Borkum

Researching this trip north, I spent a lot of time wondering what else we should visit. More Netherlands - Rotterdam or Amsterdam maybe? Or the TGV back to Brussels or Paris? The bus back to...somewhere in Germany? But my Navy-brat constitution suffers from the lack of ocean exposure in Switzerland, and in the end I couldn't resist the call to go further north and see the coast. 

So we took the train from Groningen to Eemshaven, which felt like the edge of the world: wind turbines, data centers, a shipping port, the shallow expanse of the Wadden Sea... 

...and artistically-placed sheep.

From Eemshaven we took the ferry to Borkum, the westernmost of Germany's East Frisian Islands. The ferry ticket includes a ride on the charming train that runs the 7 km from the harbor to the town center. 

chugging along

Borkum is everything you could want from a somewhat dilapidated seaside resort. Slash rehab clinic(s) location. Book your seaside cure today! We left our bags at the hotel, walked towards the beach, and ran straight into the music pavilion. Live band Tuesday - Sunday, 11 - 12:30 and 4:30 - 6, rain or shine. The band leader said they were giving their 1,172nd concert, and an enthusiastic couple waltzed along the boardwalk. 

The music pavilon on the boardwalk at Borkum. October 10, 5:41 pm. Chris could not understand why I was so obsessed by this but...what century are we in again? 

We got lucky with the fall weather: grey, but not too cold and mostly not rainy. We walked a lot, ate some delicious meals, visited the aquarium and the "northwesternmost point in Germany," and saw a shepherding demonstration - and when Chris got tired of me he visited the Watertoorn and I went for a walk on a dike.

There's a lot of this.

And this.

I was sure this was an abandoned Star Wars set, but it is a container for a water sports club's equipment.

All that beachcombing makes one hungry.

In its pre-sanatorium days Borkum was, to quote Wikipedia, a "centre for piracy and whaling." The Catholic church in Borkum is named for Mary, Star of the Sea, and the Reformed church (seen here) has a distinctly nautical theme, with a model ship at the front and ship's-wheel chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

The Borkum coat of arms bears the motto "mediis tranquillus in undis" - "calm in the midst of the waters." I might adopt that.

Borkum is insta-ready. Its visitor population, at least when we were there, is...probably not. 

Two days later we took the ferry back to the mainland, this time to Emden, where we caught a train back to Bremen.

There was a cat robot waiter on the ferry!

Ferry tip 1: going towards the mainland, the time on your ferry ticket is not the time the *boat* leaves the dock but rather the time the *train* departs from the town center - and this is not at all clear on the ticket, though signs to this effect are plastered all over the train station. I got the impression that the long-suffering souls in the tourist information kiosk spend the vast majority of their working hours clarifying this arrangement for confused tourists. Including me.

Ferry tip 2: On the Borkum-Emden ferry, which takes one hour longer than the Borkum-Eemshaven ferry, you have the option to order food along with your ticket.  I wasn't sure what that meant, but decided to try it. What it meant is that we had a reserved spot in the ship's cafe, but since there were only two of us, our theoretically-reserved booth was invaded by pushy German retirees - they wanted to sit at a table too and we didn't really need all that space for ourselves, did we? Also - and I say this as someone normally willing to eat at all hours - we truly wanted neither Currywurst nor Apfelkuchen at 10:30 am. On the other hand, we did get a nice window seat for the first hour of the ferry ride, and when we finally gave in and left the booth to the retirees, we found that their pushiness was somewhat understandable: the remaining free seats were up on the top deck, where it was decidedly chilly and wet.