Sunday Aug 31, 2025
Hi Folks! We are docked in Kiel, Germany today. Kiel has a population of 250,000 and is Germany’s largest city on the Baltic Sea. It is about 56 miles northeast of Hamburg, Germany (where we were earlier this year!) and it’s the start of the Kiel canal which we’ll cruise thru tomorrow.
But today we decided to do a day trip to the nearby town of Lübeck. In the middle of the 12th century, it developed into the cradle of the Hanseatic League (a medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe).
Lübeck‘s historic old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Nicknamed the “City of the Seven Towers” named after the seven towers of the five Protestant main churches. They were all amazingly beautiful!
Our tour was called “Lubeck on your own” and Regent provided a bus to Lubeck and a guide on board to hand out maps and explain the history of both Lubeck and Kiel. Once we got to Lubeck we were on our own to explore the city and we love that.
Lubeck is a beautiful town and we had perfect weather to walk around (sunny and 72). I believe we saw all seven towers (but who’s counting!) as well as some quaint streets and alleyways. We saw a statue of a devil sitting next to St Mary’s church that had a funny story tied to it.
The legend goes that when they were building the church, the devil stopped by and thought they were building a wine cellar so he started helping them build it and it grew quickly. He then realized it would be a church and tried to destroy it but they told him they’d build a wine cellar in the basement of the town hall. So he agreed to leave the church alone. The devil statue is there now for good luck. Crazy story!
We then drove back to the pier and boarded the boat. It was an all day tour so we just chilled in the late afternoon and got ready for dinner. Tonight we are going to the specialty restaurant Prime 7. So we’ll be slapping the feed bags on since that is some good eats! Hope everyone’s having a great Sunday!
The Wandering Italian 