Wanderung 30

We slept well that night, but by the next morning Monika's cheeks were showing new bruises and her right eye partially swollen shut, so we were definitely not doing any more bike riding! Instead, we took it very easy and meandered up and down the long, pedestrianized shopping street of Flensburg that is located one block up from the old harbor wharf area.

We found Flensburg to be a very pleasant and economically vibrant city with many things to see and, fortunately, a large choice of places to have lunch! As we walked around we saw many examples of beautiful old-fashioned architecture in the older section of the city including some of the 300-400 year old half-timber houses that kind of sag in odd ways and sometimes even lean out over the street rather dramatically. The thought of the many generations living in those modest houses was rather humbling, really.

Someone had strung a wire across the main shopping street at one point and suspended many a LOT of tennis shoes from it. It may have been some type of "Modern Art", it may have been some form of "Social Protest", or it may even have been a very odd way to air out a lot of stinky old tennis shoes, but there were no explanations anywhere and we never did figure out what that was all about.

We also walked by the waterfront where we watched the old historic steamship "Alexandra" come back from an excursion cruise. There we saw an advertised schedule for a ferry over to Glueckstadt where we had heard there was an old castle. If the castle was in walking distance from the dock at Glueckstadt, that sounded like it would make an interesting excursion for the next day. We also wandered past the Maritime Museum, but like most museums in Germany, it was closed on Monday, so we left that for another day. Since there were clearly more things we could see and do around Flensburg, when we got back to the hotel we extended our stay there for two more days. But first we kept walking back into the old city area.

Our downfall turned out to be the "1 Euro" stores that we found at both ends of the main pedestrian area. Like the "$1" stores in the U.S. (or the "1 Pound" stores in Britain), the prices are so low that we are tempted to buy things we don't immediately need (like a set of wooden chopsticks!) that we then have to carry in our bicycle saddle bags for the rest of the trip!

Some things, though, we really DID need. I bought a pocketknife, which we really needed for slicing meat, cheese, and bread when making our evening sandwiches, and two more reflective leg bands for safely riding our bicycles at night. Although as a general rule we try to ride only during the day, circumstances the previous day had forced us to ride at night, and if that happened again I wanted to be as well equipped with lights and reflectors as possible! We also looked around for comfort food, which is particularly cheap in a "1 Euro" or "$1" store although the selection is, of course, very limited. In this case we picked up a Coke and a Sprite for me, and even a small bottle of wine for Monika, all for 1 Euro apiece!