Not quite the sea

When we planned our trip, back in April, I was dismayed to see how little water we would likely see. I enjoy mountains and forests, but have a special fondness for water, especially the sea. Berlin has the River Spree, Cologne has the Rhine, and various other rivers pass along the cities we visited or travelled through. I heard about a small, Medieval town on the Baltic, and decided that - since Denmark had been eliminated from our itinerary due to time constraints - we would try to visit Lübeck, which is very close to Scandinavia. (Indeed, boats and trains leave there for Copenhagen and Stockholm.)

We found the time to go yesterday, but if I had been hoping for a good whiff of salty air, I was very disappointed. The island on which Lübeck sits is surrounded by the River Trave - another river! As it's still, technically, on the northern coast, I suppose it's the mouth of the river, an estuary. However, all I saw was freshwater - murky tea-colored water with no airborne salt whatsoever. Damn!
The town itself is charming in parts. There are many very old and very beautiful buildings, most notable the twin towers "guarding" the entrance to the city. But what we ended up walking through in order to see the 15th-century churches (and, later, the original home of marzipan) were streets full of very ordinary stores. It looked like Copenhagen along the river, Eddie said (he was there 10 years ago), but downtown it could have been any North American metropolis, complete with fast food joints and cheap outlets.
 
 
We changed trains in Hamburg going and returning, but did not see anything except the outside of the station. It's a pity our time was so limited, because we could have seen more examples of water - fresh and salt - in that northern port. However, the skyscrapers I glimpsed from the train did not make me regret my loss too much....
Today we go home. I'm hoping for clear skies - not only to help the pilots of the two planes we'll be on, but to allow us to see the Alps as we fly into and out of Munich! I do enjoy my biogeography ... so next time, if there is a next time in Europe, I will take better care to include a greater variety of regions and features. There's more to a country than its old buildings and pretty town squares.