Kiel and Lübeck

What follows is more of our time in Germany. Petra's daughter, Yusha, is studying to be a horse trainer. So we made a visit to see her horse and do a bit of riding. Myself, I had pity on the horse, so spared her my heavy load.

Yusha, Megan and Petra

Yucha showing us how it is done

Megan on the pony express

Marco is also a good horseman

Marco's son, Vincent, is an actor. His girlfriend is currently playing in a production of 'Alice in Wonderland'. We were fortunate to be given tickets to the opening night, so we travelled to Kiel on the Baltic coast to see the production.

A rather good caterpillar

Vincent's girlfriend played the spider, amongst other roles.

When we travel, we like to see places we might think of bringing Pavlov. I'm getting very interested in the possibilities of cruising the rivers of Germany, France and the Lowlands. We've seen a few of the marina's on the rivers, and the general high quality of the provisions for boats. We thought we'd also go and check out the Kiel canal, the main shortcut from the North Sea into the Baltic Sea.

An observation deck for the Kiel canal

Looking from the lock up the canal towards the North Sea

A view of the empty lock

The Kiel lock is rather large, with four separate chambers. A lot of commercial traffic comes through the lock, so its set up for speed. The rise is only 70 centimetres, so its not that great.

Container ship entering the lock

Big tanker entering the lock

This gives you an idea of the size of the locks.

We stayed that night in an old historic Gasthaus on the shores of a lake. It was pretty cold and windy, so we left exploring the lake till sunnier climes and times. Next day, we headed over to Lübeck, a Hanseatic League city on the shores of the Baltic Sea.

The three musketeers

Old gate to Lubeck, a Hanseatic League city

Name on the gate, a take off of Roman S.P.Q.R

A fishing  boat on the canals in Lübeck 

Another Dutch converted barge

Lübeck is famous for producing marzipan, as the home of Thomas Mann and the setting for his first major novel, 'Buddenbrooks', and for its beautiful baroque churches.

Marzipan shop

Family home of Thomas Mann, now a museum for him

Lübeck protestant church

Altar of the church

Secondary church organ and candelabra

Lübeck houses

Early Baroque entrance to the town hall

Town hall balcony window

A Russian tall ship in Lübeck canal

Since we are planning to cruise in the Baltic sea, we travelled up to a local beach on the Baltic coast. These views look out to Sweden, Denmark and Russia.

Baltic coast facing toward Denmark

Baltic coast facing towards Russia

Marco the Magnificent

A right pair of gum-nuts

We have a few more trips planned in Germany, including a visit to Weimar, to the opera in Berlin and a few more palaces. But we are starting to miss Pavlov, and we're thinking of our journey home, back to the warmer climes of Greece.

Pavlovians in Prague

On a whim, and just because we could, we decided to catch a train to Prague, and give our German hosts Marcus and Petra a rest from the Aussie galahs. It still amazes this small town boy that we can just hop on a train and be in another country in just a few hours.

I can't even caption these photo's as we don't know what the buildings are. We just wandered around, with no guide books or lonely planets. We really enjoyed just being gobsmacked by the beautiful buildings and the general baroque atmosphere.

Prague was like entering a baroque fairy-tale. Every twist of the cobbled lanes led us to new visual delights.

Old town, centre of Prague

We saw a poster for a concert that was playing the next night, so we grabbed some tickets to see Vivaldi played in the Smetana concert hall. The next day, we learned to navigate the tram system, and (eventually) found our way across the Moldau river to the grand church and the summer palace.

A bemused Megan on the tram

Ceremonial guard on the summer palace

A courtyard inside the palace

St Vitus church inside the palace 

Inside St Vitus church

Gorgeous stained glass windows

We walked from the palace back down to the town that is laid out below it. The walk presented panoramic views over Prague.

The back of St. Vitus church 

View over Prague

Buildings around the palace

An aerial view of Prague

More views from the Palace

Steps from the palace to the town.

Panorama of Prague

We found the cable car up the highest hill in Prague, and took it for a ride. We certainly got our value from the 24 hour ticket.

Sculpture depicting the communist take-over as a dismemberment

Funicular cable car

Observatory at the top of the hill.

In the evening, we walked back to the old town across the Charles Bridge, which was just littered with sculptures and decorative baroque stone work.

Start of the Charles bridge, a pedestrian walkway

Statues receding into the distance

A side canal with water wheel.

Sculpture silhouetted against the evening sky

Charles, for whom the bridge was named.

Three wise men and two selfies.

The Moldau and Prague at night

Bridges across the Moldau

Statues on the skyline.

We spent 4 days in Prague, happy just to soak in the vibe.

Astronomical clock

Puppet shop

A grand old hotel

Kinky architecture, the old clashes with the new

Another day, another church

Fairytale scenes in Prague

Beautiful painting on some of the old houses

More old and new, I enjoy the juxtaposition

Megan, dressed in her cold war garb

What's next? We're travelling from Berlin to Kiel to see 'Alice in Wonderland', and to Lubeck to see the Baltic Sea. We are just having too much fun!