Continued from previous post.

IN PROGRESS

Day five (29 August): Breakfast and katamaran ferry from central Hamburg to Helgoland in the morning

Lovely ferry ride appealing to my obsession with all things martime, and resulting in an overdose of photos below.

First impression of Helgoland: Duty free shops everywhere, and people from the ferry darted towards them as if their lives depended on it.

Secondly: don’t spend the night in Helgoland. Accommodation is GROSSLY overpriced and an even worse rip-off than Kassel during Documenta. Base yourself in Cuxhaven, take an early ferry to Helgoland, walk around the island, see “Lange Anna”, take the ferry to Düne and walk around there, then take the ferry back to Cuxhaven.

That is all the time you need. Beautiful as it is, there is no reason to linger in Helgoland. You will only find junk food (unless you have booked in advance in one of the two restaurants with real food), and bad coffee.

By the way, it is ironic that this island sells itself on its fresh air, and then it is full of chainsmokers.

Here some photos from the ferry ride and upon arrival.

Day six (30 August): Helgoland

First too many photos of the cliffs, and then too many photos of the gulls:

Day seven (31 August): A walk around Helgoland-Düne and later the Katamaran ferry to Cuxhaven

Day eight: in Cuxhaven

A funny thing about Cuxhaven: You are not allowed to eat between 9.30 and 12.30. At all. In the hope of getting back to my routine of only eating twice a day (of necessity, as outlined elsewhere on this site – not because it amuses me), I skipped breakfast, went out quite early, and started to look for a café around mid-morning. None were open. I then tried a couple of hotels in the hope that their breakfast buffets were still open, and everywhere the reaction was the same: “What – you want to eat NOW? But it is 11.00 o’clock!?! – you will not find anything to eat anywhere till 12.30 at the earliest”, looking at me as if I had just dropped down from another planet. Very strange. So the concept of intermittent fasting, a by now common weight (and health) management strategy especially for people over 50, has not reached Cuxhaven yet.

Another thing that has not reached Cuxhaven yet is that people need wifi. The one in my hotel was weak and unstable and close to useless. The hotel staff acted as if I just had to accept that as a fact of life (but life in which century?).

So my idea of spending a couple of weeks here some time in winter has been dropped. Instead, I will try to find out if Bremerhaven might have moved a bit closer to the the 21st century.

Anyway, I ran into some kind of kite-surfing festival and took a million photos.

Day nine, 2 September: Boat tour through the harbour to sandbanks with seals, then trai back to Berlin in the afternoon.