Northern Germany - Across the Baltic Sea coast to Flensburg

From Detmold, it didn't take me too long to get to Hamburg, with a stop in Berlin in between to visit my sister for a few days. Also, I had never really seen so much of the sights of our capital and could now go a little exploring. And in addition, I enjoyed the baking skills of my sister and the time together very much.

It took me a total of nine days to get to Hamburg, which included my new record day of 69 km.

Near Hanover, I passed the Steinhuder Meer, a nice lake, and was looking forward to a relaxing cool down after several days of intense heat. Since there was a campground right by the lake, my destination for the day was already clear long in advance.

At the lake Steinhuder Meer

In between I met a hiker who was on his way from the Black Forest to the north of Germany and accompanied me for half a day to a camping site. Since it started to rain in the afternoon, we arrived there a bit soaked, but then we could fortunately enjoy a warm shower.

Finally, after a slightly modified route, since I wanted to go through the old Elbe tunnel, I arrived in Hamburg.

There I stayed with a former roommate of a friend, who gave me a totally warm welcome, so I felt right at home.

Before that, I also met up with a friend for dinner - you have to take advantage of the opportunity when you're already in the area.

Finally in Hamburg

Two days later, I was actually standing on the Baltic Sea beach and had to pinch myself a bit. This feeling now actually to see the sea again, after I had the last view of the Mediterranean sea in Genova, was indescribable. However, it was clearly too cold for me to swim, also because in the evening the sun was already gone and the cold wind quickly took away any warmth.

Scharbeutz at the Baltic Sea

From Hamburg I had the original route of the E1 again slightly modified, because this had for my taste a little too many loops in wrong directions. A few fixed points, such as Lübeck, Kiel and Eckernförde I did not leave out, however.

Especially Eckernförde gave me a real vacation feeling, while I was sitting on a bench in the sun during my lunch break in the small town and a street musician was playing melancholic sea shanties.

The same morning, the sun was also there so quickly that I did not miss it to take an extensive break and swim in the Baltic Sea - which turned out quite short, however, because the water was freezing cold. Refreshing it was nevertheless!

A few kilometers before Eckernförde

The next day I already reached Flensburg. There I did my last errands and bought some food for the first days in Denmark. Afterwards I found my night camp in a garden with a gentleman not far from the city center. There I also met a cyclist who had also been looking for a place to stay and we chatted for quite a while before we both fell tired into the tent and I was now looking forward to the border crossing and Denmark after hiking more than 4,000 km.