We finally arrived at the Westerland airport about 6:00pm. It is a TINY airport and ours was the only commercial flight coming in. We waited as everyone's bags were coming and we waited, and FINALLY, ours were the last two bags to come out. We started over to get them when two policemen took them off the belt and started to examine them. We said they were ours and they questioned us about where were we coming from, what were we doing in Sylt, and asked to see our passports! Finally, they let us have the bags and go. Seems that very few (if any) people travel from Africa to Sylt and because we checked our bags through to Sylt and didn't clear them in Frankfurt they wanted to be sure we weren't smuggling anything!
We were met by Stephan, Ashley and their beautiful two-year old daughter, Amelia, and headed for his parent's home there where we spent four nights with them.
Sylt is the largest and northern most of the North Frisian Islands located in the North Sea, Germany - just west of Denmark. It is connected by rail with the mainland via a 7-mile long causeway. The island formed about 800 years ago and has sand dunes and about 25 miles of beautiful beaches. The scenery is amazing - meadows with grazing cows, and many of the homes (and older cottages) with thatched roofs.
There is an extensive network of bike paths spanning the entire island. Stephan's mom, Marlies, has an e-bike (his dad had to go to France on a business trip) so the rest of us rented bikes to explore the island. Tobey took a standard 7-speed bike, I got an e-bike. It made pedaling so easy - I may be a convert!
Our first stop was St. Severin Church which sits on a hill as we rode into Keitum. It dates back to 1240! The tower was built around 1450 and served as a navigation mark for seafarers, as well as a prison!
The door handles into the sanctuary show the relationship to the sea!
A little further down the path we came to the Keitum village proper and parked our bikes and walked out to the sea. The tide was out and it was interesting to see the barriers which have been built to help prevent further erosion of the island. There are huge windfarms in the North Sea, too. Off in the distance, you can see the causeway and train.
Back into the village we had ice cream which gave all of us the energy to continue on to Morsum-Kliff. Morsum-Kliff is about one mile long and 69 feet high. There have been attempts to mine the area, but in 1923, the area (about 100 acres) was turned into a nature preserve. It was beautiful!
On one of the other days, we biked to List, the northernmost town on Sylt. The reed-roofs on so many of the houses made us think of Hobbit Houses!
Street signs in List have these cute little figures - all different - on top of them!
We biked by one of the largest dunes on the island.
We had lunch at the Gosch Restaurant in List - one of several on the island. The gentleman with the red hat is the owner and he visits many of the patrons while he is there. The food was great, too!
List is a port city and the ferry from Denmark stops here. It was fun to walk around a little before our VERY WINDY (headwinds) ride back to Westerland.
A little further down the path we came to the Keitum village proper and parked our bikes and walked out to the sea. The tide was out and it was interesting to see the barriers which have been built to help prevent further erosion of the island. There are huge windfarms in the North Sea, too. Off in the distance, you can see the causeway and train.
Back into the village we had ice cream which gave all of us the energy to continue on to Morsum-Kliff. Morsum-Kliff is about one mile long and 69 feet high. There have been attempts to mine the area, but in 1923, the area (about 100 acres) was turned into a nature preserve. It was beautiful!
On one of the other days, we biked to List, the northernmost town on Sylt. The reed-roofs on so many of the houses made us think of Hobbit Houses!
Street signs in List have these cute little figures - all different - on top of them!
We biked by one of the largest dunes on the island.
We had lunch at the Gosch Restaurant in List - one of several on the island. The gentleman with the red hat is the owner and he visits many of the patrons while he is there. The food was great, too!
List is a port city and the ferry from Denmark stops here. It was fun to walk around a little before our VERY WINDY (headwinds) ride back to Westerland.
We had a view of the Sylt airport from one of the hills. The white peaks reminded us of the Denver airport - only much smaller!
We enjoyed a walk on the beach (even if it was chilly and sprinkled a bit)!
We enjoyed a walk on the beach (even if it was chilly and sprinkled a bit)!
Our time passed quickly and we had such a good time! It was fun catching up and getting to know Amelia. We had time to visit a park, play cards, and Bernhard returned on Thursday so we even had the chance to spend the day together before our evening flight to Munich where we visited another exchange student, Paul.
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