Travemünde is a pretty quiet beach town, no palm trees, but wide beaches full of these wicker-basket looking beach chair things called "Strandkorb" which I believe is literally translated as "beach basket."
So we arrived (about 30 minutes by train) and our Gasthause was so easy to find from the train station, about a one minute walk (you cut through the back parking lot). The owners were so gracious to us. We arrived early in the morning and were ushered into a suite! I was expecting just a normal double room, but this had like an entryway, with the bathroom off that, and a huge room with a giant bed. Lots of walking around room... after a month in normal European rooms, we felt like we very small in a huge room. We were on the ground floor, with a patio looking out onto a grassy park area. The owner was very interested in us because as far as I could figure, we were the first American guests they have had. We had a great time talking with him and his wife, and they were interested in the photos we had on our iPad about our home.
The guest house owner just could not get over the fact we are from California, as we are, I believe, the first Americans who have ever stayed at his home. He and his wife know about three words in English, and we did not use English at all on this part of our trip.
We were given towels for the beach, and water to take, and we set out.
The Strandkorb are a very clever way to sit on the beach. You can rent them for the day, week or season, and they close up and lock shut, so you see them full of towels, kid toys, chairs and umbrellas waiting for the person to return. They are very colorful, and sit not in rows, but kind of randomly all over.
Anyway we spent the day beaching, then walking the entire town. I mean the whole town. Every street. Did I mention it is a very small place?
There is a long walkway along the Trave, where ships are docked, and there are a lot of jellyfish in the water. Restaurants and shops line the walk, and there is one, very tall, communist-era ugly high-rise hotel at the end of the beach. (You should not stay there.) We found the old brick lighthouse, church, and a grocery store about a KM out of town. The ferry over across the mouth of the Trave is here, and there are good beaches on that side of town. Tomorrow!
Travemünde seems to be a resort for Swedes, Finns, Germans and Danes; we were asked many times if we were Swedish, and people were very surprised we were from California. We found like two restaurants that had English menus.
So, mostly I speak just German. Most the storekeepers and waiters assume we are from Sweden, I guess because I obviously speak German with an accent and kind of haltingly. They are surprised we are American. We did overhear one other couple speaking The Queen's English, but that is it.
It is pretty interesting watching the ship traffic come in and out of the port. The town kind of wraps around the river ("Trave") and so the ships, container, cargo and cruise ships, look like giant, slow moving buildings with smoke stacks, rumbling right through the center of town. Sitting on the beach you watch them grow as they come way over the horizon, slowly rumble into view and then into the mouth of the river and through town.
It seems to be the thing here, to sit at a cafe on the Trave and watch the ships go by. The ships are all ScadiaLine, FinCargo or whatever, from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and other interesting places. I'd like to stow away on one and go visit.
Anyway, our second day we went to the beach again, and thought about how ironic it is that we had rain for all those days and suddenly have perfect, sunny hot weather for the beach. The beach that second day was an FFK, or "naturist" beach. That means "naked beach" in American. Well, we were in Germany... it was a sunny, hot day... everybody else is naked so we kind of stand out, wearing a swimsuit...
When in Germany, do as the Germans do.
It was really relaxing.
We walked back, then took the ferry back across and had fish and chips for dinner, with gelato after. The rest of the evening was spent people and ship watching.
This was just a wonderful place to stay in a very cool, sort of out of the way town.
We had nothing to really do but wander, sun and sit, enjoying Travemünde.