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The Trip—Part 4

Our recent Baltic cruise ended with two stops in one of my favorite countries, Germany. Both locations had genealogical significance for my husband/tech advisor. He was eager to see the ports of Rostock and Kiel and the surrounding countryside.

His mother’s German family originated in various areas of Germany including the coastal states of Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein. He continues to work to locate precise information about his ancestors who probably lived there several hundred years ago.

In Mecklenburg, we docked in the old Hanseatic port city of Rostock. There we toured Schwerin Castle. It sits alongside a beautiful lake, and we had the opportunity to view the building from the water. Inside, we saw only part of the interior because the remainder had suffered water damage from rain the day before. Not only does this building serve as a museum for historic Mecklenburg, but it also houses the local parliament. We found it to be a busy place.

After our tour, we took an open-air tram to a restaurant. Later, we enjoyed some free time for shopping and ice cream. As we walked around the old city center, we wondered whether any ancestors had ever visited Rostock.

Our ship docked the next day in Kiel, the capital of Schleswig-Holstein. The city had close ties with the Vikings and the Kingdom of Denmark from the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century. Although it was heavily bombed in World War II, it has now been completely rebuilt.

We visited the Kiel area on a sunny Sunday, traveling by bus and by ferry. This gave my husband/tech advisor a great opportunity to view the lands of his ancestors. Most places in Germany close on Sundays, and we found that the Kiel area follows this practice. We were glad we had done our German souvenir shopping the previous day.

This region provided us with some of the great German food that we love. We stopped for lunch at a modern-looking, family-owned place where we had beer, wine, and schnitzel. No one will forget this meal after a young waitress spilled an entire tray of beers on one unfortunate woman’s head. The good-natured victim was very gracious, saying that she had always wanted to try a beer shampoo. After we got her cleaned up and had eaten our meal, we all enjoyed some schnapps. To our delight, the proprietors gave us additional bottles of schnapps to take home.

Later in the afternoon, after our ferry ride, we had the opportunity to stop for coffee and German pastry in a small shop. Boarding the bus again, I began to eye the clock. Our all-aboard time for the ship was 3:30. To my relief, the bus rolled up to the terminal at 3:26.

I needn’t have worried. Eco-terrorists had our ship hemmed into the harbor. It took the German police 6 hours to clear them out. Our waiter at dinner said this had never happened before, but I wonder whether it will become a regular occurrence at the German ports. It would be a shame if the ships had to stop visiting there.

Stops in Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein provided us with the opportunity to see the lovely, lake-filled area of northern Germany. We wondered, as we always do, how our ancestors could bear to leave such a place. We know that economics or war always gave people the reason to leave, but still it must have been a hard thing for them to do.

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