Amrum I: small island on the North Sea

We traveled from Hamburg through Schleswig-Holstein to the North Sea coast, where we took a ferry to the island of Amrum, one of the North Frisian Islands along the western coast of northernmost Germany (near the border to Denmark). To get there we took a bus, two or three trains, and a two-hour ferry.

(For a funny flash-back, look at my post from 3 years ago when Michael and I went to Amrum for the first time.)

We got in Tuesday evening with just enough time to have dinner and go for a little walk. The sun didn't set until around 10:00 pm, so we could still see lots. Wednesday morning we rented bikes for 3 days, and after that our primary means of transport was biking around a very flat, little island (about 12 km from end to end, although much of that is beach). Wednesday we did a big tour, going through all the little villages. First we biked along the eastern coast, along the dike built to keep the North Sea in check.

We biked through the adorable little town of Nebel, with its thatched-roof houses, where we stopped at their historic church cemetery. The graves on the island tell life-narratives of the sailors, millers, farmers and their wives buried there. The stones are being restored so you can read the beautiful calligraphy. We stopped for a pastry and hot drink, and kept going after we were warmed up.

 The next stop was north of Norddorf, where we locked up the bikes in the little bike parking lot and walked down to the beach. If you can see on the map above, the beach on the north is the shortest. On the west, it is up to 2 km wide in some places.

 In the town of Norddorf we stopped for lunch for a Fischbrötchen, pickled herring sandwich, or Krabben, little shrimps caught in the North Sea. The sun peeked out for a little bit and so we had a drink and relaxed in a Strandkorb, a "beach basket" typical for the North and Baltic sea coasts, designed to protect bathers from the harsh winds.

Then the bike ride went through the forest, along the mountains of sand dunes, where we got out again to walk down a long boardwalk to the beach.  The view is totally indescribable...really high dunes as far as the eye can see and then the North Sea on the horizon.