Kiel, Germany

September 12, 2026

Today we are waking up in Kiel, Germany. It is a port city that has much world war 2 history as lots of manufacturing of boats, submarines and such were done here. Besides Copenhagen, it is the biggest of the cities that we’ve been since cruising.

As has been the case the past 6 days, we were up and out the door by around 8:30 AM to go to the buffet and eat vast amounts of food. I’m kinda tired of it. I wish I had more self control where food is concerned. But I’ve been trying to eat more fruit.

After eating, we headed off the ship to find bikes to ride. We’ve been using an app called Donkey Republic. It shows on a map where bikes can be picked up and parked. Fortunately there was a spot that was about a 10 minute walk from the cruise ship. Now, Kim was not to hip on biking, especially a standard bike. He would have greatly preferred an e-bike. We all probably would have enjoyed that. However, there were none near us. So we had to go with standard bikes. The rate for a bike is .50 Euro for 15 minutes. So to do 4 hours, it’s only 8 euro. Cheap. They then cap it at 12 Euro per 24 hours. So not bad. An e-bike is 2 Euro for 15 minutes and is capped at 35 Euro. Anyway, once we had the bikes, I put in the GPS a site where we could see seals. And off we went. It turned out that the ride was about 5 miles….I think Ilene said. And there was some slight hills we had to climb. But the ride was nice. We went through a pretty green park, through neighborhoods, through a downtown area into a harbor area where they were skull racing (rowing), crossed the water and then down the piers to where the seals were. It turned out it was an aquarium with some pools outside that allowed seals to swim around. Once done with the seals, it was time to head back. I thought for sure we’d re-trace our tracks back. But no, the GPS took us to a place where we could take a ferry across the water over towards where our ship was. While waiting we started up a conversation with a person who was born a girl and now wants to be known as a boy name Felipe. He/She was very kind and did his/her best to share information about the area. She also directed us to the right ferry that turned out to be a free one for students going back and forth. And funny thing, once we arrived at the ferry stop on the other side near our ship, it was the exact spot where we picked up the bikes. We did not have to ride a single bit to return them. We were shocked!

After returning the bikes we started walking back to the ship. We got a few hundred yards away when Denise asked me if I had the back pack that we had brought. I did not. I had left it on the basket on my bike. So off I went in what I’d call a sprint…others would say a slow run…and fortunately it was still there. But I have not run like that for years.

Once back on the ship, we ate some lunch. It is interesting that this ship boards people in Kiel and Copenhagen. Both are roundtrip excursions. I guess the crew never gets a break. After lunch, we retired to our rooms for a break. In the end, we just started packing and did a little reading. We also began a couple of movies I downloaded. The first said 13+ rating…but 5 minutes into it we could tell the content and language was not what we had hoped, so I deleted it. The second one we began, it seems much better. But we only are half through it.

At 3:30 PM, we went to do some crafting. The craft was to make a Dreamcatcher. I think mine will only catch nightmares. But I did. Pictures will definitely be worth a thousand words!

Some pictures: