By 7 am, Germany time, we saw the sunrise over the clouds from our window seats. It was a beautiful sky-blue pink color. We were tired, but excited by the prospect of actually being in Germany. The scenery from the plane was beautiful. At first we saw open fields that gradually changed to city buildings. We finally landed about 10:30 am- Germany time – in Hamburg. The flight over took about 8 ½ hours.

Travel tip #1- Pack light, but if you don’t (like us), than use luggage on wheels with handles or luggage racks. I found out midway through the trip that I had packed too many sweaters. Pack some short sleeve shirts, and shorts, even though you’ve heard that it’s in the 40’s at night. If you get cold, add a sweater or light jacket. May’s weather is in the 70’s in the day and in the 50’s at night, at least that’s what we experienced.

After disembarking, we found our luggage. We headed through the doors marked "nothing to declare" and were on our way. Maybe we did this wrong, because we were expecting to go through customs for some kind of check. We rented a car (all pre-arranged from USA) and found the car outside, with the assistance of a helpful German traveler.

Travel tip # 2- If you rent a car, and plan to drive anywhere, ask for directions at the auto rental counter. Beware, if they tell you the map is in the car. Yes, there is a map in the car, but Germany’s roads and street signs are nothing like we have back home. Try to get detailed directions. Be sure to take the paperwork, from the rental company, which includes your contract and insurance information. This is to be placed in the glovebox of the car. Hopefully, you won’t need it but it’s nice to know you have all the proper papers. Driving in Germany is very confusing at first, so give this your full attention.

Upon driving out of the Hamburg Airport, which currently has some roads under construction, we found that we were totally confused. We were told at the auto rental counter to bear to the right upon leaving the airport and follow the "A1" signs to the Autobahn. We found no such signs. What we did find were lots of blue signs with white arrows pointing in different directions. We got confused and lost immediately. I suggested that we ask a native for directions, but John disagreed, as he drove on in pursuit of the "A1" signs. Down the road, we saw the familiar golden arches of McDonalds and stopped for lunch and directions. Luckily, the young man at the counter spoke a little English. With his help, we finally found the Autobahn. (We learned the A, we had been looking for was only an A shaped symbol for the highway.)

Beware…. Germany’s road signs consist of lots of symbols and arrows. This was very confusing and resulted in spending lots of time in a confused and lost state. The blue & white arrow signs designate that you can go on this road. A red & white circle-shaped sign with a minus in the middle or a circle with a slash across it indicated that you should not go there….. as in don’t drive the wrong way into a one-way street!

Finally, after much confusion and laughing between us, we found the Autobahn and followed the signs to Lübeck, as this was to the north of us. We knew that Burg on Fehmarn was in the same direction. Along the Autobahn highway, which is no worse than our I-95 highway in Florida. There are rest stops marked with a P (for parking) and WC (for restroom).

Judy at reststop looking at map of Fehmarn

Travel tip # 3- Along the autobahn, you will notice signs saying Ausfahrt. This means exit. Orange tape across a sign means that the sign is to be ignored. Construction in an area will warrant this strange practice. Signs with a yellow square in the middle appear to be a caution sign. A small round sign with an H on it is a bus stop sign. The road signs are strange to us, but we are slowing figuring them out. During the whole trip, we only saw four stop signs and strangely enough, they were an-American type sign in English! They must be for the dumb Americans who drive so poorly in Germany!

We arrived at the home of Anne Claussen-Mackaprang, where we rented a room for our visit to this charming town. We found no one at home, so we parked our car and walked about 3 blocks to the business- shopping area. We were spellbound by the beautiful scenery. This town is so beautiful with it’s old, charming buildings and beautiful flowers everywhere. We purposely traveled in the end of May, as this is the beginning of their tourist season and being springtime, everything is in bloom. Particularly beautiful is the yellow raps fields. The contrast of the green fields with the carpets of yellow raps is spectacular.

John immediately, found the St. Nickolai Church at Burg and was so excited by the cemetery. He immediately started photographing many of the headstones for his website. He told me, that the names were so familiar to him because of his research and from his e-mails between himself and other Fehmarn ancestors searching for their roots. His excitement drives him in his research and he was having such a good time. The cemetery is such a beautiful sight, as the gravesites are like small family gardens. Unfortunately, we found out that after 25 years, an unattended graveside is dug up and used as a burial site for another person or family. The family must pay additional funds to the church to retain the family site.

While in the cemetery, we met another family from America, who were looking for gravesites of their ancestors born on Fehmarn. After a pleasant chat, and an exchange of addresses, we continued to photograph the head stones.

By now it was about 5 p.m. and we needed to get back to the house to check into our room. At last, we met Mrs. Anne Claussen-Machaprang and she showed us to our room. It was like a small apartment, upstairs in the front of her home. It included a full size bed, a private bathroom and a sitting area for us to work at. There was also a fold out bed available if needed. We had the room at the front of the house, so our view looked out onto the front residential street. There were 2 other rooms for rent in this upstairs area. (Anne Claussen-Mackeprang’s address is: Klaus Groth Strasse # 15, Burg auf Fehmarn, Germany)

House of Anne K. Claussen-Mackeprang

After unpacking, we went back to the cemetery, to take more pictures. (We had to get more film out of our luggage.) Hunger pains soon struck, and by 6 p.m., we went in search of a restaurant for dinner. In the area around the St. Nickolai Church are many stores and restaurants for your pleasure. We chose an outdoor café called Doppeleiche and the food was excellent. John had a dish containing scrod fish, and I had the pork medallions. Of course the menu was in German and the choices weren’t so clear.

Dinner cost 59.90 DM. We were confused about the tipping and gave the waiter 10 DM and he was reluctant to accept it. We later found out that all restaurants include a service charge of 16% and you are only expected to round up your bill to the next Deutschemark.

Learning a few pertinent words on the menu will help you in ordering your meals. Suppen and Salat are obviously soup and salad. A gemischte Salat is a standard mixed salad. Most restaurants have only one kind of salad dressing, and you will not have choices. It’s usually oil and vinegar, or a type of creamy Italian. Schweine is pork, Puten is turkey, Rind is beef, and Fischgerichte is seafood. Schnitzel is a cutlet, breaded and fried of different kinds of meat. Springtime is Spargel season! This is a white, milder version of our green asparagus. If you’re a soda drinker, try the Fanta, which is a less sweet version of the American Fanta. We liked it better.

View an article called "Deciphering a German Menu" by Rita Mace Walton on the About.com site at: http://gogermany.about.com/library/weekly/aa050598.htm?pid=2753&cob=home This is a must read. I printed this out, and used it each time I tried to read a menu. It was very helpful.

 After dinner, we decided to take an evening drive towards Meeschendorf, as there was still daylight. We were so amazed at the brilliant, yellow color of the raps fields that I asked John to pull over so we could take a photo. These roads are narrow with one-foot of high grass growing on each side of the road. Upon pulling off the road, a little too far off, I might add…. We found our right front tire in a ditch. Unable to back out of this hole, we got out of the car and found the back left tire up in the air. The front end was tipped so far into the ditch, that the back end was airborne! We got out of the car and were both astonished and hysterical with laughter at the same time. We tried to lift the front end ourselves but soon realized that we needed help. In a few minutes, we flagged down a local woman and her child. She could not speak English and we could not speak German, but it was very obvious that we were in need of help. She drove us to her home, and called for help. She then drove us back to the car to wait for someone to come and help us. Within a few minutes, cars began to stop. Apparently, this odd sight of the car balanced on the edge of this ditch was too much to pass by. Eventually, John and 3 local German men lifted the front of the car up enough so the back tire could get some traction and I backed it onto the road. Everyone had a good laugh and we were on our way.

Our rental car in the ditch

Travel Tip #4- There are ditches along all the fields that are covered by the tall grass. Do not pull off the road to view or photograph the scenery unless your tires are on the road. Also, beware of the black and white posts, which are located along most of the roads. They must be there to keep you out of the ditches!.

Once again, on the road…. We found ourselves at the Bannesdorf Church and cemetery. It was almost 8 p.m., but still daylight, so we went into the cemetery and John started taking photos of the gravestones. This cemetery was just as big as the Burg cemetery and there were flowers everywhere. The island’s cemeteries are very interesting and exceptionally beautiful. John’s photos of these gravestones from the four church cemeteries on Fehmarn can be seen on his website. We had a great time touring the cemeteries and gathering the information for this project. The church’s bells started ringing and eventually, John ran out of film.

We drove back to our room in the Claussen-Mackaprang home, and had no trouble falling asleep.

Click here to continue on to Thursday

The FEHMARN GENEALOGY Site
Created using Microsoft Frontpage and maintained by:
John Kostick, 131 NE 172nd Street, Miami, FL 33162