Schleswig

I ran into the woman who works in the hostel while I was wandering around downtown Schleswig. “Why did you want to visit Schleswig? Are you trying to see every corner of Germany?” she asked me.

Despite being tiny, and not a huge tourist destination, I really liked spending time in Schleswig. It’s right on the Schlei fjord, which comes down from the Baltic Sea, so the town is really picturesque.


While there I visited Schloss Gottdorf, which is mainly a museum now, but is kind of pretty.
A cool thing at the Schloss was the big fountain of the Hercules fighting Hydra. I think I liked it because it’s large and imposing, but then is called “Hercules’ Pond.”

Something I didn’t know about myself is that tiny, twisty stone staircases make me nervous. To get this next picture, for instance, I had to climb up a tower in the Dom St. Petri. Fun! I thought, but then it was really scary. I wasn’t paying any attention to time, so I’m up there taking pictures, and suddenly the bells start to chime 11 o’clock. So loud! I jumped about twenty feet in the air. I was really happy to be down from there.
My favorite part of Schleswig, indeed, my main reason for visiting, was the Viking Museum in Haithabu. They had all kinds of Viking artifacts including a big collection of clothing, and fragments of a longboat. They also had a reconstructed Viking village that you could wander around. You can’t tell in the picture, but this ox is drooling.