Days of Ferries to Get back to Germany (August 18, 19, 20, 2023)

August 18, 2023 to August 20, 2023

Fun Varied travel

Ah, yes, a typical Danish profile--60m up, 60m down. Phew 😅

Our mission was to slowly work our way back to Munich. This involved: a 50 km bike ride from Skagen to Frederikshavn; an afternoon 4- hour ferry from Fredrikshavn to Gothenburg; a night spent in Gothenburg; an overnight ferry from Gothenburg to Kiel, Germany and, an immediate 60 km ride to Bad Bramstedt, Germany. I had just 3 days to make this happen! I was nervous when I planned and booked all this to make sure the pieces of it all fit together and happily I can report it did indeed come all together as planned.

The ride to Frederikshavn from Skagen was a tale of two parts; the first 20 km through sand dunes and forest on bike trails was lovely, the second 20 km was along a cycle trail right beside the highway and afterwards Dave said it was the least appealing riding leg of our entire trip. We arrived in Fredrikshavn feeling like we needed to do our usual pre-boarding due diligence- which means figuring out the entrance to the ferry boarding. Given that we had already been in this port a month ago both to disembark and embark you would think we would have had it already figured out - but no. Our confusion was most likely due to leaving on a different ferry line than we did previously. We did our typical riding around with things not being clear. Finally, Dave went into the terminal and got clarity. We had time to go have lunch at the same French Bistro we ate at a month ago, and then boarded 45 minutes before departure. The ferries usually board cyclists first, and instead we were very last to board along with one other solo French rider. Later on we saw some other riders up at the front of the ferry and we think we were late and missed the initial bike boarding. I had booked reserved seats for the four-hour trip but using them necessitated kicking two older, larger and grumpy ladies, out of our seats. We think this happens a lot because when checking in, the ticket agent told us very clearly that we had paid for the seats and we might need to ask someone to move.

When we arrived in Gothenburg it was 6 pm on a Friday night so the City was hopping. I had a bit of accommodation failure here. I had booked the Clarion Hotel at the pier. I was thinking it would be handy to be near the pier since we would be disembarking and loading up from the pier the following day. It turns out that our ferry WAS very close to the hotel, only about 100 meters away. Unfortunately, it was on the other side of the river, so it was either a short swim or a long ride. To get to our hotel we had to ride 6 km, in busy Gothenburg Friday evening traffic and over a significant bridge to this rather arid newly developed area on the other side of the river. There was a good luggage storage room for our bikes - with no stairs - always a bonus.

The hotel was located in a new and bustling business park.

The lobby and the door to the luggage room where we stored our bikes overnight.

The hotel had a fancy Chinese restaurant on the 10th floor that was fully booked on a Friday night. Dave went up and talked to them and they would take us in the bar without a reservation. We each did 30 second showers and ran up there before it got crowded. We wound up having a really good casual Chinese meal and I had an aquavit margarita to go with it. The hotel is really nice and new, and the next morning we took advantage of the best work out gym we have seen on this trip. Although the location was a bust, the hotel only cost 130 USD which was a huge relief after all the really expensive Scandinavian hotels.

Although she had ostensibly sworn off aquavit after her Dramen hangover, Jill did enjoy a marg made with the spirit which the bartender (seen in the background ) had concocted for her on the spot.

Our overnight ferry from Gothenburg to Kiel didn’t leave until the evening so we had time to kill. We decided it was just easiest to ride into Gothenburg - the main downtown - with our luggage loaded on our bikes. We did a little additional shopping for Nick, our grandson, and we each bought a small item of clothing: Dave bought a windbreaker to replace the one he lost a few days ago - I don’t think we mentioned that at the time - and I bought a top. The missing windbreaker was disappointing as it was a big favorite of Dave's, but it was six years old, had a broken zipper, and was ready for a replacement. Plus, summer weather had finally arrived and we rode in shorts for the first time in two months. It was beginning to feel as though we'd never get summer weather on this trip. Even on the non-rainy days in Scandinavia we still bundled up against the chill.

We had a nice lunch sitting outside and then an ice cream and rode out to the Stena ferry terminal where we had one of those Dave and Jill logistical challenges. We had been in and out of the Gothenberg ferry terminal on three different occasions by now and thought we had it handled. But when we arrived there was nobody there and the terminal was deserted. We were puzzled and rode around a bit and then did a google map search. It turns out the ferry to Kiel, Germany leaves from an entirely different terminal, 2 km away. We had to ride hard to find the new location and there was already a huge line, and once again we missed the initial bike loading. This doesn’t matter a lot except that the bike storage area can get crowded and if you’re near the end of the line you may not get straps to tie your bike down or a place against the wall to anchor your bike. On the other hand, having to deal with this stuff is good for us, and the ferry attendants aren’t overly fussy about how you attach your bikes. Dave managed to rig up a MacGyver-like rigging to our bikes and we called it good.

The view of Gothenburg from the "wrong" side of the port.

I had booked our ferry trip to Kiel kind of late and was presented with limited cabin options. We wound up in a slightly bigger cabin at the front of the ferry, with a free minibar ( beer, champagne, water and chocolate). This room turned out to be fun because we could watch the outside world through our large porthole.

Our very comfortable cabin with a bow portal window.

We really enjoyed the whole ferry experience on this trip. The ferry logistics are fun and enjoyable and there is a whole world of ports out there and we greatly appreciated being exposed to it.

The following morning after a bit of a breakfast shenanigans (things were crowded) we disembarked at Kiel at 9:1 5 am. Kiel is an old historical town and I considered staying a night there but it’s hard to hang around without a hotel room all day, and it was Sunday so there wasn’t much open early to see. Kiel is a center for the German Navy - which we saw on our way in. It also is famous for the Sailors' Rebellion of 1918 which was a catalyst for the German Kaiser to abdicate when WW1 was not going well for Germany.

We had a 60 km ride to Bad Bramstedt on the schedule. We rode a long way through Kiel’s suburbs on our way out on our bikes. Our superficial impression is that Kiel is a working class town with pleasant, but not elegant, suburbs. It think it struck us that way in particular coming from Scandinavia, because those countries look so pristine. Kiel was a bit more rough edged. The ride to Bad Bramstedt was pretty and uneventful with the afternoon being especially pleasant because we peeled off the main cycleway along the main road and rode alongside a lake and through some agricultural regions on small country roads. We stopped midway for lunch in the small city of Neumunster. It was a rough and ready town but we found a nice cafe on the main square and split a cheeseburger. Wasps were all over the place. There was even a printed sign on our table warning of wasps and that we could always sit inside if they bothered us too much.

Bad Bramstedt turned out to be unexpectedly fun. I chose it as a night stop due solely to its location as a midpoint between Kiel and Hamburg. We arrived at 2:30 and could not check in until 3 pm. The hotel “MoinMoin” was clearly more in line with the “pension” version of accommodations. To kill time we noticed there was a nail salon next door that sold ice cream bars out of a freezer case. It sounds kind of weird but the clerk let us sit down in a pleasant lobby and enjoy some ice cream! Our room was fine, old but well-kept and although it was warm due to being on the top floor of the un-air conditioned building, it had a fan. All in all, for 97 euros we thought it was fine- and again, it didn’t really matter, because there were pretty limited choices in this town.

Dinner was a pleasant surprise. In our brief afternoon exploration we found a nice restaurant, Kaisersaal. It was “pfifferling” (chanterelle) season and they had a great selection of pfifferling choices, which excited Dave greatly. We opted for schnitzel with pfifferling and a “crab” starter (which turned out to be little shrimps). When I asked for a kir royale the server said she didn't know what that was or if they could make one but would go ask. It turned out that her brother was the bar tender. He successfully managed an excellent kir royale and in the course of a very nice conversation with Tom we learned that his family owns the restaurant, but he is shortly to move to Hamburg for business school. He was quite well-travelled as his family has some type of financial interests in the wine trade. He had been to the U.S. on numerous occasions so it was fun to swap travel experiences. He says they never get Americans in Bad Bramstedt so he was quite curious as to what we were up to! FYI, if you are ever in Bad Bramdstedt, Restaurant Kaisersaal was excellent.

We enjoyed a pleasant walk back to the hotel.

Today's ride: 110 km (68 miles)
Total: 1,663 km (1,033 miles)

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