And now for the final post....

The Schiffergesellschaft, a 14th century building where we had lunch



Ad for Carlsberg beer on a building in Copenhagen



Street in Copenhagen



Park in Copenhagen, Denmark



This will be my last post for this trip as we leave the ship at 8:45 a.m. tomorrow and head to the airport for an 11:15 a.m. flight to Atlanta. It has been a great trip!! Thanks to all who helped us on the home front with dogsitting, catsitting, and housesitting!!

Yesterday morning we docked in Kiel, Germany. We took a trip into Lubeck, which was about an hour and a half ride from Kiel. Lubeck was first founded in 1143, so you can imagine how old some of the buildings in that town were! Only about 1/5th of Lubeck was destroyed in WWII, so it survived better than most towns.

We first saw the Holsten Gate, which was originally one of the entrances into the city of Lubeck; we went on from there to St. Peter’s church, which was started in the 14th century, and was originally Roman Catholic but then became Lutheran. It is no longer used as a church. We also toured St. Mary’s church, which was beautiful inside. At the time this church was built (1200’s) it was believed that the taller a church was, the more it reflected the wealth of the community; St. Mary’s is over 100 feet tall. It is a Gothic style church, containing some of the original Gothic paintings that were once painted over but were restored in 1947. It has two pipe organs, and between the two of them, there are 15,000 pipes (yes, really!) I wish we could have heard them. We did happen to be there at noon when the old clock struck twelve, and 12 little apostles came out and circled around to be blessed. This only happens at noon and midnight, so we were lucky to see it. Reminded me of the old cuckoo clocks!

We had lunch at a restaurant called “Schiffergesellschaft”, which was a 1500’s building that had once been a seaman’s guild hall. It had old wooden models of sailing ships hanging from the ceiling, and long skinny tables with benches. No air conditioning, of course, so it was a little warm, but the food was wonderful. After lunch we went to Niederegger’s, which is THE place to buy marzipan candy. They are world famous from what we were told. We bought some, though we haven’t tried it yet. Lubeck is known for its’ Marzipan, which is made from almond paste, among other things.

Our last stop was the Hospital of the Holy Spirit, which was used as an old people’s home. It contained tiny little rooms that barely held a bed and a table. At one time, up to 170 people lived there, but now only about 85 make it their home.

Our ship sailed at 6 p.m. last night, and we headed to Copenhagen; we arrived around 8 a.m. this morning. We were supposed to have a bicycle tour here, but it was cancelled due to “lack of participation”! We decided to be adventurous and take the shuttle into town, wander around, then walk back to the ship. Copenhagen is another beautiful town, full of lots of tourists, and lots of sites to see. After lunch, we headed back toward the ship…or at least where we THOUGHT the ship was…only to find it was MUCH further than we thought! What a hike we had! But along the way, we got to see the site where the “Little Mermaid” sculpture stands; it is in Shanghai right now for the 2010 World Expo, but they had live video of her from Shanghai, so it was fun to watch people viewing her in Shanghai. Copenhagen is the home of Hans Christian Anderson who wrote the story of the Little Mermaid.

Anyway, we made it back to the ship, finally, and we are now packed and ready to head out in the morning. This was a great experience…but we miss family and are ready to be home once again!