Denmark.. no wait Germany

We had originally planned to travel from Gothenburg, Sweden to Copenhagen, Denmark and then over to Hesinki, Finland. When we went to purchase our tickets to Copenhagen though we decided instead to go to Kiel, Germany. At the time of purchase neither of us knew what was in Kiel. In fact neither of us had even thought of going to German until about 5 minutes before we purchased our tickets.

We decided to go to Germany for a few reasons

1. Neither of us had been to Germany before
2. The temperature in Helsinki was going to drop for our visit
3. The ferry looked nice and was inexpensive

That's about all the criteria we needed.

After purchasing the tickets we kicked around Gothenburg for a bit before heading back up to Damien and Lisa's place. When we told them about our ticket purchase they said, and I quote..."OH, you're going on the Booze Cruise!".

The what.. huh?

So here's the deal. A lot of Swedes take the cruise to Germany to (a) Drink like crazy on board and (b) purchase alcohol on board and in Germany. Once the boat hits international waters, about 10 minutes into the 12 hour journey, alcohol prices drop significantly as the state taxes, V.A.T and other misc. markups don't have to be paid.

When we got on board, the next day, we found out that Damien and Lisa's were 100% correct. Almost the second the boat hit International waters and the on-board liquor store opened for business people were grabbing, purchasing and opening beer bottles and other liquor everywhere.

It was a mad house scene of liquor frenzy

Anyhow so that's how we ended up in Kiel, Germany instead of Copenhagen, Denmark via a booze cruise ferry that was purchased on a whim. We still had no idea what was in Kiel but while still in Gothenburg we ducked into a book store that happened to have an english version of Lonely Planet Germany. There was an entire 3 pages on Kiel, 4 if you count the map. The book essentially said. The great thing about Kiel is that it is close to Lubeck. 

During WWII Kiel, Germany was a major manufacturer and port for German U-boats and Britian took it out with a vengenance. Only 20% of the town remained after Britian bombed it and once the war had ended the people decided to not restore the former town but build anew. As a result the city is lacking anything. The town's layout is odd, the buildings are new (although built with traditional style), and emphasis is placed on commerce rather than on recreation or the beauty of a town. 

Unfortunately the Lonely planet book was right. Unless we wanted to shop or drink there really wasn't anything to do in Lubeck with the exception of seeing a few German U-boats but those were outside of the town center and would take about an hour by bus to see. After walking around the town for an hour, getting something to eat we decided to catch the first train to Lubeck.

We arrive in Kiel at 9am and left for Lubeck on the first train we could which was at 11:44am.