After our stay with the Berndt's we drove up North to the Baltic Sea. We stayed in the town of Holstein right in the Marina in these apartments. Other than the gazillion mosquitoes that came out at night, it was a great location.
On our drive up to Holstein, we stopped over in Bremen for a few hours.
We love the story of The Bremen Town Musicians (by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm) and wanted to find the statue of the animals. The kids even got to rub the leg for a bit of good luck. You can tell how many others have rubbed the legs for luck by the nice gold sheen on them.
It happened to be market day so there were lots of stands selling fresh flowers, meats, cheeses, and more. It was great just to walk around and take it in. It is a cute little city. I wish we had had more time to explore. But after a quick lunch and a short walk around the old part we had to get back on the road to get to our apartment before dark. After dinner Finley read books to Berlin. It was really sweet finding them like this.
The next day we day-tripped into Lubeck, the marzipan capital. First stop, the Holstentor Gate Tower Museum. We hadn't planned on going inside, but Finley really wanted to, so we did. I have to say it was one of the better museums we visited in Germany. Very interesting and fun for the kids. Read more about it here.
Berlin shooting a cannonball (Finley) out of the cannon.
They have the funniest imagination I tell you.
Hanging out in one of the tower rooms.
This model is hand-carved in wood and shows what the city was like back in the day. Pretty amazing display considering how large it was. This is only one tiny section of it as I couldn't get it all in one picture.
Ryan found this bird crest and thought it was cool. Finley is wielding a sword, ready to fight something.
This is a chastity belt. I have read about these before in books and stuff, but never thought they were for real. But, oh yes, they were. The pic on the left is the front (note the little padlock on the side) and the one on the right is the back. Can you gals imagine wearing this hinged metal and cloth contraption all the time? Ugh! Ryan thought it was funny how fascinated I was by it.
Lubeck was a major Hanseatic port city in Germany. In the museum they had tons of old model ships hanging from the ceiling. It was awesome.
After the Tower Museum we headed over to the Niederegger shop, which makes the best marzipan apparently. I do not like marzipan, however, Ryan loves it and the kids are now huge fans.
It was packed inside so after we bought our stuff we headed up to the museum just upstairs. Though a small museum, it was impressive to see the items they had constructed out of marzipan. And it wasn't crowded which is always good in my book.
the kids pretending to be towers
important men in history .... all in marzipan.
After the museum we took the kids to a children's puppet show at the local Puppet Theater. It was located next to the Marionette Puppet Museum. This part of town was so cute & old. I loved all the signs on the 2 buildings.
I was hoping they would have a marionette show, but unfortunately it was a soft puppet show that day called, "Wer hat Opas Zahne?" Meaning, "Where has Opas teeth gone?" It's about a girl who throws a bday party for her Opa only to find out that he has lost his teeth, and the crazy search to find them. Honestly, it was the lamest show ever, but they laughed and giggled thru the entire play, and they sang the annoying theme song the rest of the trip. But it was worth it seeing how much they enjoyed it. I was just bummed we missed the premiere of the Hansel and Gretel marionette show that opened a week later.
We also walked thru the cathedral there (St. Mary's Church) and found this cute statue. It's supposed to be the Devil. Legend says that the devil thought the workers were building a drinking hall and so he helped with the construction of it. When the Devil realized it was to be a church he tried to destroy the walls (claw marks are still evident on the boulder). The townspeople persuaded the Devil to leave the cathedral undamaged in return for a drinking hall across the street.
The exterior view of St. Mary's Church. It is different from the other Gothic style Cathedrals we saw in that it is made of brick rather than stone.
We headed back to the apartment later that afternoon so the kids could play down at the beach before it got dark (and before the mosquitoes came out). In the water there were tons of Jellyfish that had washed up onto the sand. Apparently it's a big problem along the Baltic coastline right now. They wanted to go in the water but Finley freaked out when he saw these, and he wouldn't go near the shore again.
We headed back to the apartment later that afternoon so the kids could play down at the beach before it got dark (and before the mosquitoes came out). In the water there were tons of Jellyfish that had washed up onto the sand. Apparently it's a big problem along the Baltic coastline right now. They wanted to go in the water but Finley freaked out when he saw these, and he wouldn't go near the shore again.
Instead they collected seashells and built sand castles in the sand while Ryan and I chilled out in the beach baskets. They are old-school cool. All the beaches here have them. Finley took this picture of us relaxing in one.
There was also a playground next to the beach. The kids had fun swinging on the hammock swing and playing on the 4-seater teeter-totter.
Needless to say they were tuckered out at the end of the day. The next morning we headed over to our next stop ... Berlin. Those pictures/post will becoming soon.
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