If I Were A Traveler

Travel in Europe provides a lot of culture, places of interest, history, and worthy destinations.  In the four years we lived in Berlin, we took many trips by car and several trips by train.  Either way was exciting and adventurous.

Most of the trips we took were made without having a specific destination.  One trip, for instance, was with the general idea of traveling to an area called Plön.  Plön is located about 200 miles from Berlin, in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state in Germany and it took us just over four hours to drive there.  It is a beautiful little village, and I do mean little.  As we drove into the area, we noticed signs in the rural houses stating they had rooms to rent, Zimmer zu vermieten.  The nice thing about renting a room from a private home owner was, they would generally provide a very nice continental breakfast for their guests.  The other thing of note was, they were almost always reasonably priced, when compared to hotels or Gaststätten.

Typical of some of the piers we saw at the lake

We found a nice room in a typical, nice, family home, and made our way to the closest lake.  It was gorgeous. It was not the main Plönsee, nor even one of the larger lesser known lakes.  It was small enough Evelyn and I were able to walk around it in a reasonable amount of time.  We even stopped and decided to take a swim, diving off an almost deserted, wood pier.  We quickly dried in the sun and continued our walk around the lake, until we came back to our starting point.

Plön and its many lakes from the air

We only spent a couple nights in Plön, but while there we took some excursions to some of the other highlights that were relatively close by.  For instance, we took the 20 mile drive to Kiel, which is the capitol city of Schleswig-Holstein.  Kiel is situated on the coast of the Baltic Sea. The beaches on this body of water differ from those of the Atlantic or Pacific in that they are calm.  The waves are only inches high, rather than feet.

Traveling in a country that has so much history lends itself to seeing things that are truly impressive and inspiring.  There are also small islands dotting the coast of Germany and the Nordic countries in the Baltic Sea. 

This shows the beach as we saw it, quiet and unpopulated

The Plön Castle.

Although warm days will cause a swell of visitors to the clean, sandy beaches, weekdays that are less than ideal weather will provide the quiet retreat to the very accessible
shores of Northern Germany.  The fall of the wall that separated East Germany from West Germany has opened up so many more beaches and small islands for one's summer excursions.  I look forward to being able to check those destinations out, as well.