Lübeck; Friday, 13 April, 2012

With a massive breakfast inside me I headed out from the hotel over to the station to pick up the train towards the North. After purchasing my “Schleswig-Holstein Happy Ticket” which effectively gave me free rail travel for the rest of the day I hopped on the next train up to Kiel.

I had originally intended on going to Schleswig first, but there was a 45 minute wait for the next train, and as my ticket let me go anywhere I decided to jump on the train up to Flensburg. I had a wander around the town taking in the stunning scenery around the harbour, before realising that I didn’t have enough time to make the next train towards Schleswig, so instead I jumped on one of the buses that had been going past with the intriguing destination of “Denmark”

Flensburg is just a couple of Kilometres south of the Danish border, and the number 1 bus makes the journey into Denmark every 20 minutes. The final part of the journey, through what would have been at one point two border crossings and a no-man’s land, is slightly bizarre as this relatively quiet road widens out with large grass central reservations and verges where the huts and customs halls would previously have been. You then, unmistakeably arrive in Denmark with a massive Danish flag flying on a pole surrounded by much smaller Finish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic flags.

The town of Kruså where the bus terminates (in what I’m assuming used to be where the Danish customs halls and crossing posts used to be) is quite small and there isn’t much to see, but you can take the small pleasure of walking backwards and forwards over an international border without anyone asking to see your passport.

After a short while in Kruså I caught the bus all the way back to Flensburg station and was in time to pick up the next train south to Schleswig. The town is situated at the head of the largest Förde in Germany (which technically makes it the largest Förde in the world, so long as you ignore all those Norwegian Fjords). Schleswig is another town that has a Scandinavian feel to it, particularly with the massive cathedral that dominates the town and presides over the head of the Fjord.

Having taken in Schleswig I headed back to the station to begin my journey back towards Lübeck. At Kiel I had 40 minutes to wait for the next train so I had a bit of a wander around the waterside area behind the station before heading back for the train to Lübeck, and dinner in the hotel.