[Bob] God, I hate having things go so badly that I am forced to make a "Plan D"!

Our original "Plan A" had been to ride eastward along the fjord to Sonderberg, Denmark, where we had reservations to stay at the Hotel Garni.
But Monika was feeling a bit sore and stiff in places, and I decided the planned 28 kilometer ride was just too far for her in that condition. Plus, I was very wary of her symptoms getting worse, and in particular if she would start having any problems with her eyes. So we cancelled our reservation at Hotel Garni using the campground's Wifi Internet connection, which we could connect to while sitting in the main office.

Our "Plan B" was to retrace our route to Flensburg, Germany, and stay in a Bed and Breakfast which Monika had found on the Internet called the "Schlafgemach apartment" that had great online reviews. Our Reservation was confirmed to our email, but we never received any follow-on email about how to pay or where to get the keys. No problem, we thought, we would just ride down there and find the proprietor, explain our situation, pay for the room, get the keys, and settle in.
But after a slow and careful ride back to Flensburg on the main streets (Monika wasn't up for riding on rough trails as yet!), we waited at front door of the B&B for two hours from 3-5 pm and called both contact telephone numbers but no one ever answered. As we waited on the front stoop and the afternoon turned into the early evening and there was absolutely no sign of life inside or out, I started to get antsy about whether anybody would ever come, and if not where in the world we would sleep that night.

So we devised a "Plan C", which was to check for any other hotel in Flensburg. But we didn't know where any hotels were in Flensburg and whether any of them had vacancies, which was becoming less and less likely the later it got in the evening. Since we had no Wifi out on the front stoop, we thought we would return to the Flensburg town center and see if we could find a free Wifi source at either the Visitor Information center or maybe some restaurant, then find a hotel with a vacancy and book a room for the night.
So we wearily climbed back on our bicycles and slowly drove to the small plaza in the town center. But much to our dismay, the Visitor Information center was totally kaput--I'm not sure if they were renovating or had moved, but the doors were locked and no Wifi was available either there or in the set of shops and restaurants around the plaza. Nuts!

By this time it was well past 6 pm and starting to get dark, and we were starting to get desperate. So I created a "Plan D" that if we absolutely could not find a room in Flensburg, we would bicycle back to the train station, buy train tickets for the evening train back to Hamburg, and then crash at a hotel there, or, if all else failed, show up at Heinke and Gustl's front door and ask to use their spare bedroom!
Since we had not completely given up on "Plan C" to stay in Flensburg, as we rode our bikes over towards the train station we kept looking around for either an Information kiosk or maybe a plaque with a city map that would show local hotels on it. Then, suddenly, lo and behold we saw a brightly lit sign saying "Dittmers Hotel" on the side of a building! That sure looked like a hotel to us, so we immediately detoured around to the front door of the hotel, and were quite relieved to find out that they had a vacancy at a reasonable price. We quickly booked a room for the next two nights. It was at least a place to lay our heads the night, and they even had a nice nook under some stairs leading to a storeroom where we could safely store our bikes out of the weather. Phew! SO glad that we did not have to resort to "Plan D". What a relief!