Lubeck, Mein Lubeck

On Tuesday, August 9, we went by train from Hamburg to Lubeck.  On the train, I saw a small boy with a soother on a beaded chain hanging off his shirt, a handy chain I could have used years ago, to save washing a soother my daughter regularly dropped.  Sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Lubeck, we saw a stroller go by, with a child inside eating a bun with meat in it.  Alongside walked a small dog, waiting for the child to drop the bun.  People aren't so different around the world; neither are dogs.

"Welcome to Europe," my sister said as we walked on a bridge over the canal, between a round church made of brick and a line of brightly-painted buildings.  We went up another church's tower and saw this old city spread in all directions.

Rain, sun, cloud, rain, sun, cloud, bag lunch on a canal side bench began our seaward trip that day.

It continue with my sister's brilliant idea of going by train to the sea, 20-30 leisurely minutes farther north.  The sandy beach,  bordered by a 15m-wide band of large rocks to keep the sea in the sea, and the cobblestone boardwalk reminded me of Nice, France, where we were in January, 2012.  This was the northern, not the southern shore of Europe.  This was the first time either of us saw the Baltic Sea.

Freighters went up and down the inlet, bound for distant lands or for Lubeck.  A cruise ship floated by.  People were setting up a bandstand for a concert, whose last part we saw after walking two km down and two km back, the boardwalk's length.

"Lubeck, Mein Lubeck" was the choir's encore song  Many in the seated and standing crowd of several hundred swayed in time and sang along.

We swayed on the train back to Lubeck and  Hamburg, on one-day train passes for the whole state, costing a mere15.50 Euros each, money well spent, for Lubeck Mein Lubeck.